And it is a sunny, cool, golden and blue day, and I am in the Ottawa Storyteller's Office in this cool building called The Rectory Arthouse, and Caitlyn is doing her work, and I just spent a good hour reviewing and reviewing and reviewing lines.
I'd recorded all my lines and cue lines with my mother over the last few months. So I listen to it, sometimes while looking at the script if it's a part I'm having trouble with, but mostly listen and recite along with my eyes closed. And if there's a tricky transition, I just play it over and over and over again. Hopefully it will sink into my bones. I mean, it should be SUNK by now.
Today we're going to do two run-throughs, ostensibly. We've only been doing one run through a day, really, although we tend to repeat scenes or parts we have trouble with. But I'd love to do a full run-through off script, with no calling for lines or using crutches. Even if it's a huge mess, at least we'll know we can muddle through. I think that's what today is for.
TOMORROW IS THE PERFORMANCE!
I don't want you to think it's not going well. It's going quite swimmingly. My biggest note from Caitlyn was to slow down. I will just remember that my grandmother, my MIMA, who has flown in from Phoenix and then driven ten hours from Rhode Island to see this, will be there. And that she likes it slow and precise. I will keep that thought in the forefront and I will be SLOW. But then, when the scene with, like, the ghost sex happens, I will sort of on purpose forget she is in the audience. But I will still be SLOW, because, uh, ghosts... like it slow?
Once this is done, I will run the story-poem show I'm doing on Friday. Well, I'll probably run it on Friday. It's not like I don't know the poems by heart... It's just that, you know, the ORDER that they go in, and the patter in between is not necessarily the smoothest. But I am looking forward to that one, because that's my favorite thing to do.
In other news, last night, after a delicious stirfry that Caitlyn made, we watched Episode 1 of the THE FADES, which was very scary, but which has two teenage boy characters who are really quite lovely together, who have long conversations about Terry Pratchett and Susannah Clarke. Then we watched an old family video of Caitlyn, made when she was about two. A cuter curly-headed hat-loving pig-hugging toddler I have NEVER SEEN. She and her parents were doing a sort of fairy tale play about a pig and a witch and some samurai.
Watching this video inspired us to make a video of our own. We had no camera at our disposal (well, we could've used Gil's, but that would have required, I dunno, a little more effort), so we used the Photo Booth app on my computer. We chose to do the fairy tale THE WHITE CAT, only we just had Beans at our disposal, so we called it THE TAWNY CAT. We wore many strange hats and galloped around on invisible horses and made... a gallery of famous cat portraits.
Well. Once we established that Caitlyn was the artist in our dynamic duo (SHE MAKES THE MOST AMAZINGLY ADORABLE RATS!!!), I just sort of let her make the gallery.
Anyway, we did that. And then Gil edited it, because he's magic, and he did all sorts of cool things like find the old Fairy Tale Theater soundtrack to overly the whole, and he did credits, and he put Shelley Duvall at the front, which Caitlyn dubbed over, and it's just... FABULOUS.
I mean, it's horrid. But it's FABULOUS. If you know what I'm saying?
It may or may not be on YouTube within the day.
Uh...
Yeah.
Well! If 2 year olds can do it, SO CAN WE! And that's all I have to say about the matter.
ETA: Okay.
Don't say I never did anything to make your day more ridiculous.
***
Then, on Saturday, I am going HERE!
To meet with my two oldest and dearest friends in the world, Kiri and Mir.
Here are some (6-8 years old) pictures of us, from Arizona, Ireland, Yorkshire and then from the Wedding.
I have not felt so happy or so fulfilled in a writer since discovering Bujold. And yet, would I have appreciated Baker as much without Bujold? I don't know - I hope so! But I seem to have come upon Baker at the EXACT RIGHT TIME and I'm just so grateful.
I am grateful, and I am almost entirely packed for Canada, save make-up and toothbrush. WHAT AM I FORGETTING?
Whatever I am forgetting, it is not my passport.
