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All you can do is do what you must
I slept about two hours last night. I've been awake for four. Highlights of the last few days include discovering a useful bus and finally getting the cats' claws clipped by a very competent groomer at Petco. On Monday night, I fell asleep for an hour with Autolycus curled on top of me. Otherwise, things aren't so great.
1. Courtesy of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
strange_selkie: I am delighted that there is now a play about Sholem Asch's God of Vengeance (גאָט פֿון נקמה), otherwise known as the 1907 Yiddish drama with the lesbians. Its first Broadway production in 1923—even with the most inflammatory aspects somewhat amended in translation—was successfully prosecuted for obscenity. The queer relationship is the sole healthy one onstage. It makes sensual same-sex use of the Song of Songs. It's great. I saw a terrific off-Broadway staged reading in 2011 and still regret being unable to make it to the full production in 2012. At the moment I'm not sure how I feel about the levels of deconstruction as described in this review, but if Indecent gets more people to notice Got fun nekome, I'm all for it (and somewhat sorry I found out too late to see it during its original run. I really have been living under a rock). I remain vaguely surprised that the one Yiddish play most people have read in their lives isn't An-sky's The Dybbuk.
2. Generally I do not expect lists compiled by the Toast to reflect any kind of historical veracity, but it appears that titles of eighteenth-century novels are the exception. I can't pick a favorite. I'll Consider It! sounds like a theatrical revue from the days of Noël Coward. Any Thing But What You Expect sets up perfectly for a truth-in-advertising punch line. I hope more than I can say that Papa Brick; Or, What Is Death? was an early gesture toward Surrealism.
3. Is there a technical term for the kind of metafiction that occurs when an author writes a previously fictional book of their own creation? I encountered this phenomenon first in high school with Dorothy Gilman's The Tightrope Walker (1979) and The Maze in the Heart of the Castle (1983): the latter features prominently in the former as the touchstone fantasy novel of the protagonist's childhood and then Gilman just wrote it. Years after reading Daniel Pinkwater's Lizard Music (1976), I realized that the late-night sci-fi B-movie watched by the narrator while his parents are out of town is obviously the film version of Pinkwater's own Fat Men from Space (1977).* I know there must be other examples, but I can't remember any right now. This subject brought to mind by Amal El-Mohtar's review of Rainbow Rowell's Carry On (2015).
* The other late-night sci-fi B-movie watched by the narrator while his parents are out of town is Island of Lost Souls (1932), because Pinkwater is like that. In other news, it took me until my most recent re-read to appreciate that the proprietor of the protagonist's favorite candy store is named after a famous Ellis Island name-change joke.
4. Elizabeth Donnelly Carney's Women and Monarchy in Macedonia (2000) is exactly the nonfiction resource I wanted while writing "ζῆ καὶ βασιλεύει." I have some arguments with the organization, but the information density is very good. I appreciate a scholar who can point out both what we don't know and why we shouldn't draw too many conclusions from it.
5. "Not in Scamander's river."
1. Courtesy of
strange_selkie: I am delighted that there is now a play about Sholem Asch's God of Vengeance (גאָט פֿון נקמה), otherwise known as the 1907 Yiddish drama with the lesbians. Its first Broadway production in 1923—even with the most inflammatory aspects somewhat amended in translation—was successfully prosecuted for obscenity. The queer relationship is the sole healthy one onstage. It makes sensual same-sex use of the Song of Songs. It's great. I saw a terrific off-Broadway staged reading in 2011 and still regret being unable to make it to the full production in 2012. At the moment I'm not sure how I feel about the levels of deconstruction as described in this review, but if Indecent gets more people to notice Got fun nekome, I'm all for it (and somewhat sorry I found out too late to see it during its original run. I really have been living under a rock). I remain vaguely surprised that the one Yiddish play most people have read in their lives isn't An-sky's The Dybbuk.2. Generally I do not expect lists compiled by the Toast to reflect any kind of historical veracity, but it appears that titles of eighteenth-century novels are the exception. I can't pick a favorite. I'll Consider It! sounds like a theatrical revue from the days of Noël Coward. Any Thing But What You Expect sets up perfectly for a truth-in-advertising punch line. I hope more than I can say that Papa Brick; Or, What Is Death? was an early gesture toward Surrealism.
