It's now officially published. El V finished reading it last week, all the while exclaiming, "National Book Award! Pulitizer!" Aftershocks has already been reviewed and highly praised in The Washington Post's book pages. It's that kind of book.
The book is reviewed this weekend in the NY Times Book Review by Adam Hochschild, an excellent choice. Full review here.
Hochschild begins by giving a run-down of Haiti's history through the Revolution, then informing the reader who may not know that Lauren's earlier book is the best book out there for learning Haiti's pre and revolutionary history:
[ " For a gripping narrative of that period, there are few better places to turn than “Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution,” by Laurent Dubois, a Duke University scholar of the French Caribbean. Now Dubois has brought Haiti’s story up to the present in an equally well-written new book, “Haiti: The Aftershocks of History,” which is enriched by his careful attention to what Haitian intellectuals have had to say about their country over the last two centuries. " ]
It's also appropriate it's NY Times review appears today - tomorrow, since it is New Year's Eve, and NY's Eve has in the later years been a traditionally Haitian Vodoun New Year's Eve -- and this year, plus New Orleans! The spot has been moved from the usual lower east side loft out to Brooklyn, where, among other things maybe a suckling pig is being roasted, They Say.
Yeah, it's warm enough this year. For better or worse, climate change is here to stay for the foreseeable future. Another mosquito revived today. We've been killing one or two all through the fall, even after the occasional freezes of this month. We open the window at bedtime, which must be how they get in the apartment.
I got the Reading essay finished for Da List. Now we're just sort of thinking about January and 2012. We know some things that will happen in 2012, but mostly, not, like everybody else. What we do know is that we are heartily wishing a better 2012 than 2011 for a whole lot of people, including ourselves -- and ourselves don't have anywhere near as much trouble going on as the others on our list.
Happy New Year to us all.
P.S. Several people have thoughtfully instructed me in the history of the icon I've chosen for the holidays. I knew it already, which, people who know me, if they thought about it for a minute, know. :(
This is part of why I chose it :)
k?thx
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Who Cares What She Does -- Just Make Her Nekkid!
[ “Ker-pow! Women kick back against comic-book sexismUK-made, female-driven anthology Bayou Arcana is causing a stir for more than just its haunting images and storylines.” ]
Bayou Arcana, means New Orleans and Louisiana, one of my homes. It’s almost impossible to imagine New Orleans without Coco Robicheaux, who died last month, who was the embodiment of Bayeau Arcana if there was a living one.
One of the most interesting things about Bayou Arcana is that the writers are male and the artists are all female. This means that women decide how female characters appear.
This is a group of creative people who are positively pushing back against the long running, ever growing trend that leaves women out of the various sets of the sf/f, supernatural, horror, movie, comix, print and game worlds. Here's a pull from the long story about the many different gender bias and sexism in these areas, particularly in comix, in the U.K. Guardian linked to above:
[ " As far as the wider comic book culture is concerned, many female comic book fans have stories of being ignored, harassed, or treated with hostility in comic book stores, and there's certainly persistent gendered bullying online." The planned petition comes in the wake of another earlier this year which expressed reader outrage at the lack of female writers and characters at DC Comics, which owns rights to characters such as Superman and Batman
The proportion of female creators in its comics plunged from 12% to 1% when it relaunched its entire line of superhero titles.
More than 4,500 fans called on DC to "do something about these appalling, offensive numbers or you will only continue to see your sales numbers plummet".
DC insisted it was taking their concerns "very seriously" and pointed to writers such as Nicola Scott, Felicia D Henderson and Gail Simone. It also highlighted female DC characters such as Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Catwoman and Batwoman, who was reinvented as a lesbian.
Comics bloggers such as Vanessa Gabriel say, however, that both DC and Marvel – which together dominate the market – have been slow to do more than pay lip service to female readers. " ]
Another fellow who is doing his bit is here, in this blog post, Fantasy Armor and Lady Bits:
[ " The brilliant tumbler feed Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor has inspired me to add my two cents to the discussion.
Why does my opinion matter? I’m an armorer. I make actual armor that people wear when they hit each other with swords. When making armor I have to strike a balance between comfort, protection, range of motion, and appearance. My experience has made me more than a little opinionated on the subject of fantasy armor.
I intend to set the internet straight. See below for how to do it wrong, how to do it right, and why you might care. " ]
Women alone can't change the way women are expected to appear in these fields, which in turn then, makes it so easy for the men in the field to dismiss them, harrass them and otherwise remove the agency of half the world, giving them only one role and one role -- sex object. Men must be a part of the push to change, and by golly, some are.
Bayou Arcana, means New Orleans and Louisiana, one of my homes. It’s almost impossible to imagine New Orleans without Coco Robicheaux, who died last month, who was the embodiment of Bayeau Arcana if there was a living one.
One of the most interesting things about Bayou Arcana is that the writers are male and the artists are all female. This means that women decide how female characters appear.
This is a group of creative people who are positively pushing back against the long running, ever growing trend that leaves women out of the various sets of the sf/f, supernatural, horror, movie, comix, print and game worlds. Here's a pull from the long story about the many different gender bias and sexism in these areas, particularly in comix, in the U.K. Guardian linked to above:
[ " As far as the wider comic book culture is concerned, many female comic book fans have stories of being ignored, harassed, or treated with hostility in comic book stores, and there's certainly persistent gendered bullying online." The planned petition comes in the wake of another earlier this year which expressed reader outrage at the lack of female writers and characters at DC Comics, which owns rights to characters such as Superman and Batman
The proportion of female creators in its comics plunged from 12% to 1% when it relaunched its entire line of superhero titles.
More than 4,500 fans called on DC to "do something about these appalling, offensive numbers or you will only continue to see your sales numbers plummet".
DC insisted it was taking their concerns "very seriously" and pointed to writers such as Nicola Scott, Felicia D Henderson and Gail Simone. It also highlighted female DC characters such as Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Catwoman and Batwoman, who was reinvented as a lesbian.
Comics bloggers such as Vanessa Gabriel say, however, that both DC and Marvel – which together dominate the market – have been slow to do more than pay lip service to female readers. " ]
Another fellow who is doing his bit is here, in this blog post, Fantasy Armor and Lady Bits:
[ " The brilliant tumbler feed Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor has inspired me to add my two cents to the discussion.
Why does my opinion matter? I’m an armorer. I make actual armor that people wear when they hit each other with swords. When making armor I have to strike a balance between comfort, protection, range of motion, and appearance. My experience has made me more than a little opinionated on the subject of fantasy armor.
I intend to set the internet straight. See below for how to do it wrong, how to do it right, and why you might care. " ]
Women alone can't change the way women are expected to appear in these fields, which in turn then, makes it so easy for the men in the field to dismiss them, harrass them and otherwise remove the agency of half the world, giving them only one role and one role -- sex object. Men must be a part of the push to change, and by golly, some are.
Monday, December 26, 2011
A Solstice Holiday Theme Has Emerged
It is Europe, in the 12th and 13th century. We are now listening to the music of female trouvéres of the thirteenth.
We keep bringing up Alfonso X, also known as Alfonso el Sabio. He's currently my favorite European monarch. One of the things I like about him is that he created a Spanish version of the communes that began in Italian city-states of the era, the mesta, an association of 3,000 large and small sheep holders in northern Spain, notably Castile, for reasons that I don't yet know, the usual imports of wool from England had sharply dropped. Wool rapidly became a primary Spanish export. Sheep raised now on commercial scale, as later would be tobacco and sugar in the New World, the sheep soon destroyed the arable lands of Castile. Additionally the sheepholders were granted so many rights, privileges and tax exemptions, they did a great deal to destroy Spain's economy not much later, not to mention create political conflict. But nevermind.
Alfonso was a great supporter of learning, literature and the arts, and was notable for a reign of both intellectual and religious tolerance, in an era that generally elsewhere was not -- with the exception of Occitan, which not coincidentally was a close neighbor. Thus the female trouvéres ....
What other monarchs would one admire ....
Sort of an odd soundtrack to el V's current reading: he's backtracking through a stack of books on the War of 1812, I've read read and taken notes from for The American Slave Coast. Right now he's marveling at how differently the Canadian author of the one he's currently reading writes of the War for Independence. He's recovering but he's still not there. I won't let him go out because it's cold, the wind is fierce and cuts like a blade of ice.
However, he is well enough to make dinner tonight -- yay! I am burned out for cooking or even planning dinner; wouldn't bother with it at all, would contentedly graze upon all the leftovers stuffed in the refrigerator. He, however, is never, ever, burned out on foods, eating or dinner.
We keep bringing up Alfonso X, also known as Alfonso el Sabio. He's currently my favorite European monarch. One of the things I like about him is that he created a Spanish version of the communes that began in Italian city-states of the era, the mesta, an association of 3,000 large and small sheep holders in northern Spain, notably Castile, for reasons that I don't yet know, the usual imports of wool from England had sharply dropped. Wool rapidly became a primary Spanish export. Sheep raised now on commercial scale, as later would be tobacco and sugar in the New World, the sheep soon destroyed the arable lands of Castile. Additionally the sheepholders were granted so many rights, privileges and tax exemptions, they did a great deal to destroy Spain's economy not much later, not to mention create political conflict. But nevermind.
Alfonso was a great supporter of learning, literature and the arts, and was notable for a reign of both intellectual and religious tolerance, in an era that generally elsewhere was not -- with the exception of Occitan, which not coincidentally was a close neighbor. Thus the female trouvéres ....
What other monarchs would one admire ....
Sort of an odd soundtrack to el V's current reading: he's backtracking through a stack of books on the War of 1812, I've read read and taken notes from for The American Slave Coast. Right now he's marveling at how differently the Canadian author of the one he's currently reading writes of the War for Independence. He's recovering but he's still not there. I won't let him go out because it's cold, the wind is fierce and cuts like a blade of ice.
However, he is well enough to make dinner tonight -- yay! I am burned out for cooking or even planning dinner; wouldn't bother with it at all, would contentedly graze upon all the leftovers stuffed in the refrigerator. He, however, is never, ever, burned out on foods, eating or dinner.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Merry Christmas! With Sharon Kay Penman, The Tempest and Jelly Roll Morton
Which, I challenge, how can you not be merry, when listening to Jelly Roll Morton and "The Shreveport Stomp."
El V remains a fragile flower but he is no worse than yesterday, and some of the worst symptoms of his bug have ceased and desisted.
We watched part of the Julie Taymore The Tempest, before I gave up, as too tired to watch a screen, and retired to bed with Sharon Kay Penman's first installment of her Plantagenet series, When Christ and His Saints Slept.
At the end of the summer I read Lionheart (2011), the latest in Sharon Kay Penman's series set in the era of Henry the II, Eleanor of Aquitaine, their progenitors and their progency, It was so interesting I looked up the novels that came before, Devil's Brood (2008), Time and Chance (2002) and now, the first one, When Christ and His Saints Slept (1995). It's odd to read a series backwards, but that's how it works these days, when an author's earlier books take more effort to get hold of than we might like.
Lionheart follows the crowned Richard into the east on Crusade. Almost all the women who are part of the previous novels' action are still alive. Those who were born during the course of the series are now adults and often monarchs themselves. Devil's Brood brilliantly describes the political and family causes prompting King Henry II's sons and his Queen to rebellion, and his sons to further betray each other. But, in my opinion, Time and Chance is the best written of the four. That may be because Time and Chance covers what we already think we know about Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, including the Thomas á Becket affair, so the events and characters are familiar to both author and reader. But Penman's Time and Chance is not the plays, Becket and Lion in Winter, or the subsequent films, the historicity of both which is more than questionable. In the course of researching these books Penman speaks on her website and in interviews how much she learned is wrong about what we think we know about these characters whose names are familiar even these many hundreds of years later. An example of this would be that Richard I was gay. One of the reasons we have so much misinformation is the politics of their own time, and the politics of later reigns. Then, as much as now, interested parties who could write, who were hostile to the Plantagenets, such as the French, used sexual slander and all the rest of the weapons in the political weapons arsenal to descredit their rivals and enemies.
It's difficult at the start, submerging oneself as a reader into When Christ And His Saints Slept, the earliest book in the series. It’s hard to know who is who, or even who is a fictional character. It turns out none of them are fictional, with the significant exception of a character who continues throughout the series, a series which at the time of this novel's writing the author didn't know she was going to write. Another obstacle, which is in no way the author's fault since these are the movers and shakers of the events, so many of them share the same names, whether monarchs, royal bastards, high ecclesiatic officials, and are not always of different generations either. Then, Penman made compositional glitch by writing a prologue set some decades before the novel proper opens, then opening the first chapter in yet another decade with yet other people we not only don’t know, but whose relationships to those in the prologue we don’t know either. These are the families and vassals who make the twenty years long civil war, the bloody conflict between Henry I's nephew, Stephen, and the King's legitimate daughter, Maud, the former Empress of the Holy Roman Empire and now Countess of Anjou.
However, that we don't know much about these people, the times, or this 12th century English civil war, will be remedied by the time this novel is finished. Additionally it brilliantly sets up what will happen throughout the following volumes, though half of those volumes weren’t planned to be written when this one was (at least one more in the series is in the process of being written). Once we've dug our way through this prologue and the next 40 pages or so, the reader is stabilized as to who the people are and where in geography and when in time they are. Unlike the unfortunates in the early pages who chose a berth on the White Ship, we're sailing on smooth waters, treated to Christmas Courts, freezing rain, icy snow, fireplaces and wine, perfect Winter Solstice reading, as are the subsequent volumes.