NERVES. Nerves, I tell you, big DRAGONFLIES in the torso!
But Caitlyn will meet me at the airport. We have three days of intensive rehearsal before the performance. It will all work out. It must. It must.
I have rewritten the end of Martyr's Gem, much to my satisfaction. It is now everything I asked it to be, and it has a last line that I really like. Taken away from the story, it's not stellar, but THEMATICALLY it pops. Imagine me thinking about things like themes! It is to laugh. It is in a manilla envelope. It is ready to be submitted. Rights of first rejection always go to a certain magazine, because if a girl's spotless MS must needs be tarnished, let it be tarnished by the best, sez I.
Oh, and all the rest is... Let me just get through this week and not disgrace all of the North American continent with my performance. Then, a week in P.E.I. with Kiri and Mir (may it all go smoothly), that we may watch Anne of Green Gables and Bright Star and Jane Eyre and Emma and play dress up and go for long walks and laugh late into the night, as we did that month in Ireland seven years ago.
Kiri and Mir have solemnly vowed that we all made a solemn vow to go to P.E.I. once we hit 30, but I seem to remember it being more of... what does Geoffrey Rush call it? A guideline... Still, if I waited until I could afford it, we'd never have gotten there. Right? So. Putting my well-earned and eminently practical frugality aside, I will coast a while on trust (which I have from my mother-line) and have an adventure whose value is rather above rubies.
Work was... phew. Today. Was... summer-y. Was non-stop. Was intense. When I get back from Canada, I wonder if every day will be like that. I hope my brain will not have lost what little edge these last two months have gained me. But time enough to worry about THAT on the flight home, eh? My mother tells me I worry too much. Eh!
All right. A few final things to do tonight, before bed and an early waking. I may or may not write here while I'm over the border into the wild north (AKA Ottawa the Civilized), for I shall be quite... tangled... I think in my stageries. Which is not a word. But "affairs" seemed rather ardent and "self-concern" made my eyes crossed, even if both are true.
A co-worker asked me today if I was Canadian. I said no, and she looked surprised, and said I had a bit of an accent. I told her I'd been watching a bit of Due South. And that I had a lot of Canadian friends. But dear me! I was never so flattered! And also worried. Am I affecting a dialect that is not my own? Or does saying, "Thank you kindly" to customers a la Constable Frazier constitute "a bit of an accent"? Mmn.
This is what I would have said about it a week ago, before I gobbled it up in a single day over at the Info Booth at work where nothing much was happening except me giving directions to the penguins or the bathrooms:
"Oh, just stop telling me how good it is and raving and recommending already! GAH!"
(This does not reflect well on me. What is it? Jealousy? Inadequacy? Fear of being disappointed?)
But back to the ravers. Do you know what happens when too many people tell me how much I must do something? I avoid doing it. I avoid it sullenly, guiltily, with this creepy little backstabby rebellious feeling that hurts no one but myself. Some part of me says, "I do not WANT to like what you like, so leave me alone!"
This happened, ha ha, with the music of S.J. Tucker. EVERYBODY and their MAMA loved the Sooj Machine, and assured me it was JUST up your alley, Claire, no honestly, you'll ADORE her... So I, yes, I just... refused... to listen... to her. At all.
...And then was totally CONVERTED one day when there was this awesome music playing in a car I happened to be riding in and I was like, "Oh, this is pretty SWELL PANTS; who's this?" And was told, perhaps smugly, "This is S.J. Tucker," and it was ALL OVER FROM THERE.
But back to me avoiding the things that obviously I should be reading, because everyone tells me I ought, and everyone's USUALLY right, seeing as that "everyone" is usually comprised of my dearest friends and colleagues. And some part of me knows this. This part of me always listens. And bides. And plots. And the minute that ornery freak of "No Want To!" in my nature gets bored and wanders off, this impulsive, sunny-faced, voracious thing pounces and says, "NOW IT IS MINE AT LAST!"
