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Hope is something the living do. It's too silly an occupation for the dead
I am afraid this post is not about Readercon, either. Except for a brain-saving walk to the Cambridge Public Library this afternoon, I have spent the day basically glued to my computer, catching up on work. It has been immensely unexciting. There were some highlights.
1. On my way back from the library, I met a traveling rabbit. She was nosing around a portable pen on the lawn in front of the library in company of a young black woman with glasses who was reading Lawrence Ferlinghetti's A Coney Island of the Mind (1958) under a tree; her fur was white, her eyes were red, and her name was Grace Hopper. She left the pen to investigate the tree, she sniffed at the library books and left them, she inspected the hand I held out to her as I would with a strange cat and promptly took refuge in the modified snugli in which it turned out she often left the house, carried by the young woman with the glasses. She emerged again a moment later and returned to nosing around the pen. I had never met an adventurous rabbit before, much less one who regularly made excursions to library lawns. The young woman explained that she used to harness Grace and walk her on a leash, but that limited the distance they could get from the house; with Grace in the snugli, they could range much farther and visit a wider array of interesting places. They were planning on Iceland later this summer. I think they'll do fine.
2. I just discovered that a fiddle tune I'd known for more than ten years as "Johnny the Blacksmith" is actually "Charlie the Prayermaster." Possibly because I have spent most of my day staring at repetitive tasks on a screen, I find this change of name and profession hilarious. It was one of the few tunes I knew by name, too—for some reason which I suspect has to do with the absence of lyrics, I learn instrumental melodies easily enough, but almost never remember what they're called. (This drove me up a wall while watching Green Dolphin Street (1947), because a tune I recognized was played diegetically in the background of a shipboard wedding and I had no idea of its name, I just knew I had to own a copy because otherwise I wouldn't have memorized it. I spent a lot of iTunes time afterward with Dave Swarbrick and Bill Spence. Appropriately enough, it turned out to be "Haste to the Wedding.") I had learned what I thought was "Johnny the Blacksmith" from the playing of Bill Spence with Fennig's All-Star String Band, but the file came from Audiography and it was mislabeled. I just didn't realize until tonight when I had it stuck in my head, wondered about other versions, and threw the name into YouTube to see what I could find. What I found was that "Johnny the Blacksmith" was invented by the legendary bluegrass fiddler Kenny Baker in 1957 and I'd never heard it before in my life. So I played my way through a truckload of jigs and reels and presently discovered that "Charlie the Prayermaster" dates back at least to the early twentieth century—it was collected by Francis O'Neill in The Dance Music of Ireland (1907)—and also goes by the names "The Girls of the Town" and the "Cowboy Jig." When I explained this situation to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rushthatspeaks, they replied, "And any second now you'll find out he's also Robert the Politician."
3. I have now finished Barbara Hambly's Graveyard Dust (1999) and read my way forward through Wet Grave (2002), meaning that I am caught up chronologically on Benjamin January to Days of the Dead (2003), the object of my library walk this afternoon. (Also I had to return a recalled book before I was fined for it.) I may even have gottengaudior hooked on the series. Possibly also my mother. It still surprises me somehow that I didn't encounter these books earlier: they are full of so many of the things that interest me, like intersectionality and characters who know their Catullus. Is this a case of a cult favorite or did I just manage with my usual fine attention to pop culture to miss something that everyone else on the planet has been reading for the last twenty years? I'm burning through them now and it's wonderful.
1. On my way back from the library, I met a traveling rabbit. She was nosing around a portable pen on the lawn in front of the library in company of a young black woman with glasses who was reading Lawrence Ferlinghetti's A Coney Island of the Mind (1958) under a tree; her fur was white, her eyes were red, and her name was Grace Hopper. She left the pen to investigate the tree, she sniffed at the library books and left them, she inspected the hand I held out to her as I would with a strange cat and promptly took refuge in the modified snugli in which it turned out she often left the house, carried by the young woman with the glasses. She emerged again a moment later and returned to nosing around the pen. I had never met an adventurous rabbit before, much less one who regularly made excursions to library lawns. The young woman explained that she used to harness Grace and walk her on a leash, but that limited the distance they could get from the house; with Grace in the snugli, they could range much farther and visit a wider array of interesting places. They were planning on Iceland later this summer. I think they'll do fine.