It's a superb story, filled with colorful, fascinating personalities who scheme against each other, love each other, hate each other, sometimes simultaneously. Henry II is born within the first pages of the novel. The war that is his parents' marriage, his divided loyalty and love, twists this future king's character, the damage of which will roll down the decades. We witness Eleanor and Henry's meeting: like Johnny Cash and June Carter, they "fell into a burning ring of fire." There are the splendid early days of Henry II's early friendship with Becket. Yes, no matter how long ago certain things, like falling in love or in friendship, and the bitter pain of betrayal by lover or friend, are the same then as they are now.
Penman's research is responsible and thorough. She's got the tenacity to keep working on her narrative until these long ago, now obscure historical events and people are comprehensible to us in the 21st century. Penman is particularly good at portraying the strength and agency of all her female characters, of whatever station and condition, without making them behave or think like late 20th century, 21st century American women. All of them are individuals, however, distinguished from each other, whether sharing high rank or low. Starting with When Christ and Etc. each volume in this series presents the waste of women's political talents denied to their gender. It becomes a theme winding its way through all the series.
In When Christ Etc. this theme is deep and broad: Henry I granted the throne of England to his daughter, Maud, formerly the Empress of the Holy Roman Empire. Henry I’s nephew, Stephen, steals the crown on the pretext that bloodshed would be inevitable if Maud's crowned. Stephen invokes the period’s unquestioned belief in women’s incapacity to rule in their own right, which is founded upon both religion and, "No man will follow a woman to war." But Stephen lacks the hardness of character necessary for a monarch to hold power year after year. Maud has a tribe of loyal, illegitimate brothers, for Henry I was profligate with his affections, siring many bastards, whom he married into wealthy, powerful families, tying these powerful vassals all the more tightly to his line. Thus it is is Stephen who made bloody civil war inevitable because he siezed Maud's legitimately granted crown..
The irony contained in this theme is further deepened. Stephen, unable to quench the fires of rebellion in favor of Maud, resorts to his own wife to do it for him. He sends sweet, docile, loving Queen Matilda into the field to lead her own family and vassals, who seize the port of Dover for Stephen. Successful in no small part because of the devotion all ranks of Matilda's men give her, the Queen continues to other political successes.
As for the series as a whole, a reader who is interested in literary and cultural medieval history of Europe can’t help recalling that Chrétien de Troyes was from France’s north, and he served at the court of Eleanor’s daughter in Aquitaine. The tales of those extraordinary Plantegenets, Anjous and Aquitaines of the 12th century provided him no little inspiration, we must think, just as his Romances provided some inspiration when coupled with the real life events of these people, for Penman. And in the period when darkness falls so early, can there be better entertainment than a series of Romances, then or now?
Now el V is back in bed with my old Riverside Shakespeare looking at The Tempest. "Strange play," he remarks.
El V remains a fragile flower but he is no worse than yesterday, and some of the worst symptoms of his bug have ceased and desisted.
We watched part of the Julie Taymore The Tempest, before I gave up, as too tired to watch a screen, and retired to bed with Sharon Kay Penman's first installment of her Plantagenet series, When Christ and His Saints Slept.
At the end of the summer I read Lionheart (2011), the latest in Sharon Kay Penman's series set in the era of Henry the II, Eleanor of Aquitaine, their progenitors and their progency, It was so interesting I looked up the novels that came before, Devil's Brood (2008), Time and Chance (2002) and now, the first one, When Christ and His Saints Slept (1995). It's odd to read a series backwards, but that's how it works these days, when an author's earlier books take more effort to get hold of than we might like.
Lionheart follows the crowned Richard into the east on Crusade. Almost all the women who are part of the previous novels' action are still alive. Those who were born during the course of the series are now adults and often monarchs themselves. Devil's Brood brilliantly describes the political and family causes prompting King Henry II's sons and his Queen to rebellion, and his sons to further betray each other. But, in my opinion, Time and Chance is the best written of the four. That may be because Time and Chance covers what we already think we know about Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, including the Thomas á Becket affair, so the events and characters are familiar to both author and reader. But Penman's Time and Chance is not the plays, Becket and Lion in Winter, or the subsequent films, the historicity of both which is more than questionable. In the course of researching these books Penman speaks on her website and in interviews how much she learned is wrong about what we think we know about these characters whose names are familiar even these many hundreds of years later. An example of this would be that Richard I was gay. One of the reasons we have so much misinformation is the politics of their own time, and the politics of later reigns. Then, as much as now, interested parties who could write, who were hostile to the Plantagenets, such as the French, used sexual slander and all the rest of the weapons in the political weapons arsenal to descredit their rivals and enemies.
It's difficult at the start, submerging oneself as a reader into When Christ And His Saints Slept, the earliest book in the series. It’s hard to know who is who, or even who is a fictional character. It turns out none of them are fictional, with the significant exception of a character who continues throughout the series, a series which at the time of this novel's writing the author didn't know she was going to write. Another obstacle, which is in no way the author's fault since these are the movers and shakers of the events, so many of them share the same names, whether monarchs, royal bastards, high ecclesiatic officials, and are not always of different generations either. Then, Penman made compositional glitch by writing a prologue set some decades before the novel proper opens, then opening the first chapter in yet another decade with yet other people we not only don’t know, but whose relationships to those in the prologue we don’t know either. These are the families and vassals who make the twenty years long civil war, the bloody conflict between Henry I's nephew, Stephen, and the King's legitimate daughter, Maud, the former Empress of the Holy Roman Empire and now Countess of Anjou.
However, that we don't know much about these people, the times, or this 12th century English civil war, will be remedied by the time this novel is finished. Additionally it brilliantly sets up what will happen throughout the following volumes, though half of those volumes weren’t planned to be written when this one was (at least one more in the series is in the process of being written). Once we've dug our way through this prologue and the next 40 pages or so, the reader is stabilized as to who the people are and where in geography and when in time they are. Unlike the unfortunates in the early pages who chose a berth on the White Ship, we're sailing on smooth waters, treated to Christmas Courts, freezing rain, icy snow, fireplaces and wine, perfect Winter Solstice reading, as are the subsequent volumes.
It's a superb story, filled with colorful, fascinating personalities who scheme against each other, love each other, hate each other, sometimes simultaneously. Henry II is born within the first pages of the novel. The war that is his parents' marriage, his divided loyalty and love, twists this future king's character, the damage of which will roll down the decades. We witness Eleanor and Henry's meeting: like Johnny Cash and June Carter, they "fell into a burning ring of fire." There are the splendid early days of Henry II's early friendship with Becket. Yes, no matter how long ago certain things, like falling in love or in friendship, and the bitter pain of betrayal by lover or friend, are the same then as they are now.
Penman's research is responsible and thorough. She's got the tenacity to keep working on her narrative until these long ago, now obscure historical events and people are comprehensible to us in the 21st century. Penman is particularly good at portraying the strength and agency of all her female characters, of whatever station and condition, without making them behave or think like late 20th century, 21st century American women. All of them are individuals, however, distinguished from each other, whether sharing high rank or low. Starting with When Christ and Etc. each volume in this series presents the waste of women's political talents denied to their gender. It becomes a theme winding its way through all the series.
In When Christ Etc. this theme is deep and broad: Henry I granted the throne of England to his daughter, Maud, formerly the Empress of the Holy Roman Empire. Henry I’s nephew, Stephen, steals the crown on the pretext that bloodshed would be inevitable if Maud's crowned. Stephen invokes the period’s unquestioned belief in women’s incapacity to rule in their own right, which is founded upon both religion and, "No man will follow a woman to war." But Stephen lacks the hardness of character necessary for a monarch to hold power year after year. Maud has a tribe of loyal, illegitimate brothers, for Henry I was profligate with his affections, siring many bastards, whom he married into wealthy, powerful families, tying these powerful vassals all the more tightly to his line. Thus it is is Stephen who made bloody civil war inevitable because he siezed Maud's legitimately granted crown..
The irony contained in this theme is further deepened. Stephen, unable to quench the fires of rebellion in favor of Maud, resorts to his own wife to do it for him. He sends sweet, docile, loving Queen Matilda into the field to lead her own family and vassals, who seize the port of Dover for Stephen. Successful in no small part because of the devotion all ranks of Matilda's men give her, the Queen continues to other political successes.
As for the series as a whole, a reader who is interested in literary and cultural medieval history of Europe can’t help recalling that Chrétien de Troyes was from France’s north, and he served at the court of Eleanor’s daughter in Aquitaine. The tales of those extraordinary Plantegenets, Anjous and Aquitaines of the 12th century provided him no little inspiration, we must think, just as his Romances provided some inspiration when coupled with the real life events of these people, for Penman. And in the period when darkness falls so early, can there be better entertainment than a series of Romances, then or now?
Now el V is back in bed with my old Riverside Shakespeare looking at The Tempest. "Strange play," he remarks.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Da List Brings ... Sir Gawain And The Green Knight
Our burnt-down-to-the-ashes, invald El V, breaks down Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for us:
The poem begins with a memory of the siege of Troy that takes the listener forward in time to the figure of King Arthur. Here's the opening in middle English (with the "thorn" and "yogh" characters modernized), followed by one of many possible modern versions that strives mightily to maintain the rhyme schemes, and which I pinched from this website. And then there's the marvelous rhyme of "wonder / blunder."
Sithen the sege and the assaut was sesed at Troye,
The borgh brittened and brent to brondes and askes,
The tulk that the trammes of tresoun ther wroght
Was tried for his tricherie, the trewest on erthe.
Hit was Ennias the athel and his highe kynde,
That sithen depreced provinces, and patrounes bicome
Welneghe of all the wele in the west iles.
Fro riche Romulus to Rome ricchis hym swythe,
With gret bobbaunce that burghe he biges upon fyrst
And nevenes hit his aune nome, as hit now hat;
Ticius to Tuskan and teldes bigynnes,
Langaberde in Lumbardie lyftes up homes,
And fer over the French flod, Felix Brutus
On mony bonkkes ful brode Bretayn he settes
Wyth wynne,
Where werre and wrake and wonder
Bi sythes has wont therinne,
And oft bothe blysse and blunder
Full skete has skyfted synne. . . .
Translation by Marie Boroff:
Since the siege and the assault was ceased at Troy,
The walls breached and burnt down to brands and ashes,
The knight that had knotted the nets of deceit
Was impeached for his perfidy, proven most true,
It was high-born Aeneas and his haughty race
That since prevailed over the provinces, and proudly reigned
Over well-nigh all the wealth of the West Isles.
Great Romulus to Rome repairs in haste;
With boast and with bravery builds he that city
And names it with his own name, that it now bears.
Ticius to Tuscany, and towers raises,
Langobard in Lombardy lays out homes,
And far over the French Sea, Felix Brutus
On many broad hills and high Britain he sets,
Most fair.
Where war and wrack and wonder
By shifts have sojourned there,
And bliss by turns with blunder
In that land's lot had share . . .
[ " Our official Xmas reading -- utterly seasonal, as it takes place the week between Xmas and the New Year in two consecutive years -- is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one of my favorite poems in the English language. But then, it would be, because I love to alliterate, and this might the best alliterative poem we have, with its marvelous scheme of head-rhyme (alliteration) that gives way to a tail-rhyming quatrain at the end of each stanza. Bubbling with the energy of the mystery plays, bristling between ancient customs and Xtianity, it's a poem to be read out loud -- something best done in 14th-century English, whether one understands every word or not. Despite the transformation of the language since then, it's more comprehensible heard aloud than read off the page. There is no better phrase in English to recount the action of falling snow than "the snawe snitered ful snart." One holiday weekend back in the early 80s, I think it was, I read the entire thing live in middle English, as best I could pronounce it, at the Ear Inn -- it took about two and a half hours, as I recall -- while composer Warren Burt played burbling little space-age synthesizer sounds through polyplanar styrofoam speakers.
Sithen the sege and the assaut was sesed at Troye,
The borgh brittened and brent to brondes and askes,
The tulk that the trammes of tresoun ther wroght
Was tried for his tricherie, the trewest on erthe.
Hit was Ennias the athel and his highe kynde,
That sithen depreced provinces, and patrounes bicome
Welneghe of all the wele in the west iles.
Fro riche Romulus to Rome ricchis hym swythe,
With gret bobbaunce that burghe he biges upon fyrst
And nevenes hit his aune nome, as hit now hat;
Ticius to Tuskan and teldes bigynnes,
Langaberde in Lumbardie lyftes up homes,
And fer over the French flod, Felix Brutus
On mony bonkkes ful brode Bretayn he settes
Wyth wynne,
Where werre and wrake and wonder
Bi sythes has wont therinne,
And oft bothe blysse and blunder
Full skete has skyfted synne. . . .
Translation by Marie Boroff:
Since the siege and the assault was ceased at Troy,
The walls breached and burnt down to brands and ashes,
The knight that had knotted the nets of deceit
Was impeached for his perfidy, proven most true,
It was high-born Aeneas and his haughty race
That since prevailed over the provinces, and proudly reigned
Over well-nigh all the wealth of the West Isles.
