I am still recovering from Readercon! Have some stuff that's been occupying me since then.
1. My poem "Lyric Fragment" is now online at Goblin Fruit. It was written in the fall of 2010 for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rushthatspeaks and incorporates one of my favorite pieces of Greek lyric (Anakreon fr. 398). I don't think it counts as a ghost poem, even if the poet has a look in. I never did write about him and Marlowe.
2. Ian Tregillis' Bitter Seeds (2010) is as good ashandful_ofdust promised when she threw it at me and avoids the Stross problem entirely: while the text neither erases nor elides the Holocaust (it is not a focus, but references to the camps exist), it leaves genocide an entirely human atrocity; it has nothing to do with the blood prices paid by the warlocks of Britain to the terrible, Enochian-speaking Eidolons in order to ward the island against Nazi invasion or the torturous, high-attrition methods used by Doctor von Westarp of the Reichsbehörde für die Erweiterung germanischen Potenzials to stimulate and accelerate fringe-science superpowers in his "children." If the novel has a historical fault for me, it's that it seems to reduce World War II to a conflict between England and Germany with only a little of Russia brought in near the end to be the unpredictable third factor that both preternaturally-enhanced sides have overlooked—I'll buy the case for isolationist America, but I really feel Italy or Japan should at least have gotten a name-check. Given the novel's tight focus on one British warlock, one agent for the SOE-like Milkweed, and the most conventionally sympathetic member of von Westarp's Götterelektrongruppe, however, I'm willing to wait for the sequel and see whether this was a function of viewpoint rather than simplification. I believe the author is American, which is interesting. In any case, the book is probably not an easy read by most people's standards, dealing as it does with all sorts of supernatural and emotional atrocities, but I was impressed. Next, please.
3. I'd wanted to see Vernon Sewell and Gordon Wellesley's The Silver Fleet (1943) ever since I became aware that there were movies produced under the banner of the Archers outside of the famous collaborations of Powell and Pressburger. (It didn't hurt that Sewell was the very first character introduced in Michael Powell's 200,000 Feet on Foula (1938): "We were nosing blind through a tangle of mudbanks and fretful shipping; he had been on his feet for thirty-six hours and had the prospect of a sleepless night before him; his ship was a shambles, his cabin had two people asleep in it, but I knew, because I know Vernon, that he was struggling not to giggle out loud with the pure joy of his first steam command. Kipling would have appreciated Vernon: he has described him many times.") The film came out on DVD last October. I couldn't find it anywhere. It came up again on Monday when I was discussing Ralph Richardson withnineweaving. Thank God for YouTube.
( Why bother about van Leyden? There are more important things to do. )
4. I have discovered the original Broadway cast recording of Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock (1937), with Blitzstein himself on piano and narration. Because I'd never actually heard him when he wasn't being played by Hank Azaria, I wasn't sure it was the right version until I skipped ahead to "Leaflets" and "The Cradle Will Rock," the two numbers sung by Larry Foreman—Howard Da Silva originated the part. I'm more used to him in his later, lugubrious bari-sax mode ("Then I say you should write it, Franklin—yes, you!"—"Hell, no!"), but the timbre sounds right and some of the almost chuckling spoken register when Larry is being sarcastic about his umpteenth arrest for union organizing. I still need to listen to the entire score. It's never been claimed as one of the great American musicals, but it's historic agitprop and I like Blitzstein and I'm curious. I hadn't even known there was a recording until last night.
5. Scanning down a page a few days ago, I misread "Valentine's" as "Vesuvius." There has got to be something I can do with that.
1. My poem "Lyric Fragment" is now online at Goblin Fruit. It was written in the fall of 2010 for
rushthatspeaks and incorporates one of my favorite pieces of Greek lyric (Anakreon fr. 398). I don't think it counts as a ghost poem, even if the poet has a look in. I never did write about him and Marlowe.2. Ian Tregillis' Bitter Seeds (2010) is as good as
handful_ofdust promised when she threw it at me and avoids the Stross problem entirely: while the text neither erases nor elides the Holocaust (it is not a focus, but references to the camps exist), it leaves genocide an entirely human atrocity; it has nothing to do with the blood prices paid by the warlocks of Britain to the terrible, Enochian-speaking Eidolons in order to ward the island against Nazi invasion or the torturous, high-attrition methods used by Doctor von Westarp of the Reichsbehörde für die Erweiterung germanischen Potenzials to stimulate and accelerate fringe-science superpowers in his "children." If the novel has a historical fault for me, it's that it seems to reduce World War II to a conflict between England and Germany with only a little of Russia brought in near the end to be the unpredictable third factor that both preternaturally-enhanced sides have overlooked—I'll buy the case for isolationist America, but I really feel Italy or Japan should at least have gotten a name-check. Given the novel's tight focus on one British warlock, one agent for the SOE-like Milkweed, and the most conventionally sympathetic member of von Westarp's Götterelektrongruppe, however, I'm willing to wait for the sequel and see whether this was a function of viewpoint rather than simplification. I believe the author is American, which is interesting. In any case, the book is probably not an easy read by most people's standards, dealing as it does with all sorts of supernatural and emotional atrocities, but I was impressed. Next, please.3. I'd wanted to see Vernon Sewell and Gordon Wellesley's The Silver Fleet (1943) ever since I became aware that there were movies produced under the banner of the Archers outside of the famous collaborations of Powell and Pressburger. (It didn't hurt that Sewell was the very first character introduced in Michael Powell's 200,000 Feet on Foula (1938): "We were nosing blind through a tangle of mudbanks and fretful shipping; he had been on his feet for thirty-six hours and had the prospect of a sleepless night before him; his ship was a shambles, his cabin had two people asleep in it, but I knew, because I know Vernon, that he was struggling not to giggle out loud with the pure joy of his first steam command. Kipling would have appreciated Vernon: he has described him many times.") The film came out on DVD last October. I couldn't find it anywhere. It came up again on Monday when I was discussing Ralph Richardson with
nineweaving. Thank God for YouTube.( Why bother about van Leyden? There are more important things to do. )
4. I have discovered the original Broadway cast recording of Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock (1937), with Blitzstein himself on piano and narration. Because I'd never actually heard him when he wasn't being played by Hank Azaria, I wasn't sure it was the right version until I skipped ahead to "Leaflets" and "The Cradle Will Rock," the two numbers sung by Larry Foreman—Howard Da Silva originated the part. I'm more used to him in his later, lugubrious bari-sax mode ("Then I say you should write it, Franklin—yes, you!"—"Hell, no!"), but the timbre sounds right and some of the almost chuckling spoken register when Larry is being sarcastic about his umpteenth arrest for union organizing. I still need to listen to the entire score. It's never been claimed as one of the great American musicals, but it's historic agitprop and I like Blitzstein and I'm curious. I hadn't even known there was a recording until last night.
5. Scanning down a page a few days ago, I misread "Valentine's" as "Vesuvius." There has got to be something I can do with that.
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