This day was not much to start out with. In the first place, there is a gas leak in the street outside my parents' house: which means jackhammers. In the second, much as I usually like Thai food, this afternoon conclusively proved that it doesn't like me one bit. I spent far too much time collapsed in bed, listening to the ever-soporific lull of asphalt being drilled out like a bad tooth, and wondering if I should ever eat again. But after about five o'clock, things picked up sharply, and I'm very glad they did.
On the subway into Porter Square, I sat next to a girl who was re-reading Silver on the Tree; when I commented on this, she looked over and remarked on the hardcover of Diana Wynne Jones' Hexwood that I was carrying in a rather transparently pinkish plastic bag, along with the rest of my day's haul from The Book Rack, namely Cordwainer Smith's Space Lords, Gwyneth Jones' Bold as Love, and Vivien Alcock's The Mysterious Mr Ross.* We had a lovely conversation about the Chronicles of Narnia and the Dark Is Rising Sequence, and I recommended The Haunting of Cassie Palmer to her, and she recommended Coraline to me, and we parted as naturally as though we had been friends for years. Of course, I have no idea of her name: nor did I tell her mine. Eat your heart out, Strangers on a Train.
So that was a good prologue. The point of my trip into Porter Square:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gaudior, rushthatspeaks, eredien, weirdquark, and I all watched an incredible film called The Cuckoo, borrowed from nineweaving. It is the only movie I have ever seen—and, I suspect, the only one in existence—whose dialogue is in Russian, Finnish, and Saami, and whose three characters are mutually unintelligible. Only the audience understands them all. In the last days of World War II, Veiko is a young Finnish student, dressed up in an SS uniform and chained to a rock, Prometheus-fashion,** and left as a changeling sniper: a cuckoo. Psholtii,*** as the other characters call him (their phonetic interpretation of the Russian for "Get lost!" which he snarls when originally asked for his name), is a Soviet officer arrested for subversion, who really doesn't need the concussion he picked up on the way to his court-martial. And Anny is a Saami woman who hasn't seen another person since her husband was drafted four years ago: and two men on the same day is a godsend. It's a funny, poignant, frankly sexual, and beautifully otherworldly piece of storytelling, and I think we all loved it.
All in all, a most cool evening.rushthatspeaks and gaudior gave eredien a gift that I think we all coveted: Hope Mirrlees and Jane Harrison's The Book of the Bear. We observed.the antics of the gay teen incest cats. There was chocolate and a pomegranate. I watched some Season Three Babylon 5 (which I hadn’t seen in years) with gaudior, eredien, and lignota, and came home. And there I found, waiting for me in an immense pile of mostly unsorted mail, my royalty check from Prime Books. For the combined sales of Singing Innocence and Experience and Postcards from the Province of Hyphens since April, I have been paid an amount that will actually cover a few bills. This makes me happy. I might not starve after all.
All’s well that ends et cetera. I’m going to finish The Mysterious Mr. Ross—and sleep.
*Where was this book when I was a child? It has a shy and mysterious stranger who might be supernatural, or slightly cracked, or a liar, or all three, and it has the ocean. How could I have failed to read this in my formative years? Oh, well. At least I am liking it very much now.
**An allusion that, as a student, he has to point out when he tells his story: even though nobody can understand what he's saying in the first place, much less catch the reference.
***Thanks toeredien for Russian transliteration.
On the subway into Porter Square, I sat next to a girl who was re-reading Silver on the Tree; when I commented on this, she looked over and remarked on the hardcover of Diana Wynne Jones' Hexwood that I was carrying in a rather transparently pinkish plastic bag, along with the rest of my day's haul from The Book Rack, namely Cordwainer Smith's Space Lords, Gwyneth Jones' Bold as Love, and Vivien Alcock's The Mysterious Mr Ross.* We had a lovely conversation about the Chronicles of Narnia and the Dark Is Rising Sequence, and I recommended The Haunting of Cassie Palmer to her, and she recommended Coraline to me, and we parted as naturally as though we had been friends for years. Of course, I have no idea of her name: nor did I tell her mine. Eat your heart out, Strangers on a Train.
So that was a good prologue. The point of my trip into Porter Square:
gaudior, rushthatspeaks, eredien, weirdquark, and I all watched an incredible film called The Cuckoo, borrowed from nineweaving. It is the only movie I have ever seen—and, I suspect, the only one in existence—whose dialogue is in Russian, Finnish, and Saami, and whose three characters are mutually unintelligible. Only the audience understands them all. In the last days of World War II, Veiko is a young Finnish student, dressed up in an SS uniform and chained to a rock, Prometheus-fashion,** and left as a changeling sniper: a cuckoo. Psholtii,*** as the other characters call him (their phonetic interpretation of the Russian for "Get lost!" which he snarls when originally asked for his name), is a Soviet officer arrested for subversion, who really doesn't need the concussion he picked up on the way to his court-martial. And Anny is a Saami woman who hasn't seen another person since her husband was drafted four years ago: and two men on the same day is a godsend. It's a funny, poignant, frankly sexual, and beautifully otherworldly piece of storytelling, and I think we all loved it. All in all, a most cool evening.
rushthatspeaks and gaudior gave eredien a gift that I think we all coveted: Hope Mirrlees and Jane Harrison's The Book of the Bear. We observed.the antics of the gay teen incest cats. There was chocolate and a pomegranate. I watched some Season Three Babylon 5 (which I hadn’t seen in years) with gaudior, eredien, and lignota, and came home. And there I found, waiting for me in an immense pile of mostly unsorted mail, my royalty check from Prime Books. For the combined sales of Singing Innocence and Experience and Postcards from the Province of Hyphens since April, I have been paid an amount that will actually cover a few bills. This makes me happy. I might not starve after all.All’s well that ends et cetera. I’m going to finish The Mysterious Mr. Ross—and sleep.
*Where was this book when I was a child? It has a shy and mysterious stranger who might be supernatural, or slightly cracked, or a liar, or all three, and it has the ocean. How could I have failed to read this in my formative years? Oh, well. At least I am liking it very much now.
**An allusion that, as a student, he has to point out when he tells his story: even though nobody can understand what he's saying in the first place, much less catch the reference.
***Thanks to
eredien for Russian transliteration.
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