I don't recognize those old buildings that used to mean so much to me

[sovay]

Bertie Owen's keyboard is really breaking and I didn't fall asleep until well after eight this morning. I did not get much done today that was not work, but I did have post-holiday corned beef and soda bread with my parents in the evening. I did not have cabbage. I like cabbage in coleslaw and several other dishes—and I will eat it by itself if it's stir-fried—but when it's steamed or boiled I feel there is no safe ground between the raw food movement and sublimated into a fart.

1. In context of discussing the longstanding (and totally deserved) community argument with Michael Weingrad's "Why There Is No Jewish Narnia," my mother remarked that of course portal fantasy has Christian origins; Christianity has its other world into which you can be assumed or translated at any second right there in its conception of Heaven. On the one hand, C.S. Lewis himself presumed this link in his wraparound of Narnia into Aslan's Country. (Elizabeth Goudge made a similar connection in The Valley of Song (1951), though hers works much better for me on account of avoiding allegory and including Fairy.) On the other, I can't remember seeing anyone really write about it. Please point me toward articles to the contrary, if they exist? Otherwise I can tell my mother she just said something tremendously useful about twentieth-century fantasy.

2. Please enjoy a non-binary penned punk song about Claude Cahun: Worriers, "The Only Claude That Matters." rydra_wong, I thought you should know.

3. Everyone in general, I'm just really charmed by Madeline McGrane's "Vampire Horse."

4. Courtesy of moon_custafer: Brad Dourif in Fatal Beauty (1987). I will resist all efforts to explain to me that he is not playing the title role.

5. And then I made the mistake of clicking on an article about millennial millionnaire-billionaires:

I steer the conversation to the subject of how utterly detached from the real world elites seem to have become. "Elitism, the way I would define it, is obtainable," he replies. "All that stands between you and being elite is your own investment in yourself."

I tell Rosenthal that I've met many people in America who work as hard as him and his friends—harder, in fact—but struggle to make ends meet. He acknowledges that he's benefited from considerable advantage, but insists we now live in an era in which "the internet is the great equaliser".

"What are you doing to create the utility for yourself? Are you introducing people so they can collaborate?" he says. Struggling Americans, he adds, might want to "host a dinner. Invite 10 strangers. See what happens."

Rosenthal presses on with his thesis, telling me there are just not enough people in the world who will "excessively commit their lives to something. Journalism, cheese, automobiles, whatever. Rocket ships—perfect example. Everyone wants to work at SpaceX, no one wants to go to engineering school."

I believe the emotion I experienced at that moment is technically known as "eat the rich."

I am trying to convince myself to go to bed early; I have two doctor's appointments tomorrow and one of them is at eyebleed o'clock. This would be a more compelling argument if I didn't also want to read things.

Comments

[asakiyume]

I loved Vampire Horse!

"host a dinner. Invite 10 strangers. See what happens." Yup yup yup. Getting that Rich-o-phagic desire pretty strongly myself.

[selkie]

Do you want to come to the dinner I'm hosting, Mr. Millennial Billionaire
It has cutlery
Also an assortment of mustards
If you could just bring some cornichons and when you shower don't use the Bronner's peppermint

[gwynnega]

"Vampire Horse" is delightful.

I have never seen Fatal Beauty, but now I am disappointed that Brad Dourif is not playing the title role.

[ethelmay]

Farah Mendlesohn discusses The Pilgrim's Progress as an influence on quest and portal fantasies in Rhetorics of Fantasy. (I found this through Googling -- I've read the book but don't know it well.)

Bunyan's landscape is presented as a dream, though, and I think portal fantasies are kind of a reification of dreams. (The movie version of The Wizard of Oz went backward on this.)

[rosefox]

I cannot think of a single major fantasy writer who is Jewish, and there are only a handful of minor ones of any note. To no other field of modern literature have Jews contributed so little.

I had not previously known my eyes could just burst into flames like that.

[conuly]

Burning question: Exactly whose stylistic decision was it, in the "Jewish Narnia" article, to italicize tsunami as a non-nativized foreign word?

I believe the emotion I experienced at that moment is technically known as "eat the rich."

Too rich for my blood. Why don't we just compost the rich instead? Better for the arteries.

[justice_turtle]

*head-tilty* Your mom’s observation may possibly explain a hell of a lot about my relationship to both portal fantasies and Christianity. (I did not read the article, as I have jury duty tomorrow and would prefer not to set myself on fire with my mind when I’m trying to sleep. ;P) If I remember, I will probably have a post or at least a ramble about that at some point,

The icon is for the billenniaire. :P

[tree_and_leaf]

I believe the emotion I experienced at that moment is technically known as "eat the rich."

Well, it would cut the cost of the entree....