Great Romulus to Rome repairs in haste;
With boast and with bravery builds he that city
And names it with his own name, that it now bears.
Ticius to Tuscany, and towers raises,
Langobard in Lombardy lays out homes,
And far over the French Sea, Felix Brutus
On many broad hills and high Britain he sets,
Most fair.
Where war and wrack and wonder
By shifts have sojourned there,
And bliss by turns with blunder
In that land's lot had share . . .
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Happy First Day of Winter
It's the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Here we are, in the north of the mid-Atlantic, and it's 60 feakin' degrees. On the first day of winter. What is wrong with this? Mi hermana in Colorado, on the other hand, has already shoveled over 30 inches of snow this seasons and is not happy about it.
Still, it's spooky out there, this first day of winter, dark and overcast, and 60 degrees.
Still, it's spooky out there, this first day of winter, dark and overcast, and 60 degrees.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Terry Gilliam Christmas Card From 1968
I adore this!
Probably all the more since I haven't been able to get my own cards out yet this year.
Dang three syllabi by Friday afrernoon, plus that grant Monday.
We're tired. It's been one hell of a year. People we adore want us to come up to their place on Christmas Eve. It would be so much fun, and there's nobody else I'd like to be with better. We'll do better staying home together, eating my kickass moussaka, watching Julie Taymor's The Tempest and reading Sir Gawain aloud to each other.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Who Shops More Efficiently Than Me?
I did the shopping for three celebratory meals entirely between 11 AM and 3 PM -- with a cold too!
I still have all the vegetables and some herbs and spices to get. I am not making turkey gravy for I've not got the time. I can tranport the cooked turkey with no trouble, i.e. el V carries it in its roaster, but not gravy. So I have turkey gravy on order from Gourmet Garage, which I can get when I pick up the last things.
Oddly there's not a bag of Yukon Gold potatoes to be found anywhere. You can buy Yukon Golds in emporiums like Gourmet Garage, but by the lb., not in a bag.
Well, I am waiting for the wine to be delivered too, since I couldn't bring it all home myself. But it's been chosen and paid for, and will arrive tomorrow.
This is excellent because I can tell I will feel worse tomorrow. Fortunately the weather was good today!
Ooooo, this Christmas Eve moussaka is going to be good. All those Greek ingredients from the feta to the side olives -- are far less expensive than they were not long ago. Is this because of their national economic catastrophe?
But before I wear out my arm patting myself on the back -- I haven't done gifts or Christmas cards yet. But no more today, as I feel quite ill and my back is screaming from all this carrying. Nevertheless I feel emotionally happy because now I can feel personally Christmassy -- we r doin' it rite & in time. :) Tomorrow I'll do cards. Then I'll really feel Christmassy. The main thing is to not wear out the holiday spirit before the holidays are here. Las Vidas Perfectas really helped with that this year, taking up all the oxygen until today. Yesterday was recuping from that, especially for el V -- got an extension for submitting a very important document until 11:59 tonight, so that's what he's working on all day!
I still have all the vegetables and some herbs and spices to get. I am not making turkey gravy for I've not got the time. I can tranport the cooked turkey with no trouble, i.e. el V carries it in its roaster, but not gravy. So I have turkey gravy on order from Gourmet Garage, which I can get when I pick up the last things.
Oddly there's not a bag of Yukon Gold potatoes to be found anywhere. You can buy Yukon Golds in emporiums like Gourmet Garage, but by the lb., not in a bag.
Well, I am waiting for the wine to be delivered too, since I couldn't bring it all home myself. But it's been chosen and paid for, and will arrive tomorrow.
This is excellent because I can tell I will feel worse tomorrow. Fortunately the weather was good today!
Ooooo, this Christmas Eve moussaka is going to be good. All those Greek ingredients from the feta to the side olives -- are far less expensive than they were not long ago. Is this because of their national economic catastrophe?
But before I wear out my arm patting myself on the back -- I haven't done gifts or Christmas cards yet. But no more today, as I feel quite ill and my back is screaming from all this carrying. Nevertheless I feel emotionally happy because now I can feel personally Christmassy -- we r doin' it rite & in time. :) Tomorrow I'll do cards. Then I'll really feel Christmassy. The main thing is to not wear out the holiday spirit before the holidays are here. Las Vidas Perfectas really helped with that this year, taking up all the oxygen until today. Yesterday was recuping from that, especially for el V -- got an extension for submitting a very important document until 11:59 tonight, so that's what he's working on all day!
Sunday, December 18, 2011
The. End. *Las Vidas Perfectas*
It's been months of ever increasing domination of our lives. Imagine for the director, his team, his family -- it's been at least a year.
The performances and the entire production were very successful, by all accounts, from all and sundry who would know.
We didn't get to bed until after 3 AM since there was the cast party after the show's prolonged post performance schmoozing with various and sundry.
And now Christmas is nearly here and I've not a lick of preparation for that production, not even my cards yet. This is what happens in a household that is involved with a performance of this kind. Additional problems for getting Christmas going is the first freeze of the year happened last night. It is dayemed cold out there -- and not so warm in here, for that matter.
However, I am thinking of food, following scent trails conjured up by seasonal memory-yearning of the moment: Definitely lamb something for Christmas Eve dinner, maybe a moussaka? Turkey on Christmas Day. On hand is lamb, though freshly ground, it's been in the freezer for a week already -- my only prep for Christmas so far was purchasing lamb. On hand also are a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, a bottle of Marques de Murrieta Rioja and a bottle of Lagar de Cervera -- gifts, which have been waiting for their moment, which hasn't been for months since el V was in 'training' for the production, and I also in support. Of course pesole for New Year's because what else? besides the traditional Haitian foods for our annual Haitian New Year's Eve get-together.
The performances and the entire production were very successful, by all accounts, from all and sundry who would know.
We didn't get to bed until after 3 AM since there was the cast party after the show's prolonged post performance schmoozing with various and sundry.
And now Christmas is nearly here and I've not a lick of preparation for that production, not even my cards yet. This is what happens in a household that is involved with a performance of this kind. Additional problems for getting Christmas going is the first freeze of the year happened last night. It is dayemed cold out there -- and not so warm in here, for that matter.
However, I am thinking of food, following scent trails conjured up by seasonal memory-yearning of the moment: Definitely lamb something for Christmas Eve dinner, maybe a moussaka? Turkey on Christmas Day. On hand is lamb, though freshly ground, it's been in the freezer for a week already -- my only prep for Christmas so far was purchasing lamb. On hand also are a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, a bottle of Marques de Murrieta Rioja and a bottle of Lagar de Cervera -- gifts, which have been waiting for their moment, which hasn't been for months since el V was in 'training' for the production, and I also in support. Of course pesole for New Year's because what else? besides the traditional Haitian foods for our annual Haitian New Year's Eve get-together.
Friday, December 16, 2011
*A Discovery of Witches* by Deborah Harkness
Harkness, Deborah. (2011) A Discovery of Witches. Vol. 1, All Souls Trilogy. Penguin, USA, NY.
Trade publication December 27th. The All Souls Trilogy's second volume, Shadow of Night, comes out this summer of 2012. A Discovery has been optioned by Warner Bros. for a film treatment.
A free copy of the trade of A Discovery of Witches will be mailed to the commentator on this entry, whose name I’ll pull out of a covered jar at the end of this month. I’ll announce the winner and provide instructions as to how to give me your contact information for the Penguin publicity department.
There are no spoilers in the following thoughts about A Discovery of Witches, or at least no more than what a reader finds in cover and jacket copy.
===================================
A Discovery of Witches is an engrossing science fiction & fantasy novel, as opposed to an engrossing science fiction or fantasy novel, because it is both science fiction and fantasy. Its only contemporary rival for excellence in this small science fiction and fantasy crossbreed is this year's World Fantasy Award winner, Who Fears Death (2010, DAW) by Nnedi Okorafor.
Within A Discovery's pages the reader will engage with the history of science, philosophical and alchemical treatises, Darwin and DNA, political and material history, medieval Romances and their nexis with fantastic literature, and the great Elizabethan playwrights. The author’s day job is as professor of history at the University of Southern California. Her scholarly work includes The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution (2007, Yale University Press), which was the winner of the Pfizer Prize for Best Book in the History of Science from 2005-2007, presented by the History of Science Society. The reader doesn’t have to know this about the author, however, for A Discovery to emit all the allure of old jewels and the enticement of bright chemicals combined with precious metals.
Diana Bishop is our protagonist. Nevertheless, Diana’s specialness cannot help but bring to the mind of a close reader thoughts of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight.
Sarah Seltzer at Alternet recently tried to get at aspects of Twilight that some adult readers find troubling:
"Violent Vampire Sex, Demon-Babies and Overwhelming Female Desire. Twilight is saturated with sexist tropes--to the point of being disturbing. But that disturbing element is compelling, too . . . . "
. . . . But as for the substance of her wants, therein lies the perversely haunting twist. I’d argue that Bella's desires are direct responses to the patriarchy we actually live in. In fact, Meyer has created for her heroine an inverted version of our unjust society. In this invented, inverted world, Bella is allowed to want sex, and vocalize it, and initiate it, while her partner is the gatekeeper who makes sure she is safe and married before she gets “hurt.” In her world, the men around her urge her to abort her fetus for her own safety, but she gets to “choose” to deliver it even though it kills her. In her world, her boyfriend can urge her to attend college and better herself while she can push for an early marriage--and be right! In her world, she can reject her body and trade it in for a new one that is agile, strong, lithe. Her choices are consistently to fall into the arms of the patriarchy and trust that it will catch her, and her faith is validated: she gets a perfect husband, angelic child, new body.
What if we could do this, the fantasy suggests? What if we could just will ourselves to accept the prescribed roles society gives us (damsel in distress, object of protection, vessel for childbearing) and make it okay through the power of our wills? And what if the men in our society were horrified by their power: physical, social, sexual, and curbed it themselves and we didn't constantly have to be on our guard?
Some critics dismissed A Discovery of Witches when the ARCs and other promotion for the novel appeared, as more of the Bella-like, generic paranormal / urban fantasy / romance tropes: the special cipher a la Bella, helpless as can be but firming her feisty chin as her gorgeous vampire boyfriend indulges and protects her. Most of all the romantic male primary loves Bella because he can't help himself -- the smell of her special blood is just so enticing! His love object lacks any other qualities that tend to attract love, such as character and personality, curiosity, intelligence, education, knowledge of the world, interests or achievements, even a sense of humor. Bella is special because other exceptional figures such as vampires and werewolves love her, and they love her because of how she smells. A Discovery’s romantic male lead is Matthew, a 1500 year old vampire of vast wealth, intellectual brilliance and military prowess. He adores how she smells, he protects her. All his family loves Diana too. Not the least of his attractions, Matthew owns his own jet and helicopters -- yes helicopters, plural. So, in the initial pages Ms. Harkness seems to have broken out the parts of the Twilightiad that are compelling wish fulfillment for the female adolescent reader. Diana’s a witch who is special even among other witches, though in childhood, Diana chose to secede from her witch heritage, refusing even the minimum training in spells that all witches, however powerful or weak, are obligated to receive.
However, A Discovery of Witches isn’t what that description leads one to expect. Diana narrates in first person, providing only as much information about herself as we need, when we need it. Mostly she’s asking herself questions of history, of science, of families – all things outside herself, things that are bigger than she is, even though the author does make sure we know those around Diana regard her as special. Still, Diana’s specialness doesn't overwhelm the narration since the author's good judgment breaks up Diana’s voice with third person point of view of various other protagonists. There's sly humor -- every time Matthew picks up Diana, or thinks about how she smells, I swear Harkness is winking at Bella and Edward and at us too. Whereas Bella wants to never grow up, Diana is living an adult's life, though so far she's been denying herself much of what she's earned by her own efforts. Diana's family and Matthew's family bond through their mutual love of the two lovers. Merging families between creatures who are unlike and traditionally at odds is purposeful in terms the Great Mysteries we're delving into. Diana's specialness is because she's a hardworking, disciplined scholar who delights in things scientific and historic, things beautiful, who is loyal, courageous, possesses integrity and her own sense of honor. That her smell happens to so appeal to Matthew is langniappe -- he smells just as good to her. If you wish to get subtextual, you can say the way they smell to each other signifies that together they possesses the qualities they need for the great quest of the trilogy. They are equally matched lovers, who don't waste their precious energies engaging in the contrivances of – “I hate you but I love you, O what will I /we do, separations and mis-communications.” That Diana and Matthew are matched agencies who are true lovers is essential to the plot of this novel, and will play an even greater role as the trilogy progresses. They are the Lovers of the Tarot and alchemy, whose conjucio could have a conceptio that might redeem the world. A Disovery of Witches is, among other things, a quest to discover the beginnings of all things in order to continue all things. One of the essential questions is, “Is immortality the same as never dying?” There are many ghosts in A Discovery, most of them Diana’s relatives. They speak to her, and she to them. Are they persons then?
