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Nine tailors make a man
1. My novelette "The Dybbuk in Love" will be reprinted in People of the Book: A Decade of Jewish Science Fiction & Fantasy, edited by Sean Wallace and Rachel Swirsky. The table of contents should be fantastic.
2. "The Miller of Dee" is the same tune as "Rolling Down to Old Maui." The fact that I realized this only a few days ago may be a testament to the power of Benjamin Britten.
3. The name did not ring any bells, but I think the article I was trying to remember in my post on the BBC's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954) must have been a chapter from Gregory Woods' A History of Gay Literature: The Male Tradition (1998), here quoted in Colm Tóibín's "Roaming the Greenwood": "[W]henever I read Nineteen Eighty-Four I cannot help imagining, between its lines, the spectral presence of another novel, a gay novel called 'Nineteen Forty-Eight', in which two young Londoners called Winston and Julian fall in love with each other and struggle to sustain their relationship under the continuous threat of blackmail, exposure and arrest . . . What read as a futuristic nightmare to the heterosexual reader must have seemed to the homosexual reader somewhat paranoid and ignorant, because so close to the reality of homosexual life in England at the time—but showing no sign that Orwell was aware of this fact." I bet this means I should read the rest of the book.
4. Currently running at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum is an exhibit called "Curve Appeal." I thought from the title maybe it would feature C3 Corvettes, but the machines actually on display were even better; it is an entire collection of sleek, opulent, streamlined cars from the 1930's and early '40's, when aerodynamics met art deco. They are beautiful pieces of engineering. Like Tolkien to a reader of present-day fantasy, the Chrysler Airflow now looks utterly unremarkable, even a little obvious, but in 1934 its rounded-off, backswept lines were so avant-garde, the car was a notorious commercial failure. (Two years later, the Lincoln-Zephyr would take the same low-drag, high-concept principles and sell like hotcakes.) The 1935 Stout Scarab, a kind of aluminum-hulled, swivel-seated minivan designed by an aviation engineer, still looks futuristic. The 1938 Delahaye Type 135 and the Talbot-Lago Teardrop Coupe, by contrast, are so intensely and elegantly of their time that you walk away with a sort of primal desire for martinis and perhaps a monocle. ("Bunter, launch the Lagonda!") The walls are hung with automotive concept art by Theodore W. Pietsch II, whose sense of movement reminded me oddly of the Vorticists. There is big-band jazz playing over the sound system, Glenn Miller's "In the Mood" and Benny Goodman's "Sing, Sing, Sing." The exhibit was curated by Sheldon Steele and it's as much art history as it is science and technology—I'd recommend it even to people who are bored and/or horrified by cars.
5. I am confused as to how Neil Jordan's Ondine (2009) can be on Viking Zen's Roku one week and playing at the Kendall Square Cinema the next, but now I really have no excuse not to write up a post for it. It is a film about the sea and secrets and the reasons people tell themselves stories; it is neither Splash (1984) nor The Secret of Roan Inish (1994) and I liked it immensely. It has become clear to me that I couldn't have found a worse introduction to Colin Farrell than Oliver Stone's Alexander (2004) if I'd studied how to do it.
6. I did not like The End of the Affair (1955), but its supporting cast consisted of Peter Cushing, John Mills, and Michael Goodliffe, so any time they were onscreen I can count as not a waste.
7. I believe emphatically that there are some things which never need to be remade, but Kelly Link's take on Bringing Up Baby (1938) would in fact result in the best remake ever. By a similar token, I find myself weirdly disappointed that Angela Carter never ran with this line from A Tale of Two Cities (1859), which I remember being struck by in tenth grade and then forgot about until yesterday: "Monsieur the Marquis walked to and fro in his loose chamber-robe, to prepare himself gently for sleep, that hot still night. Rustling about the room, his softly-slippered feet making no noise on the floor, he moved like a refined tiger:—looked like some enchanted marquis of the impenitently wicked sort, in story, whose periodical change into tiger form was either just going off, or just coming on."
8. I have received my preliminary schedule for Readercon. I will post it as soon as it becomes final.
9. Why did I not know that Hans Conried starred in the legendary "Chicken Heart" episode of Lights Out? Why am I not surprised?
postscript: I need to figure out who I can get to tape me The Shout (1978) off TCM at a quarter to four in the morning. John Hurt, Alan Bates, Susannah York; directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, story by Robert Graves. Alternatively, it's not like I sleep anyway.
2. "The Miller of Dee" is the same tune as "Rolling Down to Old Maui." The fact that I realized this only a few days ago may be a testament to the power of Benjamin Britten.
3. The name did not ring any bells, but I think the article I was trying to remember in my post on the BBC's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954) must have been a chapter from Gregory Woods' A History of Gay Literature: The Male Tradition (1998), here quoted in Colm Tóibín's "Roaming the Greenwood": "[W]henever I read Nineteen Eighty-Four I cannot help imagining, between its lines, the spectral presence of another novel, a gay novel called 'Nineteen Forty-Eight', in which two young Londoners called Winston and Julian fall in love with each other and struggle to sustain their relationship under the continuous threat of blackmail, exposure and arrest . . . What read as a futuristic nightmare to the heterosexual reader must have seemed to the homosexual reader somewhat paranoid and ignorant, because so close to the reality of homosexual life in England at the time—but showing no sign that Orwell was aware of this fact." I bet this means I should read the rest of the book.
