Do you feel too much? Do you feel too real?

[sovay]

I ATE'NT DEAD.

I swear.

Comments

[sovay]

I am very much into Tom Lehrer. I grew up listening to his songs, which I'm sure warped me in innumerable and mostly imperceptible ways.

About a maid I'll sing a song . . .

[astromachy.livejournal.com]

Who did not have her family long...

I like your sense of humour.
I'll have to think of something you don't already have, then. As the music files are on the computer in the living room where my sister is asleep, it's too late to send anything tonight anyway.

You probably already have The Flash Girls?

[sovay]

I've got nothing of the Flash Girls. They're like Boiled in Lead: I'm aware of their existence, have read some of their lyrics, and have never actually heard them.

I didn't come to Emma Bull through War for the Oaks, either, which probably has something to do with it. I encountered Will Shetterly's Elsewhere and Nevernever in early high school, and branched out into Emma Bull's Finder and John M. Ford's The Last Hot Time shortly after. Acquired most of the Liavek anthologies primarily for the Pamela Dean. And eventually picked up War for the Oaks because I needed something to read on the flight to Italy, and discovered that pretty much everyone I knew had read that one first. Go figure.

[astromachy.livejournal.com]

I read Finder first too, and then looked for War for the Oaks.

I think it was the Neil Gaiman link that got me interested in the Flash Girls, though.
If there are any of their songs you'd like to hear, I have those. And Folk Underground.

I have to admit that I haven't read anything by Pamela Dean. She is on the list of authors I hope to read as soon as I'm earning money again.

[astromachy.livejournal.com]

Only if you're interested. I'm not trying to make it sound like you have to have some music. Something new is just nice sometimes.

And if you do want something, you'll have to give me your email again, because I was a scatterbrain and didn't save it.

And it is so late it's merely early rather than very early in the morning. I had better go to bed, I think.

[sovay]

Are you kidding? I'd love some of their music. I'm always curious.

(Sleep well.)

[astromachy.livejournal.com]

(A somewhat belated thank you)

Let me know if the files came through okay. I think I got it right, but I am not good with unfamiliar computer operations.

[sovay]

Both came through fine, and thank you! I am extremely fond of "Yeti" at the moment.

[astromachy.livejournal.com]

"Yeti" makes me smile every time I hear it. I'm glad you like it.

[sovay]

Pamela Dean is very good. I'm in an odd situation with her Tam Lin, because it's not actually my favorite retelling of the ballad: I much prefer Diana Wynne Jones' Fire and Hemlock, Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Perilous Gard, or Alan Garner's Red Shift. If Dean's novel had ben a novella, I think it might have been a marvelous retelling. But the story is spread too thin. As it is, I think it's a marvelous university novel that happens to have some "Tam Lin" cropping up in the plot from time to time. (I read it my freshman year of college, which was particularly amusing given that I then went on to major in Classics.) In some ways, I think Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary is more successful as a retelling, even though the ballad again doesn't make a strong appearance until the very end of the novel—the weirdness is simultaneously more submerged and more present throughout. And I am extremely fond of her stories about the Benedicti family, from the Liavek anthologies. That may be all of hers that I've read; I'm waiting for more.