The four sentient species of A Discovery are called "creatures." The creatures are divided among vampires, witches, daemons and humans. There is council called the Congregation that governs their dealings with each other, with places for three members each representing vampires, witches and daemons. As there are no human representatives seated with the Congregation there are no humans in A Discovery of Witches (at least in this first volume of the trilogy, other than spear carriers who, generally, are besottted with the individuals of the other creatures who are our protagonists and antagonists. This is the hierarchy of A Discovery's world, a hierarchy like that of the world view that preceeded and remained in most places contemporaneous with alchemy's groping toward the scientific method: God, angels, humans, animals. Or in terms of worldly power, the Pope and his Church, King and his warrior nobles, the merchants, finally serfs and peasants. In A Discovery, vampires are the aristocratic military rank of the creatures, witches the material intelligence, daemons the creative intelligence, and humans are the serfs. Humans are relegated to useful servants – or food -- though the other three creature species conceal themselves from humans since humans have long outbred the other three divisions of creatures.
Exceptionalism is the potent point of much science fiction and fantasy. Whether YA or adult, the protagonist is part of that imaginary world's 1%, or if not starting there, will end up in that bracket. Thus, if the science fiction field really is an American conceptio, i.e. U.S. invention, as is often claimed, this exceptionalism reflects our ingrained national self-regard. This can be troublesome when looked at closely. What else that can be disturbing within the context of novels like A Discovery, is that the exceptional achievements in history, the arts and sciences, all, or most, are the production of these supernatural creatures. Within A Discovery humans have nothing to do with even the ending WWII. Entertainments like A Discovery of Witches, or Seth Grahame-
Food for thought indeed, and A Discovery of Witches provides us a banquet of ideas to consider. For instance, there are the questions of time. What is the past? Where is it? Perhaps fairyland is the past, a dimension that we can enter, if we know the right things? Diana – and we -- have a guide into these unknown historic eras, Matthew, who assures Diana, that in the past she will yearn with a passion she cannot now in our present time even imagine -- hot water. This has me impatient for the next volume, Shadow of Night, to see where these questions lead Harkness and her characters.
Theory: Status, Jargon and Conflict
Jazz musicians know an enormous amount of theory. Music is the oldest theoretic discipline. And in the 19th century the European music theoreticians drove European musical practice off the cliff, as much as did the two world wars of the 20th century. European 'art' music has yet to recover from that splatter under the cliff. Theory isn't only in French, you know.
Nicked from a happy argument between a supreme theoretical anthropologist (who also does great work in the field), and a composer - musician - performer - musicologist.
May I add that the anthropologist was vastly outnumbered by the numbers of musicians in the space, though she was not out-gunned! JS can more than hold her own, thank you.
She's our number one advisor, teacher, mentor in all things theoretical in academia. You can see where there is a conflict though. She doesn't believe there is such a thing as music theory -- fightin' words among musicians! -- which el V is actually teaching a course in this coming semester. She really wasn't aware that the arts have disciplined theoretical structures. A terrific illustration of what the strict academic divisions we've made between technology, science, art and the humanties has lost/cost us as curious, rational and creative creatures.
This is the joy, the delight, the pure value of academia at its best -- this exercise of the mind that can take you somewhere you haven't been before. It's the value of intellectual, analytical give and of take.
Nicked from a happy argument between a supreme theoretical anthropologist (who also does great work in the field), and a composer - musician - performer - musicologist.
May I add that the anthropologist was vastly outnumbered by the numbers of musicians in the space, though she was not out-gunned! JS can more than hold her own, thank you.
She's our number one advisor, teacher, mentor in all things theoretical in academia. You can see where there is a conflict though. She doesn't believe there is such a thing as music theory -- fightin' words among musicians! -- which el V is actually teaching a course in this coming semester. She really wasn't aware that the arts have disciplined theoretical structures. A terrific illustration of what the strict academic divisions we've made between technology, science, art and the humanties has lost/cost us as curious, rational and creative creatures.
This is the joy, the delight, the pure value of academia at its best -- this exercise of the mind that can take you somewhere you haven't been before. It's the value of intellectual, analytical give and of take.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Dress Rehearsal for Las Vidas Perfectas
The first four words that came into this audience member's mind last night at the not un-glitch free dress rehearsal for Alex Waterman's production of the opera, Las Vidas Perfectas, were, in this order: elegant, beautiful, lush, exciting. This production is exciting in the way that opera can be exciting, though it does not include elephants.
It's a complex piece, this Robert Ashley opera, Perfect Lives, composed back in the 1970's, one of the outstanding examples of what was then called New Music. An enormous amount of hard work, intellectual, creative, and woodshedding, has gone into this production, and it shows by not showing any of the seams or the effort.
We are provided layers upon layers of sound, none of them the same, none of them fighting each other, but all of them individual, retaining their own integrity, not dissolving into a sonic mud. Elio Villafranca's brilliant piano music is between Peter Gordon's gorgeous, deep tracks, and the vocal music produced by el V -- 90 minutes of him chanting, singing, talking, emoting Ashley's text, his own body providing kinetic visul accompaniment, that is kept within strict geometric bounds. Another current of music that winds through the other layers is provided by the vocals of el coro, Elisa Santiago and Abraham Gomez-Delgado. One way to describe what Ned does is a vocal equivalent of the dressage exercise of volte – changing the horse’s (Ashley’s words) lead and gait on a dime via hand and heel aids, as the animal’s direction catapaults left, now above, now below, around, between and around the other musical layers. Another way to describe it is as vocal slalom skiing, an alpine discipline, involving skiing between poles (gates) spaced close together. This is complex geometric grid -- one that is a part of composer Ashley's original template of composition. Elio's music also exists in a space that is next to El V's music, as well as between El V's and Peter's. This is a complex geometric grid -- one that is a part of composer Ashley's original template of composition.
Sarah Crown, the set designer, whose own art expresses a passionate engagement with geometry, created the visual interpretation of this work. There are many geometries in this opera, which is first symbolized by a vibrant colored neon rune of intersecting angles and lines that hangs above stage right. The vari-colored backdrop design is a fabric patchwork of geometries. Center stage is the curves of Elio's grand piano. The bed and decor of stage left are combination of angles and curves. The colors and geometries are echoed in the costumes of the two singers of el coro, one male, one female. Occasionally supertitles in English are projected upon the rectangular blank spaces of the stage risers and platforms, and upon the curved surfaces of the piano's case and sound board. The convexity of these shapes distorts the words into softer curves themselves. The stage design illustrates the geometries of the composition, harmonizing with the build-up of the musical layers, providing sensual pleasure for the eye, and interest to the mind. It is sharp, clear, plain, while vibrantly colorful.
The space of the Irongate Theater is one of those fine stone churches from 19th century Brooklyn, deconsecrated. The acoustics are splendid, the seating comfortable. A lot of friends turned out to provide an audience of other peformers of the piece (Ashley's work in general and Perfect Lives in particular is currently being re-staged and performed), musicians, music writers, music lovers, fashion designers, photographers and other artists and critical writers. Their feedback before tonight's opening is valuable and appreciated.
Whew -- the first three performances are really upon us now, after four months of work. There are more in the future, and not so far away. This is after all, too, only the first three episodes of the seven episodes that make up the whole of Perfect Lives - Las Vidas Perfectas.
It's a complex piece, this Robert Ashley opera, Perfect Lives, composed back in the 1970's, one of the outstanding examples of what was then called New Music. An enormous amount of hard work, intellectual, creative, and woodshedding, has gone into this production, and it shows by not showing any of the seams or the effort.
We are provided layers upon layers of sound, none of them the same, none of them fighting each other, but all of them individual, retaining their own integrity, not dissolving into a sonic mud. Elio Villafranca's brilliant piano music is between Peter Gordon's gorgeous, deep tracks, and the vocal music produced by el V -- 90 minutes of him chanting, singing, talking, emoting Ashley's text, his own body providing kinetic visul accompaniment, that is kept within strict geometric bounds. Another current of music that winds through the other layers is provided by the vocals of el coro, Elisa Santiago and Abraham Gomez-Delgado. One way to describe what Ned does is a vocal equivalent of the dressage exercise of volte – changing the horse’s (Ashley’s words) lead and gait on a dime via hand and heel aids, as the animal’s direction catapaults left, now above, now below, around, between and around the other musical layers. Another way to describe it is as vocal slalom skiing, an alpine discipline, involving skiing between poles (gates) spaced close together. This is complex geometric grid -- one that is a part of composer Ashley's original template of composition. Elio's music also exists in a space that is next to El V's music, as well as between El V's and Peter's. This is a complex geometric grid -- one that is a part of composer Ashley's original template of composition.
Sarah Crown, the set designer, whose own art expresses a passionate engagement with geometry, created the visual interpretation of this work. There are many geometries in this opera, which is first symbolized by a vibrant colored neon rune of intersecting angles and lines that hangs above stage right. The vari-colored backdrop design is a fabric patchwork of geometries. Center stage is the curves of Elio's grand piano. The bed and decor of stage left are combination of angles and curves. The colors and geometries are echoed in the costumes of the two singers of el coro, one male, one female. Occasionally supertitles in English are projected upon the rectangular blank spaces of the stage risers and platforms, and upon the curved surfaces of the piano's case and sound board. The convexity of these shapes distorts the words into softer curves themselves. The stage design illustrates the geometries of the composition, harmonizing with the build-up of the musical layers, providing sensual pleasure for the eye, and interest to the mind. It is sharp, clear, plain, while vibrantly colorful.
The space of the Irongate Theater is one of those fine stone churches from 19th century Brooklyn, deconsecrated. The acoustics are splendid, the seating comfortable. A lot of friends turned out to provide an audience of other peformers of the piece (Ashley's work in general and Perfect Lives in particular is currently being re-staged and performed), musicians, music writers, music lovers, fashion designers, photographers and other artists and critical writers. Their feedback before tonight's opening is valuable and appreciated.
Whew -- the first three performances are really upon us now, after four months of work. There are more in the future, and not so far away. This is after all, too, only the first three episodes of the seven episodes that make up the whole of Perfect Lives - Las Vidas Perfectas.
Monday, December 12, 2011
BALOJI with KONONO N°1 - KARIBU YA BINTOU (subtitled)
I started the day with this, as a friend had sent it to me.
You want to see powerful? The artist lives in France, but this is made at home in Kinshasa.
le Barone Gedi, in the streets.
"It is from this Bantu Center We Find Our Breath."
You want to see powerful? The artist lives in France, but this is made at home in Kinshasa.
le Barone Gedi, in the streets.
"It is from this Bantu Center We Find Our Breath."
Friday, December 9, 2011
Wiki Afraid of the Truth in Bertolucci's *1900* ?
Bertolucci's epic 1976 film (the title in Italian is Novecento, which would translate into English as Twentieth Century -- very different from the title the U.S. market gave it, 1900) follows the conflict of the great Italian landowners and the agriculture workers from the turn of the 20th century to WWII, and the years immediately following. It does so through the relationship between the son of a landowner and the bastard grandson of an agriculture labor clan, the two born on the same day in 1900.
All through the wiki description of this film, 'socialist' and 'socialism' are substituted for communist, communism. * This significantly distorts the history that the writer and director so carefully work to depict in this vast film. In the workers' community center, their homes, their schools, are frescos of the hammer and sickle, portraits of Marx, Lenin and Stalin. In Italy communism was, and still is, an active political and economic alternative. You can see why this is so, in a country where the other choices are to be oppressed by the Church, the Mafia or Fascism - Corporate interests. This is particularly true for the agricultural worker, during these decades from the turn of the 20th century through the Depression, when agricultural populism was powerfully struggling everywhere, including right here in the U.S., leading to riots, assassinations, murders and thuggery of every kind, sponsored by the Bosses and their minions, whether hired or elected.
The irony here though, is that Marx, Lenin and Stalin were not in sympathy with the agricultural worker. It was urban industrial labor that they were concerned with, and from whom the great communist movements were expected to birth their success. Yet, in history, the longest successful Communist revolution came from the nation which was the least industrialized: China, and later, Cuba. Stalin in particular declared war on the land worker -- from which came the constant hunger of so many in the Soviet countries.
So why is Wiki insisting this is socialism and not communism in this great Bertolucci film? Is it really fear, that we can't even name communism in a great film to which communism is central to the conflict, because the 'good' protagonists are so clearly communists and the bad ones are so clearly the great capitalists?
* This is striking, since the history of the medieval economic mutual assistance and governing bodies, known as communes, began in the city-states of Italy and very quickly, if not simultaneously, moved into France.
All through the wiki description of this film, 'socialist' and 'socialism' are substituted for communist, communism. * This significantly distorts the history that the writer and director so carefully work to depict in this vast film. In the workers' community center, their homes, their schools, are frescos of the hammer and sickle, portraits of Marx, Lenin and Stalin. In Italy communism was, and still is, an active political and economic alternative. You can see why this is so, in a country where the other choices are to be oppressed by the Church, the Mafia or Fascism - Corporate interests. This is particularly true for the agricultural worker, during these decades from the turn of the 20th century through the Depression, when agricultural populism was powerfully struggling everywhere, including right here in the U.S., leading to riots, assassinations, murders and thuggery of every kind, sponsored by the Bosses and their minions, whether hired or elected.
The irony here though, is that Marx, Lenin and Stalin were not in sympathy with the agricultural worker. It was urban industrial labor that they were concerned with, and from whom the great communist movements were expected to birth their success. Yet, in history, the longest successful Communist revolution came from the nation which was the least industrialized: China, and later, Cuba. Stalin in particular declared war on the land worker -- from which came the constant hunger of so many in the Soviet countries.
