Oh yes, and I was to tell you how much he approves of your trousers

[sovay]

Fifty-four years after the publication of Mary Stewart's The Moon-Spinners and at least twenty years after I read the novel for the first time, Tony Gamble has finally sent Nicola Ferris a picture postcard from the Kara Bugaz. Many thanks to asakiyume for fielding it in the mail. Now I feel the story is complete.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

What an awesome idea! I bet he was thrilled.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

What an awesome idea! I bet he was thrilled.

I somehow always forget to mention it when I meet him. Last time we met, I managed to completely horrify him, in a good way, about racial memory and the Red Bull.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Horrify in a good way, eh? I'm intrigued! Can you say more?

(and do you meet him often?!)

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Horrify in a good way, eh? I'm intrigued! Can you say more?

I think so. he kind-of shook his head and muttered to himself, like "did I mean to do that? I can't remember." I have told this story a few places else-net, but it basically goes like this.

When I was a kid I had severe nightmares around the Red Bull from The Last Unicorn. I saw the film at a party when I was seven and it gave me a deep existential terror. I carried that for a long time, and it faded, like most childhood terrors do, and then, I was in college, doing a degree in bible and I was reading the book of Psalms and I came to the part where the enemies of the Jews threaten to drive them into the sea and cover their footprints, and I had one of those "oh!" moments.

So yeah, I shared that thought and that history with him, and he had a similar "oh!" moment. We're both Jewish, and we kind of mutually agreed that there's something very powerful in drawing on an ancestral terror and memory.

(and do you meet him often?!)

I've met him twice, or possibly three times? I think the first time was when he was guest at a Consonance. He remembers me mostly as a friend of cadhla's.

cadhla once surprised him with a drawing agrumer did of the Red Bull in the style of My Little Pony (before the current craze, this was circa 2003) which we called My Little Red Bull. Apparently seeing it made him laugh so hard that coffee came out of his nose. So, I feel good about that.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

^_^ Thank you for sharing! These stories are all wonderful (especially My Little Red Bull). And I totally get where you're coming from now w/the racial memory/existential dread.

[sovay]

I carried that for a long time, and it faded, like most childhood terrors do, and then, I was in college, doing a degree in bible and I was reading the book of Psalms and I came to the part where the enemies of the Jews threaten to drive them into the sea and cover their footprints, and I had one of those "oh!" moments.

I remember you telling this story on one of the first panels we were on together. It was believable to me then.