3. Is there a technical term for the kind of metafiction that occurs when an author writes a previously fictional book of their own creation? I encountered this phenomenon first in high school with Dorothy Gilman's The Tightrope Walker (1979) and The Maze in the Heart of the Castle (1983): the latter features prominently in the former as the touchstone fantasy novel of the protagonist's childhood and then Gilman just wrote it. Years after reading Daniel Pinkwater's Lizard Music (1976), I realized that the late-night sci-fi B-movie watched by the narrator while his parents are out of town is obviously the film version of Pinkwater's own Fat Men from Space (1977).* I know there must be other examples, but I can't remember any right now. This subject brought to mind by Amal El-Mohtar's review of Rainbow Rowell's Carry On (2015).
* The other late-night sci-fi B-movie watched by the narrator while his parents are out of town is Island of Lost Souls (1932), because Pinkwater is like that. In other news, it took me until my most recent re-read to appreciate that the proprietor of the protagonist's favorite candy store is named after a famous Ellis Island name-change joke.
4. Elizabeth Donnelly Carney's Women and Monarchy in Macedonia (2000) is exactly the nonfiction resource I wanted while writing "ζῆ καὶ βασιλεύει." I have some arguments with the organization, but the information density is very good. I appreciate a scholar who can point out both what we don't know and why we shouldn't draw too many conclusions from it.
5. "Not in Scamander's river."
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I read it very young along with a bunch of other Pinkwater, of which I think my most formative was The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death (1982). Realizing that Pinkwater did not apparently invent any of the obscure movies that show at the Snark, Attack of the Mayan Mummy included, has been a recurring feature of my life as a person who likes film. He really holds up!
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Oh, cool. I didn't know that.
There probably is a name for this but I don't know what it is.
Formerly fictional books . . .
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There really, really needs to be!
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I'd seen no. 5 before. It is Very Good.
The Dawn Patrol has arrived.
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You piqued my interest, and in literature, that is called the Fictional Book, there is even a Wiki entry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictional_book
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(The latest book of his I've read, _Bushman Lives!_ was kinda sorta a sequel to _Lizard Music_, though I found that aspect unsatisfying.)
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Thank you! I think there was a copy in the house where I grew up, but I did not remember it at all.
You piqued my interest, and in literature, that is called the Fictional Book, there is even a Wiki entry
I'm really interested in fictional books that develop an independent existence outside of their originating narratives, like Philip José Farmer's Venus on the Half Shell or Dorothy Gilman's The Maze in the Heart of the Castle. Most of the fictional books listed by Wikipedia look like they remain just that. It's still an exhaustive list, though, so thank you for it!
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I shall wait patiently and/or ask you about it in a few days!
I'd seen no. 5 before. It is Very Good.
Scamander's expression in the last panel really makes it for me.
The Dawn Patrol has arrived.
Enjoy!
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Which ones? I'm not surprised to hear you say that—as mentioned before, I thought for years that Laird Cregar was fictional. I always located most of his cities in New Jersey, myself.
(The latest book of his I've read, _Bushman Lives!_ was kinda sorta a sequel to _Lizard Music_, though I found that aspect unsatisfying.)
Huh. Sequel how?
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Even Pinkwater fanfic is like that, if it's done well. I read a vignette on A03 where Walter Galt mentions in passing that his physics teacher just sits around reading Garden & Gun Magazine while the students drop objects; I would have guessed Garden & Gun Magazine was made-up, except my brother subscribes to it (mainly for the cocktail recipes and the travel articles, I think).
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There's a thread in _BL_ concerning someone who seems a lot like the grown-up protagonist of _LM_ building a boat to go on another expedition to the invisible island. Only the chronology doesn't work, since (IIRC) _LM_ is set in the (then-present) of the late 70s, whereas _BL_ is set in the 1950s.
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Oh, yeah. That comes up in The Blues Brothers (1980).
Only the chronology doesn't work, since (IIRC) _LM_ is set in the (then-present) of the late 70s, whereas _BL_ is set in the 1950s.
I don't really see how that's a problem with surrealism.
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Thank you.
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