[poliphilo]

Weingrad seems to miss the obvious fact that the fantasy tradition is not simply Christian but also specifically British/Irish- and by extension Anglo-American. There may be not be a Jewish fantasy tradition but I'm not aware of there being a French or a Russian or a Chinese or a Nigerian tradition either. Modern fantasy comes out of a very specific cultural moment- the revolt against modernity in 19th century Britain that drew on British/Irish traditions and found expression in Tennyson's Idylls of the King, in pre-Raphaelitism, in fairy-painting, in Gothic revival architecture, in the folk song revival and the fantasy novels of Morris and MacDonald.

[coraline]

Stolen from Tumblr: the name for that emotion is vorgeoisie :)

[isis]

Vampire Horse makes me think of the problem raised in one of my vampire canons (Underwood and Flinch) - immortal vampires need to be cautious about who they turn into vampires, as eventually you reach the point where everyone's hungry and nobody's food!

The millenionaires article really brings home how maybe it is better to make one's money the old-fashioned (and slow) way, as by the time you have wealth you have the wisdom to know how to handle it. I admit that I live in my own bubble and yeah, I'd rather eat grass-fed beef with braised local greens and a craft beer than wash down a Big Mac and fries with Budweiser, but this kind of vapid conspicuous non-consumption is just as bad to me as the 9000-sf mansion with the helipad on top.

And of course their insistence that anyone can become fabulously wealthy if they just devote every waking hour to their dream is bogus. https://www.inc.com/chris-matyszczyk/so-youre-smart-but-youre-not-rich-this-eye-opening-new-scientific-study-tells-you-why.html is pretty interesting. The actual study (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.07068.pdf) is somewhat depressing: "[T]he model shows, in quantitative terms...that a great talent is not sufficient to guarantee a successful career and that, instead, less talented people are very often able to reach the top of success..."

[kore]

//starts reading

Some readers may have already expressed surprise at my assertion that Jews do not write fantasy literature. Haven’t modern Jewish writers, from Kafka and Bruno Schulz to Isaac Bashevis Singer and Cynthia Ozick, written about ghosts, demons, magic, and metamorphoses? But the supernatural does not itself define fantasy literature, which is a more specific genre. It emerged in Victorian England, and its origins are best understood as one of a number of cultural salvage projects that occurred in an era when modern materialism and Darwinism seemed to drive religious faith from the field. Religion’s capacity for wonder found a haven in fantasy literature.

//stops reading

//tosses article out window


(EMERGED IN VICTORIAN ENGLAND, wtffffffffff)

[cmcmck]

Even though I would now count as 'comfortably off' if not rich, my origins in a working class mining family would still tell me that eating the rich is a darn good idea!

Shame I'm vegetarian! :o)

[negothick]

I remember being on a Readercon panel specifically organized to rebut that "Why is There No Jewish Narnia" article--can't remember if it was the same year or the year after. Of course, if Weingrad had confined himself to "Why is there no English-language wildly-successful mass-market kid's fantasy series, also readable by adults, that explains Judaism to non-Jews using the mode of allegory?", then I might have agreed with him. As far as I know, there is no such book. Judaism isn't a proselytizing religion, with the exception of urging those already Jewish to be more observant. But then, modern Lubavitcher Chasidism--unlike its founders--are uneasy with the fantastic, and their kids' books are stupefyingly mimetic. And published in Yiddish. They don't want their kids to read the classics of Yiddish literature, which are considered too secular.

[thisbluespirit]

host a dinner. Invite 10 strangers. See what happens."

Rosenthal presses on with his thesis, telling me there are just not enough people in the world who will "excessively commit their lives to something. Journalism, cheese, automobiles, whatever. Rocket ships—perfect example. Everyone wants to work at SpaceX, no one wants to go to engineering school."

Ha. Ha. I'm a bit squicked by cannibalism generally, but frankly in this case, I'll hand you the knife and fork. Or possibly just getting said person to host anything on a tight budget.

0_o


The fantasy thing is v interesting! I don't really know, but I think it probably also does need to be taken into account that there is a long British tradition that goes back to Celtic times of people disappearing to fairy/otherlands where time runs differently as well. Not that the two things are necessarily entirely separate in any direction.

[ashlyme]

Weingrad has a very narrow definition of fantasy, alas.

I enjoyed the Cahun song - I read a little more about them and respects to the way they defied the Nazis on Jersey. They deserve a good biography if there isn't one already.

Vampire Horse is the best Western ever.

Passing the condiments if you want to start snacking on that there Rosenthal. I'll leave it up to you if you serve him with cabbage or without.

[rydra_wong]

Please enjoy a non-binary penned punk song about Claude Cahun: Worriers, "The Only Claude That Matters." rydra_wong, I thought you should know.

Much appreciated!