2. I just discovered that a fiddle tune I'd known for more than ten years as "Johnny the Blacksmith" is actually "Charlie the Prayermaster." Possibly because I have spent most of my day staring at repetitive tasks on a screen, I find this change of name and profession hilarious. It was one of the few tunes I knew by name, too—for some reason which I suspect has to do with the absence of lyrics, I learn instrumental melodies easily enough, but almost never remember what they're called. (This drove me up a wall while watching Green Dolphin Street (1947), because a tune I recognized was played diegetically in the background of a shipboard wedding and I had no idea of its name, I just knew I had to own a copy because otherwise I wouldn't have memorized it. I spent a lot of iTunes time afterward with Dave Swarbrick and Bill Spence. Appropriately enough, it turned out to be "Haste to the Wedding.") I had learned what I thought was "Johnny the Blacksmith" from the playing of Bill Spence with Fennig's All-Star String Band, but the file came from Audiography and it was mislabeled. I just didn't realize until tonight when I had it stuck in my head, wondered about other versions, and threw the name into YouTube to see what I could find. What I found was that "Johnny the Blacksmith" was invented by the legendary bluegrass fiddler Kenny Baker in 1957 and I'd never heard it before in my life. So I played my way through a truckload of jigs and reels and presently discovered that "Charlie the Prayermaster" dates back at least to the early twentieth century—it was collected by Francis O'Neill in The Dance Music of Ireland (1907)—and also goes by the names "The Girls of the Town" and the "Cowboy Jig." When I explained this situation to
rushthatspeaks, they replied, "And any second now you'll find out he's also Robert the Politician."3. I have now finished Barbara Hambly's Graveyard Dust (1999) and read my way forward through Wet Grave (2002), meaning that I am caught up chronologically on Benjamin January to Days of the Dead (2003), the object of my library walk this afternoon. (Also I had to return a recalled book before I was fined for it.) I may even have gotten
gaudior hooked on the series. Possibly also my mother. It still surprises me somehow that I didn't encounter these books earlier: they are full of so many of the things that interest me, like intersectionality and characters who know their Catullus. Is this a case of a cult favorite or did I just manage with my usual fine attention to pop culture to miss something that everyone else on the planet has been reading for the last twenty years? I'm burning through them now and it's wonderful.
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So far, highly recommended.
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I love this high energy version from the Corrs.
I keep seeing them recommended, and Hambly was an old favourite, but somehow I'd never gotten around to reading them either, and still haven't, but really should.
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Oh, that's great. I like the effect of the bodhrán. Thank you!
I keep seeing them recommended, and Hambly was an old favourite, but somehow I'd never gotten around to reading them either, and still haven't, but really should.
I am seven and a quarter books in and the weakest of the series so far is still a solid mystery with some really nice scenes; it just happens that the series at its best is "Oh, well, that's one of the best novels I've read about slavery" or "Congratulations, that's a structural thing with Othello I've never seen before" or "Jesus, Hannibal, should you even be allowed to leave the house?"
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The adorability of a rabbit peeking out from a snugli cannot be overestimated.
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I can't tell if it was the six-year hiatus between publishers, the unapologetic foregrounding of race, the structural complexity and historical understanding that runs simultaneously with a deep vein of pure intelligent id candy, or what, but these books really seem so much more obscure than they should be. I can vouch for them up through Dead and Buried (2010); their quality survived the time off. Frustratingly, I have found that the different books are only scattershotly in print, so I am about to begin scouring the used book stores of Boston as in the days of tracking down DAW-era Tanith Lee.
They would indeed make great movies, or miniseries.
From your lips to producers' ears!
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Yeah, absolutely all of that. I think I put off reading Sold Down the River because I didn't want to see him put through those horrors (which I know sounds twee and dumb, but when I get really attached to characters, some specific kinds of suffering, like slavery and rape, really upset me). And then I just never got back to it. Which is my loss, since they were so beautifully written -- I mean a lot of people focus on the characterization and plotting and setting, which are all amazing, but I kept being knocked out by the prose style. It's so beautiful.
I don't think I bothered trying to find used copies, I just got the Kindle versions right off Amazon, partly to support the author. But that still made me feel a bit /o\ They're a lot cheaper than most books on Kindle, which helped.
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If it helps, I find Sold Down the River one of the strongest of the series. I wrote to
I mean a lot of people focus on the characterization and plotting and setting, which are all amazing, but I kept being knocked out by the prose style. It's so beautiful.
The prose is terrific, especially in the early novels. Her style pares itself down some in the later installments, and I admit that I miss some of the meticulous attention to light and hands and textiles and even walk-on characters described in a quick portrait sketch, but it hasn't stopped me from continuing. [edit] And then the style gets richer again, so never mind. Crimson Angel (2014) has got some wonderful passages.