So I've heard great things, over the last few years, about One Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. I heard - and believed - how I would like it. And then I stubbornly refused to do anything about it. Why? Why do I do this to myself? Why, when it's SO BRILLIANT AND IT TASTES LIKE A NOVEL-SIZED VERSION OF THAT NERUDA POEM I LIKE AND... AND... SLURP!!!
Excuse me. I mean. It's just that...
I guess that's why I ask people to tell me WHY they like a book. Because if they tell me why, and I can see the glow in their eyes, and they talk about the characters as if they were dear friends, and the plot as if it were vital, as if it were happening, then I totally get into it. Then I want to read it. Some people hate that; they find it spoilery. But me, it just makes me hungry. It's when people just gush about its goodness and then assure me that I will fawn, that's when I go all weirdo.
Why I liked this book:
I guess I like heroines who go tough and with dignity into a situation so out of their control that staying alive isn't even an option. It's choosing how to make your sacrifice meaningful. How to make your death matter most. High stakes. In this way, Yeine Darr is a bit like Katniss Everdeen.
(If you hate The Hunger Games, forgive the comparison; it does not mean you'll hate this book. I thoroughly enjoyed both, in fact, which tells you about my taste. Though I didn't read The Hunger Games until a whole horde of 8th Grade Girls yelled at me for not doing so. Forces To Be Reckoned With. I wish I could yell at all of them to READ ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS, DANG IT! Perhaps I will get to do so in the future.)
It has these heart-deep observations that just SCORE ME. My favorite, for example, is this:
"Still... I could not help drinking in the view. It is important to appreciate beauty, even when it is evil."
There. Do you see? There. Right there. Think about it. This is a thought that preys on me. The appreciation of beauty, of power, of richness - even when it is evil. Even when it is poisonous. Because... Because we can't help it? Because we should take in what we can of it, while we can, because life is so brief? Because... what? I don't know. I have to think about it some more. It reminded me of that wonderful moment in the film Gladiator, when Juba says, seeing the Coliseum for the first time, "I didn't know men could build such things." And there was awe there, for the things we build, even when we build a place to go and die in.
So you've got a young woman - a mortal woman - facing a possible death sentence disguised as the highest honor in the world. You've got gods who are bound as slaves. You've got humans with more power than they can hold. And every road ends in death. So what's a girl to do?
You make allies. You make a plan. You seduce a VERY VERY SEXY AND DANGEROUS NIGHTLORD in very sexy ways and YUM!!! And you die well... Or not. I guess you'll have to read it and see.
***
To add to all this delicious Jemisin (I am now reading The Broken Kingdoms, which Amal says she likes better, and which I like very much, but not, I fear, better), I have discovered Kage Baker.
Kage Baker, Kage Baker, Kage Baker.
WHERE HAS SHE BEEN ALL MY LIFE???
It's like discovering Shirley Jackson and Ursula LeGuin and Lois McMaster Bujold and Neil Gaiman all rolled into one -- except NOT, because it's KAGE BAKER!!!
Gosh.
So I read EMPRESS OF MARS. Which... Yes. Everyone. Read it. You know everything I just said before I typed that? Disregard it. I am a hyprocrite. I am recommending this lavishly, like (insert favorite spreadable food here) over (insert favorite bread/cracker/cake) on your birthday. WITH MARTIAN DIAMONDS ON TOP! No, really. Seriously.
And when you're done with that, please read her book of short stories, "Mother Aegypt and Other Stories," but in PARTICULAR read "What the Tyger Told Her." Oh, and everything with Lord Ermenway. Oh, and "Nightmare Mountain." And the one about her father's eyes.
And then, since you're already in love with Lord Ermenway, the pretentious little demonspawned fop, go on and read Baker's novel ANVIL OF THE WORLD.
And then, yes, then you may come back here and THANK ME! I accept tributes of flowers and jewels. You're welcome.