4. Currently running at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum is an exhibit called "Curve Appeal." I thought from the title maybe it would feature C3 Corvettes, but the machines actually on display were even better; it is an entire collection of sleek, opulent, streamlined cars from the 1930's and early '40's, when aerodynamics met art deco. They are beautiful pieces of engineering. Like Tolkien to a reader of present-day fantasy, the Chrysler Airflow now looks utterly unremarkable, even a little obvious, but in 1934 its rounded-off, backswept lines were so avant-garde, the car was a notorious commercial failure. (Two years later, the Lincoln-Zephyr would take the same low-drag, high-concept principles and sell like hotcakes.) The 1935 Stout Scarab, a kind of aluminum-hulled, swivel-seated minivan designed by an aviation engineer, still looks futuristic. The 1938 Delahaye Type 135 and the Talbot-Lago Teardrop Coupe, by contrast, are so intensely and elegantly of their time that you walk away with a sort of primal desire for martinis and perhaps a monocle. ("Bunter, launch the Lagonda!") The walls are hung with automotive concept art by Theodore W. Pietsch II, whose sense of movement reminded me oddly of the Vorticists. There is big-band jazz playing over the sound system, Glenn Miller's "In the Mood" and Benny Goodman's "Sing, Sing, Sing." The exhibit was curated by Sheldon Steele and it's as much art history as it is science and technology—I'd recommend it even to people who are bored and/or horrified by cars.
5. I am confused as to how Neil Jordan's Ondine (2009) can be on Viking Zen's Roku one week and playing at the Kendall Square Cinema the next, but now I really have no excuse not to write up a post for it. It is a film about the sea and secrets and the reasons people tell themselves stories; it is neither Splash (1984) nor The Secret of Roan Inish (1994) and I liked it immensely. It has become clear to me that I couldn't have found a worse introduction to Colin Farrell than Oliver Stone's Alexander (2004) if I'd studied how to do it.
6. I did not like The End of the Affair (1955), but its supporting cast consisted of Peter Cushing, John Mills, and Michael Goodliffe, so any time they were onscreen I can count as not a waste.
7. I believe emphatically that there are some things which never need to be remade, but Kelly Link's take on Bringing Up Baby (1938) would in fact result in the best remake ever. By a similar token, I find myself weirdly disappointed that Angela Carter never ran with this line from A Tale of Two Cities (1859), which I remember being struck by in tenth grade and then forgot about until yesterday: "Monsieur the Marquis walked to and fro in his loose chamber-robe, to prepare himself gently for sleep, that hot still night. Rustling about the room, his softly-slippered feet making no noise on the floor, he moved like a refined tiger:—looked like some enchanted marquis of the impenitently wicked sort, in story, whose periodical change into tiger form was either just going off, or just coming on."
8. I have received my preliminary schedule for Readercon. I will post it as soon as it becomes final.
9. Why did I not know that Hans Conried starred in the legendary "Chicken Heart" episode of Lights Out? Why am I not surprised?
postscript: I need to figure out who I can get to tape me The Shout (1978) off TCM at a quarter to four in the morning. John Hurt, Alan Bates, Susannah York; directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, story by Robert Graves. Alternatively, it's not like I sleep anyway.
no subject
Phone Booth (2002) was apparently atrocious. My sister used to work for the MFA film program and had to show that as a sneak preview - she found it so awful that she felt she should have apologized to the audience after the screening.
The End of the Affair sounds really squicky. I hate the portrayal of stalking, manipulation, and obsessiveness as romantic. It's an idea that should have died out long ago, but just keeps on coming back. I especially hate it when it's peddled to adolescent girls (e.g., Twilight).
Congrats on the anthology! I will make sure to pick up a copy once it comes out.
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Right. I'll avoid that one.
(Wow.)
I hate the portrayal of stalking, manipulation, and obsessiveness as romantic. It's an idea that should have died out long ago, but just keeps on coming back.
In the film's defense, I think it is aware that Bendrix is an unreliable and problematic narrator; the fact that Sarah's viewpoint condemns his jealousy etc. indicates that it's an issue within the world of the film, not just a retroactive visitation by the chauvinism fairy.1 But we never see the consequences of his actions mean anything to him. He reads her diary and instead of respecting her decision and staying out of her life, like any halfway sane lover—especially now that he knows he misjudged her reasons completely; she wasn't bored with him, she wasn't seeing anyone else, she made a bargain with God to save his life—he goes charging off immediately to pressure her back. The results are predictably disastrous. And even then, we're not given the slightest impression he'll change: except maybe in the last thirty seconds of the film, and if so, that means the entire hundred-and-two minutes prior have been the world's longest run-up to the woman in the refrigerator.2 Yeah. I already gave at the office.
1. I still find it troubling that she never stops loving him even after she's decided never to see him again: since we're evidently not intended to view Sarah as completely self-destructive, it lends credence to the idea that theirs is some kind of grand passion instead of the sort of thing you get a restraining order for.
2. I realize that I may be maligning the novel with this description; for all I know (and I hope, frankly), it encompasses more of Bendrix's life after Sarah, so that actual character development has a chance to take place. But the film simply stops on this moment of allegedly tragic epiphany and unfortunately that portion of the audience that answers to my name cares a lot more about how on earth Henry is going to cope than whether Bendrix will eventually believe in Sarah's God.
I especially hate it when it's peddled to adolescent girls (e.g., Twilight).
Oh, God, yes. I can't even begin to calculate the damage those books have done to the already fragile state of gender relations in this culture. Not to mention reading skills.
Congrats on the anthology! I will make sure to pick up a copy once it comes out.
Thank you! I hope in advance you enjoy it!
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no subject
Bendrix was so not okay as a person, I might prefer him as an allegory.