And as if the phantom ship had swept away with it all sign of life, the crowd vanished too

[sovay]

It is nauseatingly hot outside. I mean that literally. Running a half-hour errand on foot has made me feel physically sick. I have drunk water, eaten salt, and am sitting in front of a fan. This is not the weather I operate best in.

1. I really wish I were at Bard College right now. I had heard of Ethel Smyth's The Wreckers (1906), because the subject matter is germane to my interests and because it kept coming up in discussion of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes (1945), sort of simultaneously as a forerunner of Britten's work and a point against the notion that English opera sat around looking at its fingernails for the couple of centuries between Purcell and Britten; I had heard of Smyth herself because she was a mostly lesbian suffragist as well as a composer and one of the models for Hilda Tablet. I cannot make either of the remaining performances. Anyone who lives in upstate New York and wants to tell me how it worked out, please go!

2. If these poems are representative, I need to read a lot more by Niall Campbell: "The House by the Sea, Eriskay" and "The Letter Always Arrives at its Destination."

3. Courtesy of rose_lemberg: all available evidence indicates Alyssa's father has been fishing in a hell dimension.

Even more than watching an opera about wrecking, I wish I were by the sea. I've been meaning to post this picture for months: it always looks like a summoning to me. I wish I had an offering that worked as well.

While I'm here at this address, however, I just opened a large package from yhlee and not only does it contain two year's best anthologies, a complete paperback set of Geraldine Harris' Seven Citadels (1982–83), and a splendidly cracky-looking manga by the name of MYth: A Promise (2007–2013), but there is also an assortment of Magic and Legend of the Five Rings cards tailored to my interests. I now have an Ancient Carp! (It's iridescent.) The flavor text makes me associate it unfairly with Leviathan. Thank you.

Comments

[kore]

Yeah, it was 90F here today and people in CA keep telling me "Well it's hot here too!" and I'm just like, but you are in a place where it is supposed to do that. Excess heat just also makes me physically sick. Ugh.

[sovay]

and people in CA keep telling me "Well it's hot here too!" and I'm just like, but you are in a place where it is supposed to do that.

And where all the buildings are air-conditioned—if not architecturally designed—to keep up with it!

Excess heat just also makes me physically sick. Ugh.

I truly get along better with cold weather. I can always put on another layer. I can't take off my skin.

[kore]

SERIOUSLY. "I don't have A/C either!" But I live in a poorly ventilated 1912 building with almost no insulation between us and two external walls AND we're on the top floor right below a roof which consists basically of 2x4s, plaster and black tarpaper. It works just great in a temperate climate, but not a 90F!

Even when I get terribly cold, it just doesn't affect me the same way overheating does (terrible headaches, nausea, inability to concentrate, total lack of appetite, that weird feeling where you get overheated and it goes into chills, lethargy)....it's like the end of that old Twilight Zone episode where they go from burning to freezing to death, I'd RATHER freeze. I find nice blustery weather with lots of rain and wind and clouds invigorating. sigh.

[sovay]

It works just great in a temperate climate, but not a 90F!

That's like the house we live in. Our bedroom is under the roof. The noisy chunky window unit I bought more than ten years ago for my apartment in New Haven is the only reason we're not dead.

....it's like the end of that old Twilight Zone episode where they go from burning to freezing to death, I'd RATHER freeze.

My mother called today to ask me about that episode! She stepped outside and it was all she could think of: the sun engulfing the sky, the heat sending everybody mad, paint melting off the canvas like wax. And she likes hot weather. I couldn't disagree with her.

[kore]

My mother called today to ask me about that episode! She stepped outside and it was all she could think of: the sun engulfing the sky, the heat sending everybody mad, paint melting off the canvas like wax.

HA THAT'S ALSO WHAT I REMEMBER, the paint rolllling down off the canvas. And then she wakes up and it's all cold and dark and snowy! And I was just like, "YESSS. Okay they're still all gonna die, but at least they won't melt."

I always identify with Pterry's trolls. If only someone would make me a cooling helmet.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That fish that Alyssa's father caught looks bigger on the inside than the outside. Hell fish are tardis fish?

Have you shown me "The Letter Always Arrives at Its Destination" before? Someone has. I love it.

ETA: Yes, you have. You shared it with me around May 13, 2014, and I then shared it here.

[sovay]

Hell fish are tardis fish?

I'm willing to believe it. It could swallow worlds and oceans, never mind souls.

Yes, you have. You shared it with me around May 13, 2014, and I then shared it here.

Yes! I found the other one this afternoon. His first collection is called Moontide (2014).

[gwynnega]

I've always been fascinated by Ethel Smyth, though the main work of hers I knew was The March of the Women. I really should look into more of her music. (Spotify has quite a bit of it, I see.)

Hooray for large packages of books, manga, etc.!

[sovay]

I've always been fascinated by Ethel Smyth, though the main work of hers I knew was The March of the Women.

I've never heard that! Thank you.

Hooray for large packages of books, manga, etc.!

It very definitely improved the afternoon.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Have you read Seven Citadels? Alas, I haven't seen Geraldine in years, but she was one of my first first readers at Cambridge, one of the Jomsborg circle.

Nine

[sovay]

Have you read Seven Citadels?

Never! Yoon thought I would like them and mentioned that you look on them favorably as well. I know nothing more about the books than that. (Although that is a pretty strong pair of recommendations to go on.)

Alas, I haven't seen Geraldine in years, but she was one of my first first readers at Cambridge, one of the Jomsborg circle.

Cool. Were you also a beta-reader for her books?

[oddmonster.livejournal.com]

This has nothing to do with your entry, but it is germane to your interests: Last night I played "Who Warbled Better?" on my late-night college radio show, putting Nina Simone's live 1964 version of "Pirate Jenny" up against Lotte Lenya's original Threepenny Opera recording of "Seeäuberung Jenny", and based on the popular vote, it was Lenya by a landslide.

I did not know of Lotte Lenya until you mentioned her on your journal and linked to the amazing Threepenny Opera recording. I just wanted to say thank you.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I think the first I heard of Smyth was in relation to Juliana Horatia Ewing (one of those surprising chronological overlaps, as one thinks of them being in different eras, at least I do). Ewing's husband gave her harmony lessons. See https://books.google.com/books?id=ZmIJAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA110

[sovay]

I did not know of Lotte Lenya until you mentioned her on your journal and linked to the amazing Threepenny Opera recording. I just wanted to say thank you.

You're very welcome!

I love Nina Simone's "Pirate Jenny," but Lotte Lenya owns that song for me.

[sovay]

Ewing's husband gave her harmony lessons.

I had no idea!