So why is Wiki insisting this is socialism and not communism in this great Bertolucci film? Is it really fear, that we can't even name communism in a great film to which communism is central to the conflict, because the 'good' protagonists are so clearly communists and the bad ones are so clearly the great capitalists?
* This is striking, since the history of the medieval economic mutual assistance and governing bodies, known as communes, began in the city-states of Italy and very quickly, if not simultaneously, moved into France.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
The Atlantic Monthly's Civil War
I have just now returned from a expedition in the rain with the Special Commemorative Civil War Issue of The Atlantic Monthly. They'd just been racked at the local corner newstand store, and were at the very top. I had to ask one of the proprietors to get a copy down for me. When they realized what this is, they re-racked them at eye height. First generation immigrants from Uttar Predesh, asked me about "What is this Civil War?" They are all too familiar with civil wars, of course. But they don't know this one. A fairly long history lesson ensued, since at this hour the store was still empty, as the Lotto buying customers were still some minutes from getting off work and stopping by hoping for a little luck.
This is the first magazine I've bought in years. It's not only, or solely because because our President has an article in this Civil War Commemorative Issue, though I'm very curious to see what he has written about the ACW. He may be the first U.S. President to write of this event in -- how long? -- certainly as a sitting POTUS. But there's also a story by Louisia May Alcott included, set in one of the D.C. military hospitals. The offerings out the magazine's archives are priceless.
I've spent a fair amount of time in the Harper's Weekly archives, which during these years published the same bold face names as we see taken out of the Atlantic's archives, but I've not dug much into the Atlantic's.
I'll be sharing this issue with several people. I hope they all return it, so it can be borrowed again.
This is the first magazine I've bought in years. It's not only, or solely because because our President has an article in this Civil War Commemorative Issue, though I'm very curious to see what he has written about the ACW. He may be the first U.S. President to write of this event in -- how long? -- certainly as a sitting POTUS. But there's also a story by Louisia May Alcott included, set in one of the D.C. military hospitals. The offerings out the magazine's archives are priceless.
I've spent a fair amount of time in the Harper's Weekly archives, which during these years published the same bold face names as we see taken out of the Atlantic's archives, but I've not dug much into the Atlantic's.
I'll be sharing this issue with several people. I hope they all return it, so it can be borrowed again.
*Remembering Coco Robicheaux* -- Mark Folse in The Gambit
"Mark Folse talks to friends of the late Frenchmen Street bluesman and artist ...."
Full story in the Gambit here.
When news of the death of local blues and spiritual icon Coco Robicheaux went viral on the Internet Nov. 25, some said his last words were, "I'm home." Bartender Sara Shaw at the Apple Barrel bar on Frenchmen Street, who attended to him in his last moments, as well as the patrons seated next to him when he collapsed, remember them as "The next round is on me."
Full story in the Gambit here.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Tomorrow, Coco Robicheaux, 2 Memorial Parades
In the Times-Pic:
[ " At least three events in the coming days will memorialize Curtis Arceneaux, aka Coco Robicheaux, the popular local hoodoo blues guitarist, singer and vocalist. Robicheaux died of a suspected heart attack after collapsing at the Apple Barrel Bar on Nov. 25. He was 64.
Relatives and friends of the family are invited to attend the memorial service at DW Rhodes Chapel, 3933 Washington on Saturday, December 3 at 3:30 pm. Visitation will begin at 3:00 pm. Interment is private.
Also on Dec. 3, friends have organized another event at Marie’s Bar (2843 Burgundy), starting at 5 p.m. A second-line will depart from Marie’s, bound for the Apple Barrel on Frenchmen Street, one of Robicheaux’s favorite haunts.
His family and musicians with whom he played have orchestrated a more involved event nine days later, on Dec. 12. A procession starts on Frenchmen Street at 3:30 p.m. and ends at the House of Blues, 225 Decatur St. Starting at 6 p.m., a host of musicians will perform at the HOB in honor of Robicheaux. " ]
We're playing Spiritlands tonight, up here in the cold crisp Saturday night pasta ritual, giving up the traditional Saturday night Phil Schaap's Traditions in Swing, for Coco instead.
So many people are so upset. It took a while for it to become real, irrevocable, that Coco was really gone.
El V's interview with Coco for Bomb Magazine here.
[ " At least three events in the coming days will memorialize Curtis Arceneaux, aka Coco Robicheaux, the popular local hoodoo blues guitarist, singer and vocalist. Robicheaux died of a suspected heart attack after collapsing at the Apple Barrel Bar on Nov. 25. He was 64.
Relatives and friends of the family are invited to attend the memorial service at DW Rhodes Chapel, 3933 Washington on Saturday, December 3 at 3:30 pm. Visitation will begin at 3:00 pm. Interment is private.
Also on Dec. 3, friends have organized another event at Marie’s Bar (2843 Burgundy), starting at 5 p.m. A second-line will depart from Marie’s, bound for the Apple Barrel on Frenchmen Street, one of Robicheaux’s favorite haunts.
His family and musicians with whom he played have orchestrated a more involved event nine days later, on Dec. 12. A procession starts on Frenchmen Street at 3:30 p.m. and ends at the House of Blues, 225 Decatur St. Starting at 6 p.m., a host of musicians will perform at the HOB in honor of Robicheaux. " ]
We're playing Spiritlands tonight, up here in the cold crisp Saturday night pasta ritual, giving up the traditional Saturday night Phil Schaap's Traditions in Swing, for Coco instead.
So many people are so upset. It took a while for it to become real, irrevocable, that Coco was really gone.
El V's interview with Coco for Bomb Magazine here.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Lighting the National Christmas Tree!
Again, this being their beat, the WaPo does a good job with this annual holiday tradition with video and photos, so that we who love Christmas Trees and live elsewhere get to feel a little part of it.
My dear Austin amiga, L, gifted me with a Jackie Lawson digital Advent Calendar again this year. Last year the calendar was 24 days of filling in the details of a small town that looked remarkably like C'town in MD, where we were living. This year it's London. I thought yesterday that London wasn't as satisfactory as last year's, but as of this morning, decorating the Christmas Tree, I think it's just as wonderful as last year's. It's urban, yes, but with the small town neighborhood in the forefront that so much of NYC used to be like, and still is, in pockets, if you are part of that small town -- I can even find it here in SoHo, surely the most overbuilt, overhyped, overtouristed, overtacky, rat haven in the country.
I spent a full hour playing with the Advent calendar's tree and the decorations, getting it just as I like it. I hadn't even made my tea yet. I can get lost in these things forever, exactly like as a child, I got lost for hours with my color pencils, crayons and paints, making dream Christmas scenes from after Thanksgiving until the night before Christmas Eve Day. It went along with decorating the Christmas tree.
Once I was old enough I hogged the whole process. Dad could put the up in the stand and put on the lights –- this was always fraught because somehow every year, between tree lights that worked when we took the tree down, a certain number of the lights didn’t work when the next year's tree went up. But once those teensie irrelvancies were resolved, man, I took over. By the later years Mom even conceded to me the tinsel – that old fashioned aluminum stuff you put on last of everything else, that hung like Spanish moss does on live oaks down south, then in later years that much less satisfactory celophane static electricity stuff. The tinsel had always been her part because the rest of us didn’t have the sense to properly distribute. But when I got old enough, I did too, and better than she did, at least I thought so. I spent hours putting the tinsel on, one strand at a time. I continued to re-arrange the ornaments and tinsel until we took the tree down. The very concept of a tree in the house stunned me delirious with joy. We were people of the treeless prairies after all.
Now the national Christmas tree. The faces of the children in the photos are filled with Oh! and Ah!, just as they should be. The president's face is for once happy and content, as he performs with his family this annual national tradition of lighting the tree and as a spectator enjoys the accompanying entertainments. When the First Family together lights up the tree, his mother-in-law is part of that, as she's part of the family, and is part of the raising of the Obama daughters. Then, there is the part played by the First Lady. I keep repeating this, but I believe it more every time -- whatever criticisms I have of the president, and they are many and they are serious -- the one thing he's done perfectly is his marriage partner. She is wonderful in every way.
Here's the WaPo site for the National Christmas Tree Lighting photos and video.
Oooooo, and here the WaPo has a photo series of the evolution of the National Christmas Tree, since Calvin Coolidge! lighted the first one in 1923. Calvin started this tradition? Dour CC? Who would have thought?
My dear Austin amiga, L, gifted me with a Jackie Lawson digital Advent Calendar again this year. Last year the calendar was 24 days of filling in the details of a small town that looked remarkably like C'town in MD, where we were living. This year it's London. I thought yesterday that London wasn't as satisfactory as last year's, but as of this morning, decorating the Christmas Tree, I think it's just as wonderful as last year's. It's urban, yes, but with the small town neighborhood in the forefront that so much of NYC used to be like, and still is, in pockets, if you are part of that small town -- I can even find it here in SoHo, surely the most overbuilt, overhyped, overtouristed, overtacky, rat haven in the country.
I spent a full hour playing with the Advent calendar's tree and the decorations, getting it just as I like it. I hadn't even made my tea yet. I can get lost in these things forever, exactly like as a child, I got lost for hours with my color pencils, crayons and paints, making dream Christmas scenes from after Thanksgiving until the night before Christmas Eve Day. It went along with decorating the Christmas tree.
Once I was old enough I hogged the whole process. Dad could put the up in the stand and put on the lights –- this was always fraught because somehow every year, between tree lights that worked when we took the tree down, a certain number of the lights didn’t work when the next year's tree went up. But once those teensie irrelvancies were resolved, man, I took over. By the later years Mom even conceded to me the tinsel – that old fashioned aluminum stuff you put on last of everything else, that hung like Spanish moss does on live oaks down south, then in later years that much less satisfactory celophane static electricity stuff. The tinsel had always been her part because the rest of us didn’t have the sense to properly distribute. But when I got old enough, I did too, and better than she did, at least I thought so. I spent hours putting the tinsel on, one strand at a time. I continued to re-arrange the ornaments and tinsel until we took the tree down. The very concept of a tree in the house stunned me delirious with joy. We were people of the treeless prairies after all.
Now the national Christmas tree. The faces of the children in the photos are filled with Oh! and Ah!, just as they should be. The president's face is for once happy and content, as he performs with his family this annual national tradition of lighting the tree and as a spectator enjoys the accompanying entertainments. When the First Family together lights up the tree, his mother-in-law is part of that, as she's part of the family, and is part of the raising of the Obama daughters. Then, there is the part played by the First Lady. I keep repeating this, but I believe it more every time -- whatever criticisms I have of the president, and they are many and they are serious -- the one thing he's done perfectly is his marriage partner. She is wonderful in every way.
Here's the WaPo site for the National Christmas Tree Lighting photos and video.
Oooooo, and here the WaPo has a photo series of the evolution of the National Christmas Tree, since Calvin Coolidge! lighted the first one in 1923. Calvin started this tradition? Dour CC? Who would have thought?
Thursday, December 1, 2011
It Beginning to Look Like Christmas
The first week of December has long been my favorite week of the holidays. Thanksgiving hurly burly has come and gone – isn’t it grand how the one holiday that really was about friends and family is now about gigonomous BUYING? Is capitalism great or what? Why I like this week is because routines are back and observed, while real people as opposed to retail oppressors, are leisurely, here and there, putting out lights and other Christmas decorations, and they are sparkling and bright, not yet tired. I love the light at this time of year. And now with the re-instatement of normal temperatures, the light and the feel of the air have matched up again. Next week is traditionally the favorite one for both private and corporate and charity Christmas parties, so this weekend kicks into high gear the hurly burly of Christmas and New Year's. Thus, we'll be in uncommon, non-routine mode for the next few weeks -- particularly as el V's so taken up with rehearsals and the premiere of the first three sections of LasVidas Perfectas on the 15th, 16th and 17th.
Since the Obama family moved into the White House I've been uncharacteristically, and for the first time, fascinated with how things are done there. I love how the First Lady and her staff do Christmas, and in particular how they decorate the White House. The WaPo always covers in detail the unveiling of the Christmas White House, so today all of us get to see it. The star of the Holiday White House this year is Bo, which surely is something kids all over the country can appreciate. The WaPo coverage, "Bo is Christmas star in White House decor," is here.
There is a slide show of photographs, and a video also -- though just now it doesn't seem to be working so well.
Merry Christmas! Woof Woof Woof!
Since the Obama family moved into the White House I've been uncharacteristically, and for the first time, fascinated with how things are done there. I love how the First Lady and her staff do Christmas, and in particular how they decorate the White House. The WaPo always covers in detail the unveiling of the Christmas White House, so today all of us get to see it. The star of the Holiday White House this year is Bo, which surely is something kids all over the country can appreciate. The WaPo coverage, "Bo is Christmas star in White House decor," is here.
There is a slide show of photographs, and a video also -- though just now it doesn't seem to be working so well.
Merry Christmas! Woof Woof Woof!
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
*Death Comes To Pemberly* by P.D. James!
I suppose I can forgive this author, as she can and does write and sell other books, and has an acclaimed, lucrative and long career doing so. I honestly believe James did this for fun. Yes, even P.D. James has succombed to mashing up Jane Austen -- this with, naturally, a murder mystery. Is this what it comes to, to be finally accepted as a Great Novelist despite being female, despite not writing first hand about war and stuff that goes bang, despite being concerned about the state of the single woman and the state of the married woman, to have your work and characters mauled by everyone from cheap suits to designer brands?
