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.
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