I seem to have lost most of this week to falling down the stairs. I did get to a seminar at the Massachusetts Historical Society, which I enjoyed immensely; it left me with more books I want to read. I had Movie Night with Alison. I lost some time to discovering that much of The Jack Benny Program (1950–1965) has been uploaded to YouTube. And otherwise mostly I did not move, or learned there are directions in which I should not try to.
I did not set off any fireworks for Guy Fawkes Day. I did sing "The Bonfire Carol (Judas Was a Red-Headed Man)," but that was later in the evening at Single Malt & Song. First I met![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rushthatspeaks and B.—in town for a very flying visit—for lunch at Sapporo Ramen in Porter Square, after which we spent most of the afternoon at the MFA with Aphrodite and other erotic gods; I read the second volume of Kaoru Mori's A Bride's Story (2011) on the Green Line and walked through most of the museum with blue streaks on my face from Rush's hair, which is not being colorfast at present. For my extended birthday, B. gave me a copy of Donald Kingsbury's Courtship Rite (1982), which I have been wanting to read for years; I said from descriptions it had sounded like Ursula K. Le Guin with more cannibalism and they both agreed.
My present from Rush andgaudior was the British first edition of Elizabeth Goudge's The Valley of Song (1951). It is her best and her least-known novel for children; I have never owned a copy, because as far as I can tell there was one printing in the U.K. and one printing in the U.S. and no one has ever bothered with a second edition, even though The Little White Horse (1946) has never been out of print and it's easily the least of the three I've read. It has to be tracked down in libraries. It tends to be stolen from them. It has a particular quality of numinous I'm not sure what to liken to, because its closest relative would have to be C.S. Lewis (Anglicanism, classical myth and English magic, transcendence in the everyday) and he would never have written this book, and this is the edition with the illustrations I remember from my childhood, with the brightly colored dust jacket I've never seen. Best cousins. I did not expect I would ever own it.
This is a good weekend for an extra hour, however theoretical, in which to sleep.
I did not set off any fireworks for Guy Fawkes Day. I did sing "The Bonfire Carol (Judas Was a Red-Headed Man)," but that was later in the evening at Single Malt & Song. First I met
rushthatspeaks and B.—in town for a very flying visit—for lunch at Sapporo Ramen in Porter Square, after which we spent most of the afternoon at the MFA with Aphrodite and other erotic gods; I read the second volume of Kaoru Mori's A Bride's Story (2011) on the Green Line and walked through most of the museum with blue streaks on my face from Rush's hair, which is not being colorfast at present. For my extended birthday, B. gave me a copy of Donald Kingsbury's Courtship Rite (1982), which I have been wanting to read for years; I said from descriptions it had sounded like Ursula K. Le Guin with more cannibalism and they both agreed. My present from Rush and
gaudior was the British first edition of Elizabeth Goudge's The Valley of Song (1951). It is her best and her least-known novel for children; I have never owned a copy, because as far as I can tell there was one printing in the U.K. and one printing in the U.S. and no one has ever bothered with a second edition, even though The Little White Horse (1946) has never been out of print and it's easily the least of the three I've read. It has to be tracked down in libraries. It tends to be stolen from them. It has a particular quality of numinous I'm not sure what to liken to, because its closest relative would have to be C.S. Lewis (Anglicanism, classical myth and English magic, transcendence in the everyday) and he would never have written this book, and this is the edition with the illustrations I remember from my childhood, with the brightly colored dust jacket I've never seen. Best cousins. I did not expect I would ever own it.This is a good weekend for an extra hour, however theoretical, in which to sleep.
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