[ Death Comes to Pemberly by PD James (Faber, £18.99)
PD James's Jane Austen sequel-with-a-murder is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for the Boden-wearing classes, best approached as the jeu d'esprit it was conceived as rather than as a serious attempt to ape Austen's style and extend the canon. Six years after her wedding, Lizzie B is mistress of Pemberley, happily married and with two young sons. But on the night before the annual Lady Anne's ball, Lydia Wickham arrives at the front door, screaming that her husband has been shot in nearby woodland … There's much here to rile purists, from the sometimes clunky and inconsistent pastiche to the introduction of characters from other Austen novels. The murder mystery, too, is hardly James's finest, but her enthusiasm and affection for the characters keeps you reading in spite of the flaws. ]
Not everyone sees it the way the above reviewer does:
[ … In my view Death Comes to Pemberley is as good as anything PD James has written and that is very high praise indeed." The Independent's Jane Jakeman also applauded the "dream team of crime fiction, Austen and James", finding the novel "a great joint achievement, and a joyous read". Equally enthusiastic was the Sunday Times's Peter Kemp, enjoying "an elegantly gauged homage to Austen and an exhilarating tribute to the inexhaustible vitality of James's imagination". ]
And here is a trailer for the book, on YouTube.
[ Death Comes to Pemberly by PD James (Faber, £18.99)
PD James's Jane Austen sequel-with-a-murder is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for the Boden-wearing classes, best approached as the jeu d'esprit it was conceived as rather than as a serious attempt to ape Austen's style and extend the canon. Six years after her wedding, Lizzie B is mistress of Pemberley, happily married and with two young sons. But on the night before the annual Lady Anne's ball, Lydia Wickham arrives at the front door, screaming that her husband has been shot in nearby woodland … There's much here to rile purists, from the sometimes clunky and inconsistent pastiche to the introduction of characters from other Austen novels. The murder mystery, too, is hardly James's finest, but her enthusiasm and affection for the characters keeps you reading in spite of the flaws. ]
Not everyone sees it the way the above reviewer does:
[ … In my view Death Comes to Pemberley is as good as anything PD James has written and that is very high praise indeed." The Independent's Jane Jakeman also applauded the "dream team of crime fiction, Austen and James", finding the novel "a great joint achievement, and a joyous read". Equally enthusiastic was the Sunday Times's Peter Kemp, enjoying "an elegantly gauged homage to Austen and an exhilarating tribute to the inexhaustible vitality of James's imagination". ]
And here is a trailer for the book, on YouTube.
Monday, November 28, 2011
The Bloody, Twisted, Inverted World of Twilight + Discovery of Witches
"Violent Vampire Sex, Demon-Babies and Overwhelming Female Desire. Twilight is saturated with sexist tropes--to the point of being disturbing. But that disturbing element is compelling, too."
I have been thinking about Twilight a lot because of the author of A Discovery of Witches appears to have studied it carefully. Deborah Harkness seems to have broken out all the parts that seem to be the most appealing wish fulfillment for the adolescent reader, and then transmuted them to an adult woman's fantasy wish fulfillment.
Sarah Seltzer at Alternet recently has been thoughtfull about Twilight, sparked by the professional obligation to screen the latest Twilight movie franchise:
[ " But as for the substance of her wants, therein lies the perversely haunting twist. I’d argue that Bella's desires are direct responses to the patriarchy we actually live in. In fact, Meyer has created for her heroine an inverted version of our unjust society. In this invented, inverted world, Bella is allowed to want sex, and vocalize it, and initiate it, while her partner is the gatekeeper who makes sure she is safe and married before she gets “hurt.” In her world, the men around her urge her to abort her fetus for her own safety, but she gets to “choose” to deliver it even though it kills her. In her world, her boyfriend can urge her to attend college and better herself while she can push for an early marriage--and be right! In her world, she can reject her body and trade it in for a new one that is agile, strong, lithe. Her choices are consistently to fall into the arms of the patriarchy and trust that it will catch her, and her faith is validated: she gets a perfect husband, angelic child, new body.
But that's not what Discovery of Witches turns out to be. For once we have two lovers who are equally matched, who don't pull that I hate you but I love you o what will I do garbage. In fact, that they are matched equalities and agencies who truly love each other actually matters to the plot -- and not in that simple-minded when will they do it with each other? way. These are The Lovers, that you feel are worthy of the Tarot Major Arcana card named "The Lovers."
A Discovery of Witches is a fiction infused with intelligence. It's well-written, well-structured. For once I'm not going "They should have cut out at least 125 pp. of the 579 pp. that make up this novel."
I am enthusiastically looking forward to the second volume, Shadow of Night, which comes out next summer. I'm expecting this second volume in the projected trilogy will not fall into 'disappointing trilogy middle volume' syndrome as Deborah Harkness is highly intelligent, deeply and broadly educated, and she's also an experienced author.
Later I'll try to break down in particulars and specifics why this book worked so well for this reader at least. A lot of it has to do, alas, with all the wrongs it did not commit, that are embedded in almost all fantasy novels now, it seems, whatever variety of fantasy they are. But even more has to do with what all the rights the book commits.
I have been thinking about Twilight a lot because of the author of A Discovery of Witches appears to have studied it carefully. Deborah Harkness seems to have broken out all the parts that seem to be the most appealing wish fulfillment for the adolescent reader, and then transmuted them to an adult woman's fantasy wish fulfillment.
Sarah Seltzer at Alternet recently has been thoughtfull about Twilight, sparked by the professional obligation to screen the latest Twilight movie franchise:
[ " But as for the substance of her wants, therein lies the perversely haunting twist. I’d argue that Bella's desires are direct responses to the patriarchy we actually live in. In fact, Meyer has created for her heroine an inverted version of our unjust society. In this invented, inverted world, Bella is allowed to want sex, and vocalize it, and initiate it, while her partner is the gatekeeper who makes sure she is safe and married before she gets “hurt.” In her world, the men around her urge her to abort her fetus for her own safety, but she gets to “choose” to deliver it even though it kills her. In her world, her boyfriend can urge her to attend college and better herself while she can push for an early marriage--and be right! In her world, she can reject her body and trade it in for a new one that is agile, strong, lithe. Her choices are consistently to fall into the arms of the patriarchy and trust that it will catch her, and her faith is validated: she gets a perfect husband, angelic child, new body.
What if we could do this, the fantasy suggests? What if we could just will ourselves to accept the prescribed roles society gives us (damsel in distress, object of protection, vessel for childbearing) and make it okay through the power of our wills? And what if the men in our society were horrified by their power: physical, social, sexual, and curbed it themselves and we didn't constantly have to be on our guard? " ]
It's interesting in terms of fantasy and what women want to compare and contrast Bella with the witch Diane. Bella starts as human. Diane starts speshul as can be, a witch, a witch is even speshul among witches. But Diane is an adult with a highly successful career, who in childhood, eschewed her witchy heritage of specialness. Or so it seems. What makes it so interesting a contrast and comparison is what Diana wants vs what Bella wants -- what an intelligent, educated, curious, adult woman wants is very different from what an incurious, uneducated, non-disciplined teenager wants.
It's interesting in terms of fantasy and what women want to compare and contrast Bella with the witch Diane. Bella starts as human. Diane starts speshul as can be, a witch, a witch is even speshul among witches. But Diane is an adult with a highly successful career, who in childhood, eschewed her witchy heritage of specialness. Or so it seems. What makes it so interesting a contrast and comparison is what Diana wants vs what Bella wants -- what an intelligent, educated, curious, adult woman wants is very different from what an incurious, uneducated, non-disciplined teenager wants.
A Discovery of Witches (2011), Book 1 of The All Souls Trilogy is the most engrossing sf/f (as opposed to sf or f -- sf/f here referes to a novel that is both science fiction and fantasy) I've read in some time. It's only rival for excellence is in this cross genre of science fiction and fantasy is this year's World Fantasy Award winner, Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor.
Now, many whose judgment I tend to agree with have hated A Discovery of Witches and made great big fun of it. I had read the first chapter excerpt on Tor, and what we got from that seemed to confirm that this was yet another version of the Twilight tiresomes: the special snowflake helpless as can be but firming her feisty chin in determination to take care of herself instead of allowing the gorgreous, brilliant, unbelievably ancient, powerful and wealthy vamp protect her -- and who loves her because -- why? since the love object is a zero, lacking all qualities other than shallow and ignorant, without curiosity, intelligence, education, knowledge of the world, interests or achievements.
A Discovery of Witches is a fiction infused with intelligence. It's well-written, well-structured. For once I'm not going "They should have cut out at least 125 pp. of the 579 pp. that make up this novel."
I am enthusiastically looking forward to the second volume, Shadow of Night, which comes out next summer. I'm expecting this second volume in the projected trilogy will not fall into 'disappointing trilogy middle volume' syndrome as Deborah Harkness is highly intelligent, deeply and broadly educated, and she's also an experienced author.
Later I'll try to break down in particulars and specifics why this book worked so well for this reader at least. A lot of it has to do, alas, with all the wrongs it did not commit, that are embedded in almost all fantasy novels now, it seems, whatever variety of fantasy they are. But even more has to do with what all the rights the book commits.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Coco Robicheaux -- Walking the Spiritlands Forever More
Coco's gone. New Orleans cannot be the same without him.
Coco's greatest song, "Walk With the Spirit," a truly spiritual song that was our personal battery-charger during the dark days after the 2005 flood, is here. The album it was on, 1995's Spiritland, is one of our all-time faves.
Sometimes I walk all by myself
I don’t want to talk to no one else
And I close my eyes
And I feel the spirit rise
That he had made this album made his attendence for the entire duration of The Year Before the Flood party all that more precious to us.
Season 3 of Treme won't be the same either, without a bit of Coco.
Coco's greatest song, "Walk With the Spirit," a truly spiritual song that was our personal battery-charger during the dark days after the 2005 flood, is here. The album it was on, 1995's Spiritland, is one of our all-time faves.
Sometimes I walk all by myself
I don’t want to talk to no one else
And I close my eyes
And I feel the spirit rise
That he had made this album made his attendence for the entire duration of The Year Before the Flood party all that more precious to us.
Season 3 of Treme won't be the same either, without a bit of Coco.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Occupy Wall Street protesters arrive in D.C. after 231-mile walk from New York
One of the commentators to the article in the Washington Post that includes photos of the Walkers' bloody feet, stated, "Tea partiers would never do this." No truer words could be uttered than these by one of the Walkers, "Most people don't know what it is to walk two miles."
[ " Planting their flag in the District, they immediately held a meeting to try to figure out how best to take their frustrations to Capitol Hill, a growing focus for the movement that started Sept. 17 in a park near Wall Street but now includes more than 1,000 occupation sites around the world.
“I will march till my feet bleed to make this point,” Mike Gibb, 21, of Bel Air, Md., told several dozen reporters and well-wishers at the park. “You may ask why I went on this march. I ask you, ‘Why didn’t you?’ ”
On Nov. 9, before New York police raided Occupy Wall Street at Zuccotti Park, the 21 protesters set out from Manhattan to take their message to Congress, timed for when the congressional “supercommittee” would issue its decision on how to reduce the deficit.
They walked through Trenton, N.J.; Philadelphia; Wilmington, Del.; Joppatowne, Md.; and Baltimore, then to College Park, relying on supporters for food, a place to sleep and some cash. " ]
[ " Planting their flag in the District, they immediately held a meeting to try to figure out how best to take their frustrations to Capitol Hill, a growing focus for the movement that started Sept. 17 in a park near Wall Street but now includes more than 1,000 occupation sites around the world.
“I will march till my feet bleed to make this point,” Mike Gibb, 21, of Bel Air, Md., told several dozen reporters and well-wishers at the park. “You may ask why I went on this march. I ask you, ‘Why didn’t you?’ ”
On Nov. 9, before New York police raided Occupy Wall Street at Zuccotti Park, the 21 protesters set out from Manhattan to take their message to Congress, timed for when the congressional “supercommittee” would issue its decision on how to reduce the deficit.
They walked through Trenton, N.J.; Philadelphia; Wilmington, Del.; Joppatowne, Md.; and Baltimore, then to College Park, relying on supporters for food, a place to sleep and some cash. " ]
Monday, November 21, 2011
Occupy to Liberate: Council of Elders - Occupy March 11/20/11
After the sessions in Judson Church, there rallies Washington Square Park. The very large crowd then marched down Avenue of the Americas to our backdoor, Duarte Park, property owned by Trinity Church, right off Canal, not used by anyone for anything, except to cut through on the way to and from the subway. Occupy SoHo? Down with that!
Among the Elders was a Rabbi from Philadelphia who advised about space. He said you need indoor space. There is so much abandoned property everywhere -- factories, warehouses, etc.. Except here in NYC, there is not. We've never had a real estate crash here, not even a little bit. So, he said, go to church and synagogue property -- religious institutions are huge real estates owners.
The March then, occupied the sky.
