Salon des Fees

So .. tin ears all around, then?

2013-02-08T01:55:12Z

The other day, my husband the Swede (like My Mother the Car, but paler and more smug)told me that there was now a genre of literature in translation rather in the school of Steig Larsson - Scandinavian mystery, basically, involving pale people who drink way too much coffee but have excellent medical plans - that was being called Nordic detective.

So I said, "Noirdic?"

And he said "...."

"... yeah, that actually sounds a lot better, doesn't it. Actually, you say it like that, and it sounds more like it could come from a Scandinavian language, too."

Noirdic(k), people! Who's with me?

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Normalizing Fascism

2013-01-19T22:12:07Z

On my retro class-based British soap-opera kick, I've started watching "Upstairs, Downstairs." It's enjoyable candy-floss, but one of the episode descriptions made me raise a brow sky-high: something about how one of the character's right-wing politics cause her trouble.

She's a fascist/Nazi sympathizer.

I ... yeah. I can't help but feel that that's not quite the chronological equivalent of, say, today's Tea Party: it's more like the chronological equivalent of the Klan. Yikes, people.

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Deja vu ... et vu ... et vous ....

2013-01-16T18:11:40Z

So I mentioned the whole lead-poisoning, moving-into-hotels thing, but I don't think I mentioned the moving home bit yet.

It is really disconcerting to move back into your own house. Why did we? Well, largely because I fell madly in love with it when I found it, against all reason and all comers: the Gnu hates the noise, and I'm not a big fan of (translation: violently hate) my landlord these days, but between the high ceilings and the view of the Ansonia, the thought of leaving made me very sad. And, well, at least this way, once we made our way through the bloody abatement process, we'd know the place was lead-free, 100%.

That said - aside from my landlord behaving dreadfully when it comes to things like paying our movers for having to schlep our things out and back again - it is really weird to move back into a space I once inhabited. Like, you can't go home again weird, only, it turns out, you can. And then you can persistently hang your coat on the ghost of the hook that used to hang there. Or, not, as the case may be.

It's good to be home, but, man ... weird.

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The Right Way, and the Wrong Way: A Jamesian Cinematic Primer

2013-01-10T18:47:30Z

The Right Way: "The Wings of the Dove," 1997.

The Wrong Way: "The Golden Bowl," 2000.

I've been on a period movie kick - blame the Splenda-like "Downton Abbey" (no nutritional value, but weirdly, it makes you crave similar, more highly caloric things). Thanks to the plethora of Henry James adaptations available via Netflix, hours of viewing pleasure are mine for the asking!

Of course, the concept of "viewing pleasure," ranges from the sumptuous visual feast that is "The Wings of the Dove" - Helena Bonham Carter! the turquoise tiles of a place that looks like Leighton House's long-lost architectural cousin! indigo velvet embroidered with peacocks! VENICE! - to the laff-riot that is "The Golden Bowl."

I genuinely believe that "The Wings of the Dove" was a present the universe gave me for my high school graduation. It contains just about everything I adore. On the other hand, "The Golden Bowl" can only be a posthumous slap in the face to Henry James. From the costuming to the performances, it is perhaps the worst period piece I have ever seen. Uma Thurman wear what appears to be a sleeveless blouse at one point. I ASK YOU.

Wait, I lie. There was that one incredibly trippy thing I caught on late-night television in Sweden, featuring Ed Harris (of all people) as the leader of a biker gang who thought they were the Knights of the Round Table (while doing porn: seriously, I think the writers on Season 2 of "Sons of Anarchy" had this on in the background one night when they fell asleep and when they woke up they thought "...trippy ...." and happily lifted the ~~least~~ most plausible bits). That might have been worse. Though, that crossed the line into being so bad it was good, whereas "The Golden Bowl" is just a terrible mockery of all that is good and right in literary realism.

Next up: "The Portrait of a Lady," back from when Nicole Kidman had facial expressions. Could go either way.