But that still made me feel a bit /o\
Look, supporting the author is good! I just prefer paper to pixels and it doesn't look as though I can get some of these books paper-wise without resorting to secondhand. I tried to order Dead and Buried through my friendly neighborhood independent bookstore this afternoon and discovered it couldn't be done. I have written to the publisher just in case.
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HI. I AM JUST HERE TO TELL THE INTERNET HOW YOUR CORPOREAL FORM STILL EXISTS. LO, I HAVE SEEN IT, THOUGH WE DID NOT SHARE THE UNCLEAN FLESH-MEATS OF PIGS AND THE ESSENCE OF TOMATO.
OR PERHAPS YOU ARE A CAROLINA-STYLE FAN, NEIGHBOR STEVE?
( http://meltdraw.tumblr.com/post/142498377757/geostatonary-sixpenceee-a-house-i-pass-on )
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Hooray.
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We talked about this problem at Readercon regarding Tanith Lee!
so I for instance had read her whole vampire series (which is excellent and which nobody's heard of when I mentioned it) and didn't know about this series which I feel would actually interest me *more.*
I've heard of the vampire series! These are the Simon Ysidro books, yes? I have seen them on and off in libraries and book stores for years and didn't know they were excellent.
I think you would like the first Benjamin January very much, especially for some reasons I'm not going to mention. I'd hope you would like the rest of the series, too, but I feel pretty confident about A Free Man of Color.
HI. I AM JUST HERE TO TELL THE INTERNET HOW YOUR CORPOREAL FORM STILL EXISTS. LO, I HAVE SEEN IT, THOUGH WE DID NOT SHARE THE UNCLEAN FLESH-MEATS OF PIGS AND THE ESSENCE OF TOMATO.
I do exist! I am delighted to have seen you outside of our usual astral projection dates! We should do it more often!
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I think LeGuin works for the imprinting thing, too, and to some extent Jane Yolen. So many people come to LeGuin by way of Earthsea, which I did read, but only after the weird This Is Not Central Russia short stories and Left Hand of Darkness and The Word for World is Forest.
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I thought she'd written John Donne's "Song" for Howl's Moving Castle.
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I shall check him out.
So many people come to LeGuin by way of Earthsea, which I did read, but only after the weird This Is Not Central Russia short stories and Left Hand of Darkness and The Word for World is Forest.
My formative Le Guin was the collection Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences (1987), leading off with the incredibly profane (and female) Coyote of "Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight?" I was . . . eight at the time? I can't calculate what that did to my head.
You know the Library of America is reprinting the complete Orsinia, right? I'm so happy.
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You've seen traveling rabbits in the wild yourself!
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That's fair. I was seven or eight. I also thought Susan Cooper had written Robert Graves' "Song of Amergin" for Silver on the Tree, but in that case I was eleven and not yet aware of The White Goddess.
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Also, I must get a hold of those Barbara Hambly books, since I so enjoyed her Darwath trilogy.
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All of that is really cool!
Also, I must get a hold of those Barbara Hambly books, since I so enjoyed her Darwath trilogy.
I am halfway through the eighth book and still enjoying myself immensely.
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I see no reason why not! I'm tremendously impressed with them so far. The weakest book has been merely solid; the best are amazing.
My mother is a long-time mystery reader, so that I got most of the series I went through over the years from her. I think this is the first I've been able to introduce her to.
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A walk to the Cambridge Public Library is almost always a wonderful thing. Probably because the destination is wonderful.
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The young woman said that she wanted something bunny-appropriate but also related to women in science (which I assumed was her field). I can't think of a better choice.
A walk to the Cambridge Public Library is almost always a wonderful thing. Probably because the destination is wonderful.
It's the library of my childhood. It's changed greatly since, but I'm still always happy to be there.
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I know! Ever since finding out, I've wondered if we ever (unknowingly) crossed paths: you a kid, me a grad student with small children.
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How old were your children? Did they ever participate in the summer programs?
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(Tonight I'm re-reading Sold Down the River, which is the hardest of the original set for me, even knowing how it comes out.)
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You had not told me, and that's really impressive. I'm glad to hear it.
I've subsequently been impressed that when she discovers new information that contradicts, or changes her thinking on a particular point, she will not only incorporate it, but add a note about it (like the note on the meaning of "Creole" at the end of Graveyard Dust.
I could swear I had read a similar note from her about the legal availability of cadavers to medical students in Paris during the time of Benjamin's schooling, correcting previously written reminiscences about corpses and resurrectionists, but I can't find it in any of the books. Dammit. I can't see that being the kind of thing I would dream.
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I remember that too! I'm fairly sure it was on her Facebook (or some other social media website) though, rather than in one of the books.
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Facebook. Good call. Thanks!