In the meantime that Mayors of U.S. Cities with Occupy movement conference (organized by Obama's Dept. of Justice!) have settled on the meme that Occupy is unsanitary. I challenge any of those mayors to contrast what Zuccotti Park was like with the way it is here down in SoHo all the time with the rats, the restaurants, the vendors, the tourists, the dogs, all throwing their garbage into our streets, onto the streets and occupying our sidewalks. Zuccotti Park did not smell any time I was there. Any time I was there people were busy cleaning it. But SoHo does reek frequently.
Among the Elders was a Rabbi from Philadelphia who advised about space. He said you need indoor space. There is so much abandoned property everywhere -- factories, warehouses, etc.. Except here in NYC, there is not. We've never had a real estate crash here, not even a little bit. So, he said, go to church and synagogue property -- religious institutions are huge real estates owners.
The March then, occupied the sky.
In the meantime that Mayors of U.S. Cities with Occupy movement conference (organized by Obama's Dept. of Justice!) have settled on the meme that Occupy is unsanitary. I challenge any of those mayors to contrast what Zuccotti Park was like with the way it is here down in SoHo all the time with the rats, the restaurants, the vendors, the tourists, the dogs, all throwing their garbage into our streets, onto the streets and occupying our sidewalks. Zuccotti Park did not smell any time I was there. Any time I was there people were busy cleaning it. But SoHo does reek frequently.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
A C'town Amiga Writes Concerning Today's Council Of Elders Event
Her own words below, with her permission. First she taught elementary school, then she became a social worker.
The cop helicopters, cop tanks, cop horses, copscopscops are swarming all over us again, because elders of the non-violent Civil Rights Movement of over a half century ago are addressing the younger generations.
The cop helicopters, cop tanks, cop horses, copscopscops are swarming all over us again, because elders of the non-violent Civil Rights Movement of over a half century ago are addressing the younger generations.
[ " That made me cry.......could it possibly be that "somthin's happenin' here, what it is isn't really clear..." ? Am I an Elder? I was 15 when I went to my first civil rights march, I was 19 when my first friends died in Viet Nam, I was 23 when children were shot down in cold blood at Kent State and Jackson State .....and the gym teacher shoved me up against the wall in the teachers' room at Back River Elementary School for wearing a black armband the next day..."They shoulda' shot a hundred of the little bastards!".........man,that was a memorable day................................now I'm 65 and 80 year old ladies in tennis shoes are being peppersprayed in Seattle...........I think I've got my tennis shoes around here somewhere!
Golden light here, shining thru the last of the magnificent gingkos and Autumn Glory maples........more golden here than there I think....you are that much closer to the North Pole :) Wonderful description ........keep the faith.........Love, *******
p.s. WIN is almost sold out of (second hand) Christmas stuff, a sure indicator of reality here...................p.p.s. Read Naomi Klein in current The Nation............stunning analysis................Happy Martini weather! And Happy Thanksgiving! I will be sharing it with the others of my Fellowship at the Alano Club! " ]
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Council of Elders dialogue with OWS this Sunday, Nov. 20th
In New York City on November 20th, members of the Elder Council will spend time with those encamped at Zuccoti Park, beginning at 2:30 PM. They will lead a worship service in front of the “red structure” within Zuccotti Park at 3:30 pm. Elders will then host a dialogue with Occupy Wall Street demonstrators and other interested individuals at 5pm, at 74 Trinity Place. Both events are open to the public.
http://www.belovedcommunitycenter.org/
Veterans of America’s 20th Century civil rights movement will enter the 21st Century Occupy Wall Street movement in New York, Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles on Sunday, November 20.
Known as the “Council of Elders,” they will step inside the nationwide encampments to symbolically share the torch of hope and justice and engage the Occupiers in dialogue about defining movements of the past. “We want to contribute to this intergenerational movement,” says Dr. Vincent Harding, activist and writer in the civil rights movement. “We are thankful for the efforts of Occupy Wall Street to unite the 99% and bring the many gifts and great energy of millions into effective action to transform our nation.”
The Council of Elders is an independent group of leaders from the farm workers, sanctuary and human rights movements that shook the nation’s conscience with public protests over the past 50 years.
“We see Occupy Wall Street as a continuation, a deepening and expansion of the determination of the diverse peoples of our nation to transform our country into a more democratic, equitable, just, and compassionate society,” excerpt from the statement of solidarity by the Council of Elders to be read at each of the Occupy encampments.
By bringing their voices to the Occupy Wall Street movement, the elders are addressing a litany of social grievances, including poverty, mass incarceration, and what they call a culture of war and violence. Dolores Huerta, activist with Cesar Chavez and the farm-workers movement, believes today’s conditions create bitter divisions among peoples across the United States and throughout the world.
“We applaud the miraculous extent to which the Occupy initiative around the nation has been non-violent and democratic, especially in light of the weight of the systematic violence under which the great majority of people are forced to live,” says Rev. James Lawson, leading theoretician, tactician and theologian of the civil rights movement.
The economic crisis which sparked the Occupy Wall Street movement also motivated the veteran protesters. They cite soaring unemployment rates, home foreclosures, and inadequate health care as issues that require public outcries.
The Council of Elders promotes compassion and non-violent action as the highest values to reverse trends that put profits ahead of people in its quest to contribute to the much-needed movement for a more just society and a more peaceful world.
The council members are urging elders from around the nation to join the Occupy Wall Street movement.
In New York City on November 20th, members of the Elder Council will spend time with those encamped at Zuccoti Park, beginning at 2:30 PM. They will lead a worship service in front of the “red structure” within Zuccotti Park at 3:30 pm. Elders will then host a dialogue with Occupy Wall Street demonstrators and other interested individuals at 5pm, at 74 Trinity Place. Both events are open to the public.
Click here to download press release
http://www.belovedcommunitycenter.org/
Veterans of America’s 20th Century civil rights movement will enter the 21st Century Occupy Wall Street movement in New York, Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles on Sunday, November 20.
Known as the “Council of Elders,” they will step inside the nationwide encampments to symbolically share the torch of hope and justice and engage the Occupiers in dialogue about defining movements of the past. “We want to contribute to this intergenerational movement,” says Dr. Vincent Harding, activist and writer in the civil rights movement. “We are thankful for the efforts of Occupy Wall Street to unite the 99% and bring the many gifts and great energy of millions into effective action to transform our nation.”
The Council of Elders is an independent group of leaders from the farm workers, sanctuary and human rights movements that shook the nation’s conscience with public protests over the past 50 years.
“We see Occupy Wall Street as a continuation, a deepening and expansion of the determination of the diverse peoples of our nation to transform our country into a more democratic, equitable, just, and compassionate society,” excerpt from the statement of solidarity by the Council of Elders to be read at each of the Occupy encampments.
By bringing their voices to the Occupy Wall Street movement, the elders are addressing a litany of social grievances, including poverty, mass incarceration, and what they call a culture of war and violence. Dolores Huerta, activist with Cesar Chavez and the farm-workers movement, believes today’s conditions create bitter divisions among peoples across the United States and throughout the world.
“We applaud the miraculous extent to which the Occupy initiative around the nation has been non-violent and democratic, especially in light of the weight of the systematic violence under which the great majority of people are forced to live,” says Rev. James Lawson, leading theoretician, tactician and theologian of the civil rights movement.
The economic crisis which sparked the Occupy Wall Street movement also motivated the veteran protesters. They cite soaring unemployment rates, home foreclosures, and inadequate health care as issues that require public outcries.
The Council of Elders promotes compassion and non-violent action as the highest values to reverse trends that put profits ahead of people in its quest to contribute to the much-needed movement for a more just society and a more peaceful world.
The council members are urging elders from around the nation to join the Occupy Wall Street movement.
In New York City on November 20th, members of the Elder Council will spend time with those encamped at Zuccoti Park, beginning at 2:30 PM. They will lead a worship service in front of the “red structure” within Zuccotti Park at 3:30 pm. Elders will then host a dialogue with Occupy Wall Street demonstrators and other interested individuals at 5pm, at 74 Trinity Place. Both events are open to the public.
Click here to download press release
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Barbarians & Thugs Destroy Libraries = Bloomberg & the NYPD
From "Who Destroys Libraries?"
Thugs and barbarians.
Ergo Bloomberg & the NYPD.
From a commentator:
It's so weird how our primary media are reporting these matters -- the Italians protesting Berlusconi are considered worthy of our support, understanding and even admiration. Even the vaguest semblance of public protest on the part of the non-1% here is at best ridiculous and at worst lese majesty that deserves at least very long prison sentences.
Thugs and barbarians.
Ergo Bloomberg & the NYPD.
From a commentator:
What is meaningful in a library? The books and media? The access to information, or to story, or to history? The gathering and cultivating and cataloging of those elements so necessary to civilization? The refuge from ignorance? The refuge from isolation? The people who make it all happen and help us understand the resources available to us? The open door?
A library to me is a public place, defined by who is allowed in rather than by public ownership. And on that measure, as well as every measure which I mentioned above, the library tent at Occupy Wall Street was a public library. They had over 5000 published books, original writing and poetry and art, people who volunteered there, and people who used the library. They had all that until New York City made the conscious decision to destroy the library.
That act of destruction was, to me, not qualitatively different from the book burning in Opernplatz in 1933. Both were political acts of destruction intended as statements of power, demeaning and diminishing those disfavored by the state, targeting the tangible instantiations of knowledge and discourse.
It's so weird how our primary media are reporting these matters -- the Italians protesting Berlusconi are considered worthy of our support, understanding and even admiration. Even the vaguest semblance of public protest on the part of the non-1% here is at best ridiculous and at worst lese majesty that deserves at least very long prison sentences.
The Wondrous Database
"This Book Is 119 Years Overdue
The wondrous database that reveals what Americans checked out of the library a century ago."
The long article describing the database and its place in a the long sociological study of Middletown, U.S.A (Muncie, Indiana), and the author's personal engagement with what Louis Bloom, a particular patron's checkouts might mean is in Slate today:
Ever since the sociologists Robert and Helen Lynd published a pathbreaking pair of books about the city (Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture, 1929, and Middletown in Transition : A Study in Cultural Conflicts, 1937) the place has been awash in social scientists studying its every move; this database is in fact part of Ball State’s Center for Middletown Studies.
Each part of it is fascinating, even though the author's goal, to use it as time travel failed. In this part anyone who reads / or writes history or historical fiction can't fail but to be interested.
The database, What Middletown Read, can be accessed here.
Stuart’s point about the gap between what you read and who you are got me thinking. Maybe the way Louis receded as I chased after him was not my problem but my answer. In the books Louis checked out he found, as readers everywhere always do, more than just a perfect mirror of his own life (as if “what Middletown read” told us “what Middletown really was”). He also found a way out: a glimpse of the Italy where scientists experimented with frog’s legs, or the state of Mississippi back when killing a slave was a simple property crime. The books he read might even have helped him catch a glimpse of what he wanted his own future to be working in the world of mechanics and of physics, far from Muncie (“Go West, young man”—yes, until you hit the Philippines). Thanks to those books, he too had a telescope. Like mine, it was small and imperfect, with no guarantees about the accuracy of what he glimpsed through it. Still, coming from the sort of Muncie life that he did (his mom had moved them in with in-laws, had even been threatened with having to send the kids off to various relatives) I bet that glimpse at a distant world loomed fairly large for him.
The database, What Middletown Read, can be accessed here.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
*War Horse* & Louisa May Alcott
Speilberg did a special early screening for Canadian veterans for Veterans Day. War Horse, the film, which like the theater work is made from the children's novel by Michael Mopurgo, opens here at Christmas.
The trailers show the horse beautiful, but what happens to animals in war, as to the earth, other animals, women and children is so disgusting I probably won't be able to watch this film (and Spielberg is not my cuppa anway). Even the story told in Louisa May Alcott's Little Men to the boys and girls at Plumfield by the black man-of-all-work, Silas, and his cavalry horse, Major, in the Civil War disturbed me the reader as much as it disturbed Daisy. Like her I cried to see Silas still carried a bit of the horse's mane wrapped in paper and kept in his wallet.
[ " "I don't know but jest one story, and that's about a horse," he said, much flattered by the reception he received.
"Tell it! tell it!" cried the boys.
"Wal," began Silas, tipping his chair back against the wall, and putting his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, "I jined a cavalry regiment durin' the war, and see a consid'able amount of fightin'. My horse, Major, was a fust-rate animal, and I was as fond on him as ef he'd ben a human critter. He warn't harnsome, but he was the best-tempered, stiddyest, lovenest brute I ever see. I fust battle we went into, he gave me a lesson that I didn't forgit in a hurry, and I'll tell you how it was. It ain't no use tryin' to picter the noise and hurry, and general horridness of a battle to you young fellers, for I ain't no words to do it in; but I'm free to confess that I got so sort of confused and upset at the fust on it, that I didn't know what I was about. We was ordered to charge, and went ahead like good ones, never stoppin' to pick up them that went down in the scrimmage. I got a shot in the arm, and was pitched out of the saddle–don't know how, but there I was left behind with two or three others, dead and wounded, for the rest went on, as I say. Wal, I picked myself up and looked round for Major, feeling as ef I'd had about enough for that spell. I didn't see him nowhere, and was kinder walking back to camp, when I heard a whinny that sounded nateral. I looked round, and there was Major stopping for me a long way off, and lookin' as ef he didn't understand why I was loiterin' behind. I whistled, and he trotted up to me as I'd trained him to do. I mounted as well as I could with my left arm bleedin' and was for going on to camp, for I declare I felt as sick and wimbly as a woman; folks often do in their fust battle. But, no sir! Major was the bravest of the two, and he wouldn't go, not a peg; he jest rared up, and danced, and snorted, and acted as ef the smell of powder and the noise had drove him half wild. I done my best, but he wouldn't give in, so I did; and what do you think that plucky brute done? He wheeled slap round, and galloped back like a hurricane, right into the thickest of the scrimmage!"