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NYRSF reading

2013-01-09T16:10:03Z

Last night I attended Jim Freund's wonderful NYRSF reading series to hear Terry McGarry and Veronica Schanoes present their recent work. I'm biased since the latter is my best friend, but her story, "Burning Girls," is one of the best damned things I've ever heard read out loud.

I don't think that people necessarily understand that reading is an art. For a lot of people, it seems to be a basic process of getting the words off the page and into the ears of the audience. I don't think it's common to think of it as performance - which, to be frank, is exactly what it is. Given the skiffy subject matter, you might be thinking some variation along the lines that, damnit, Jim, you're a writer, not an actor, but ... hooey. The performance is actually as if not more important than the material. This goes for academic papers as much as it does fiction, something I wish someone had told me early on: I remember presenting far-too-long papers at conferences, thinking that as long as I got all the info out, of course everyone would follow!  Look, there it was, making sense on the page!

Yeah.

So now I cringe in sympathy whenever I'm on a panel with somebody presenting for the first or second time, who doesn't pause for breath or eye contact - bad enough! - but, worse yet, doesn't make the intonation work for them.

Example: "Burning Girls" is a "Rumplestiltskin" retelling set in the Jewish community in the early part of the 20th c., narrated in the first person by Deborah, a witch with a salty tongue and a foolish younger sister. The former shapes the problems of the latter eloquently. And in a perfect echo, when the Rumplestiltskin character is defeated, its name used against it, it cries out, "The Devil told you! The Devil told you that!"  And it sounded exactly like an aggrieved child who's furious with a sibling who just made trouble for it, which both works in the context of the retelling, and which makes me think about the original story in a whole new light. Because whenever I've read the original "Rumplestiltskin," I've gotten to the part where the Queen guesses his name correctly and he cries out that the Devil must have told her that, and stomps his foot so hard he goes straight down to Hell, and I think ... dude, talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. But the air of redirected fury? The implication that the Devil is about to get an earful? And, further, that there's a whole backstory for the demon and its motivation and intentions?  Genius.

Long story short: writers of all sorts, attend readings, take notes on good technique, and then practice.

On a less pro-tip note - or at least a pro-tip in a different vein - last night might have been the first time I attended an SF event since the kiddo came along, and oh, what a comedy of errors it was to get out the door. I had my clockwork routine to get ready ticking along nicely, and in the last five minutes Bear spat medicine on my skirt, I broke a nail, and my MetroCard fell down the little crack betwixt the elevator door and the floor, never to be seen again.

I will now be taking notes on the techniques of the mothers I know who manage to pull of social lives. We all have our little trade secrets, right?

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Okay, I give.

2012-12-29T17:52:50Z

I set up a Dreamwidth account ages ago and then ... drumroll, please, never used it. Of course, this is partially/largely because I stopped using social media altogether because of the strange feedback cycle that since nobody seemed to be using the types I was using, I wouldn't use it, either - why put all that effort into a post nobody would read? Which in all likelihood reinforced other people's similar thought processes. Silly.

As far as I can tell, the last time I bothered with Dreamwidth, it was August 14th, 2010. A lot has happened since then. (This is me tossing my hat into the ring for Understatement of the Year - a late entry, to be sure, but nevertheless a strong contender.) Of course, since more-or-less the last time I posted to LJ was when the baby was born in November 2011 (with a few sad attempts to reassert my journal around Christmas and the last big surge of sexism in fandom), it's not like that was a severe disjuncture. I'll try to synch the two - fear my mighty tech skills! - and probably fail, but from here on out, tabula rasa, because if I try to cover everything that's happened in between, I will never manage to post.

Last year, I had all of one resolution: be nice and patient. For the first year of parenthood, it worked out pretty well. I'm renewing it this year, I think. But I'm also going to add some new ones - more shallow, maybe, but not necessarily less important.

One of them is to eliminate denim from my wardrobe.

Another is to resurrect some semblance of an online community.

Here's to starting early ....

P.S. - If you have a DreamWidth account, possibly under another handle, and would like to friend me there, I will be very happy to rediscover you!

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Placeholder

2009-04-14T16:55:08Z

Rushing off to teach The Wood Beyond the World doesn't mean I don't love you!

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