"Good for him!" cried Dan excitedly, while the other boys forgot apples and nuts in their interest.
"I wish I may die ef I warn't ashamed of myself," continued Silas, warming up at the recollection of that day. "I was mad as a hornet, and I forgot my waound, and jest pitched in, rampagin' raound like fury till there come a shell into the midst of us, and in bustin' knocked a lot of us flat. I didn't know nothin' for a spell, and when I come-to, the fight was over just there, and I found myself layin' by a wall of poor Major long-side wuss wounded than I was. My leg was broke, and I had a ball in my shoulder, but he, poor old feller! was all tore in the side with a piece of that blasted shell."
"O Silas! what did you do?" cried Nan, pressing close to him with a face full of eager sympathy and interest.
"I dragged myself nigher, and tried to stop the bleedin' with sech rags as I could tear off of me with one hand. But it warn't no use, and he lay moanin' with horrid pain, and lookin' at me with them lovin' eyes of his, till I thought I couldn't bear it. I give him all the help I could, and when the sun got hotter and hotter, and he began to lap out his tongue, I tried to get to a brook that was a good piece away, but I couldn't do it, being stiff and faint, so I give it up and fanned him with my hat. Now you listen to this, and when you hear folks comin' down on the rebs, you jest remember what one on 'em did, and give him credit of it. I poor feller in gray laid not fur off, shot through the lungs and dyin' fast. I'd offered him my handkerchief to keep the sun off his face, and he'd thanked me kindly, for in sech times as that men don't stop to think on which side they belong, but jest buckle-to and help one another. When he see me mournin' over Major and tryin' to ease his pain, he looked up with his face all damp and white with sufferin', and sez he, 'There's water in my canteen; take it, for it can't help me,' and he flung it to me. I couldn't have took it ef I hadn't had a little brandy in a pocket flask, and I made him drink it. It done him good, and I felt as much set up as if I'd drunk it myself. It's surprisin' the good sech little things do folks sometime;" and Silas paused as if he felt again the comfort of that moment when he and his enemy forgot their feud, and helped one another like brothers.
"Tell about Major," cried the boys, impatient for the catastrophe.
"I poured the water over his poor pantin' tongue, and ef ever a dumb critter looked grateful, he did then. But it warn't of much use, for the dreadful waound kep on tormentin' him, till I couldn't bear it any longer. It was hard, but I done it in mercy, and I know he forgive me."
"What did you do?" asked Emil, as Silas stopped abruptly with a loud "hem," and a look in his rough face that made Daisy go and stand by him with her little hand on his knee.
"I shot him."
Quite a thrill went through the listeners as Silas said that, for Major seemed a hero in their eyes, and his tragic end roused all their sympathy.
"Yes, I shot him, and put him out of his misery. I patted him fust, and said, 'Good-by;' then I laid his head easy on the grass, give a last look into his lovin' eyes, and sent a bullet through his head. He hardly stirred, I aimed so true, and when I seen him quite still, with no more moanin' and pain, I was glad, and yet–wal, I don't know as I need by ashamed on't–I jest put my arms raound his neck and boo-hooed like a great baby. Sho! I didn't know I was sech a fool;" and Silas drew his sleeve across his eyes, as much touched by Daisy's sob, as by the memory of faithful Major.
No one spoke for a minute, because the boys were as quick to feel the pathos of the little story as tender-hearted Daisy, though they did not show it by crying.
"I'd like a horse like that," said Dan, half-aloud.
"Did the rebel man die, too?" asked Nan, anxiously.
"Not then. We laid there all day, and at night some of our fellers came to look after the missing ones. They nat'rally wanted to take me fust, but I knew I could wait, and the rebel had but one chance, maybe, so I made them carry him off right away. He had jest strength enough to hold out his hand to me and say, 'Thanky, comrade!' and them was the last words he spoke, for he died an hour after he got to the hospital-tent."
"How glad you must have been that you were kind to him!" said Demi, who was deeply impressed by this story.
"Wal, I did take comfort thinkin' of it, as I laid there alone for a number of hours with my head on Major's neck, and see the moon come up. I'd like to have buried the poor beast decent, but it warn't possible; so I cut off a bit of his mane, and I've kep it ever sence. Want to see it, sissy?"
"Oh, yes, please," answered Daisy, wiping away her tears to look.
Silas took out an old "wallet" as he called his pocket-book, and produced from an inner fold a bit of brown paper, in which was a rough lock of white horse-hair. The children looked at it silently, as it lay in the broad palm, and no one found any thing to ridicule in the love Silas bore his good horse Major.
"That is a sweet story, and I like it, though it did make me cry. Thank you very much, Si," and Daisy helped him fold and put away his little relic; while Nan stuffed a handful of pop-corn into his pocket, and the boys loudly expressed their flattering opinions of his story, feeling that there had been two heroes in it. " ]
Louisa May Alcott was herself a hero in the Civil War, She spent so much time with soldiers, writing for them and doing other sympathetic kindnesses beyond her nursing and assisting at surgery, one wonders if she heard this story or one much like it during that time. Alcott nursed the wounded soldiers in D.C. until she herself took so ill from the conditions that she came thisclosetodeath and as consequence suffered ill health for the rest of her life.
And I whine that I'm too sensitive to watch a movie made from a children's book.
The trailers show the horse beautiful, but what happens to animals in war, as to the earth, other animals, women and children is so disgusting I probably won't be able to watch this film (and Spielberg is not my cuppa anway). Even the story told in Louisa May Alcott's Little Men to the boys and girls at Plumfield by the black man-of-all-work, Silas, and his cavalry horse, Major, in the Civil War disturbed me the reader as much as it disturbed Daisy. Like her I cried to see Silas still carried a bit of the horse's mane wrapped in paper and kept in his wallet.
[ " "I don't know but jest one story, and that's about a horse," he said, much flattered by the reception he received.
"Tell it! tell it!" cried the boys.
"Wal," began Silas, tipping his chair back against the wall, and putting his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, "I jined a cavalry regiment durin' the war, and see a consid'able amount of fightin'. My horse, Major, was a fust-rate animal, and I was as fond on him as ef he'd ben a human critter. He warn't harnsome, but he was the best-tempered, stiddyest, lovenest brute I ever see. I fust battle we went into, he gave me a lesson that I didn't forgit in a hurry, and I'll tell you how it was. It ain't no use tryin' to picter the noise and hurry, and general horridness of a battle to you young fellers, for I ain't no words to do it in; but I'm free to confess that I got so sort of confused and upset at the fust on it, that I didn't know what I was about. We was ordered to charge, and went ahead like good ones, never stoppin' to pick up them that went down in the scrimmage. I got a shot in the arm, and was pitched out of the saddle–don't know how, but there I was left behind with two or three others, dead and wounded, for the rest went on, as I say. Wal, I picked myself up and looked round for Major, feeling as ef I'd had about enough for that spell. I didn't see him nowhere, and was kinder walking back to camp, when I heard a whinny that sounded nateral. I looked round, and there was Major stopping for me a long way off, and lookin' as ef he didn't understand why I was loiterin' behind. I whistled, and he trotted up to me as I'd trained him to do. I mounted as well as I could with my left arm bleedin' and was for going on to camp, for I declare I felt as sick and wimbly as a woman; folks often do in their fust battle. But, no sir! Major was the bravest of the two, and he wouldn't go, not a peg; he jest rared up, and danced, and snorted, and acted as ef the smell of powder and the noise had drove him half wild. I done my best, but he wouldn't give in, so I did; and what do you think that plucky brute done? He wheeled slap round, and galloped back like a hurricane, right into the thickest of the scrimmage!"
"Good for him!" cried Dan excitedly, while the other boys forgot apples and nuts in their interest.
"I wish I may die ef I warn't ashamed of myself," continued Silas, warming up at the recollection of that day. "I was mad as a hornet, and I forgot my waound, and jest pitched in, rampagin' raound like fury till there come a shell into the midst of us, and in bustin' knocked a lot of us flat. I didn't know nothin' for a spell, and when I come-to, the fight was over just there, and I found myself layin' by a wall of poor Major long-side wuss wounded than I was. My leg was broke, and I had a ball in my shoulder, but he, poor old feller! was all tore in the side with a piece of that blasted shell."
"O Silas! what did you do?" cried Nan, pressing close to him with a face full of eager sympathy and interest.
"I dragged myself nigher, and tried to stop the bleedin' with sech rags as I could tear off of me with one hand. But it warn't no use, and he lay moanin' with horrid pain, and lookin' at me with them lovin' eyes of his, till I thought I couldn't bear it. I give him all the help I could, and when the sun got hotter and hotter, and he began to lap out his tongue, I tried to get to a brook that was a good piece away, but I couldn't do it, being stiff and faint, so I give it up and fanned him with my hat. Now you listen to this, and when you hear folks comin' down on the rebs, you jest remember what one on 'em did, and give him credit of it. I poor feller in gray laid not fur off, shot through the lungs and dyin' fast. I'd offered him my handkerchief to keep the sun off his face, and he'd thanked me kindly, for in sech times as that men don't stop to think on which side they belong, but jest buckle-to and help one another. When he see me mournin' over Major and tryin' to ease his pain, he looked up with his face all damp and white with sufferin', and sez he, 'There's water in my canteen; take it, for it can't help me,' and he flung it to me. I couldn't have took it ef I hadn't had a little brandy in a pocket flask, and I made him drink it. It done him good, and I felt as much set up as if I'd drunk it myself. It's surprisin' the good sech little things do folks sometime;" and Silas paused as if he felt again the comfort of that moment when he and his enemy forgot their feud, and helped one another like brothers.
"Tell about Major," cried the boys, impatient for the catastrophe.
"I poured the water over his poor pantin' tongue, and ef ever a dumb critter looked grateful, he did then. But it warn't of much use, for the dreadful waound kep on tormentin' him, till I couldn't bear it any longer. It was hard, but I done it in mercy, and I know he forgive me."
"What did you do?" asked Emil, as Silas stopped abruptly with a loud "hem," and a look in his rough face that made Daisy go and stand by him with her little hand on his knee.
"I shot him."
Quite a thrill went through the listeners as Silas said that, for Major seemed a hero in their eyes, and his tragic end roused all their sympathy.
"Yes, I shot him, and put him out of his misery. I patted him fust, and said, 'Good-by;' then I laid his head easy on the grass, give a last look into his lovin' eyes, and sent a bullet through his head. He hardly stirred, I aimed so true, and when I seen him quite still, with no more moanin' and pain, I was glad, and yet–wal, I don't know as I need by ashamed on't–I jest put my arms raound his neck and boo-hooed like a great baby. Sho! I didn't know I was sech a fool;" and Silas drew his sleeve across his eyes, as much touched by Daisy's sob, as by the memory of faithful Major.
No one spoke for a minute, because the boys were as quick to feel the pathos of the little story as tender-hearted Daisy, though they did not show it by crying.
"I'd like a horse like that," said Dan, half-aloud.
"Did the rebel man die, too?" asked Nan, anxiously.
"Not then. We laid there all day, and at night some of our fellers came to look after the missing ones. They nat'rally wanted to take me fust, but I knew I could wait, and the rebel had but one chance, maybe, so I made them carry him off right away. He had jest strength enough to hold out his hand to me and say, 'Thanky, comrade!' and them was the last words he spoke, for he died an hour after he got to the hospital-tent."
"How glad you must have been that you were kind to him!" said Demi, who was deeply impressed by this story.
"Wal, I did take comfort thinkin' of it, as I laid there alone for a number of hours with my head on Major's neck, and see the moon come up. I'd like to have buried the poor beast decent, but it warn't possible; so I cut off a bit of his mane, and I've kep it ever sence. Want to see it, sissy?"
"Oh, yes, please," answered Daisy, wiping away her tears to look.
Silas took out an old "wallet" as he called his pocket-book, and produced from an inner fold a bit of brown paper, in which was a rough lock of white horse-hair. The children looked at it silently, as it lay in the broad palm, and no one found any thing to ridicule in the love Silas bore his good horse Major.
"That is a sweet story, and I like it, though it did make me cry. Thank you very much, Si," and Daisy helped him fold and put away his little relic; while Nan stuffed a handful of pop-corn into his pocket, and the boys loudly expressed their flattering opinions of his story, feeling that there had been two heroes in it. " ]
Louisa May Alcott was herself a hero in the Civil War, She spent so much time with soldiers, writing for them and doing other sympathetic kindnesses beyond her nursing and assisting at surgery, one wonders if she heard this story or one much like it during that time. Alcott nursed the wounded soldiers in D.C. until she herself took so ill from the conditions that she came thisclosetodeath and as consequence suffered ill health for the rest of her life.
And I whine that I'm too sensitive to watch a movie made from a children's book.
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