***
Originally posted by
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1){kind=small}
sovay at We seek out change to dream ourselves into the worldThis is the post about The Moment of Change: An Anthology of Feminist Speculative Poetry, edited by Rose Lemberg, which is now available from Aqueduct Press. Contributors include Ursula K. Le Guin, Shweta Narayan, Theodora Goss, Amal El-Mohtar, J.C. Runolfson, Lawrence Schimel, Cassandra Phillips-Sears, Catherynne M. Valente, Rachel Manija Brown, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Athena Andreadis, Adrienne J. Odasso, Phyllis Gotlieb, Greer Gilman, Jo Walton, Samantha Henderson, Jeannelle Ferreira, Yoon Ha Lee, Sofia Samatar, April Grant, Nisi Shawl, and a great many other poets speaking in all their own (and sometimes multiple) voices. Two of my poems are among them, "Matlacihuatl's Gift" and "Madonna of the Cave." I won't be at Wiscon for the reading, but I am honored to have been part of this project and very pleased it is out in the world.
Go and see; read and change.
It's what would happen if everyone knew that the S and J in S.J. Tucker REALLY stands for SASSAFRAS JEHOSHAPHAT.
You didn't know that, did you?
Well, neither does her MAMA!
Sass-a-frass Jehoshaphat
Went to school with a tulip in her hat
Schoolteacher cried
Rushing to her side
"Sassy, you're dressed in your birthday hide!"
Jump, Sassy, Jump
See the Hostas grow
Jack in the Pulpit
Row by row
Wist for Wisteria
Hist for Hysteria
Bow to the Queen of Bavaria!
Sass-a-fras Jehoshaphat
Brings home a sweet little kitty cat
Mama says with glee
Proud as proud can be
"That's the finest tiger I did ever see!"
Jump, Sassy, Jump
In the maple grove
Maisie found a daisy
In a treasure trove
Prince of Albania
Lord of Lithuania
Morning Glory-Moon Flower Mania!
Sass-a-fras Jehoshaphat
Knows where to go and where it's at
Sings all the songs
Rights all the wrongs
Wherever she is is where she belongs
Jump for your sister
Jump for your mister
Jump to the top of that mean old twister
Jump for the witch
On her big birch switch
Jump to the Moon
And SCRATCH HER ITCH
One
Two
Three
And...
LEAP!
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
It's OUT!
All information here, right here, RIGHT THERE! with bits from Amal El-Mohtar's introduction, and blurbs by Delia Sherman, Jane Yolen, S.J. Tucker, Pamela Dean, Nicole Kornher-Stace and Sharon Shinn.
And lookit!
http://www.amazon.com/Flirt-Faerieland-O
And more later...
And over lunch (leftover enchiladas), I read Francesca Forrest's new story, Tilia Songbird, only it's the kind of story that leaves you ACHING for a WHOLE LOT MORE, so I'm hungry again.
And it's just not fair, because it's not a hunger that can be SATISFIED with food. Maybe it could be satisfied by DISCUSSION!
Tonight I will get to discuss Nicole's book with her. But YOU! You all could dash over to GigaNotoSaurus (linked above) and read Francesca's story, and then DISCUSS IT HERE WITH ME!!! In comments! So that I could TAAAAALK to someone about it!!!
So, yeah. Life really sucks. Because, the last four and a half hours I just had to SUFFER through all THIS BRILLIANT AND HEARTBREAKING NEW FICTION by people I ADORE! Pity me. Send me flowers and avocados.
***
ADDENDUM:
When I say I hunger at the end of something, it is not meant, in any way, to imply dissatisfaction. Or, at any rate, that I disapprove of this particular FLAVOR of dissatisfaction.
Actually, I am a firm believer in stories leaving you wanting more. (Case in point, the ending to Robin McKinley's SUNSHINE, which had so many people so upset, and which delighted me.) I think it gives "more scope for the imagination" as Anne of Green Gables says. Only she said it in reference to poverty being, in that way, more satisfying than riches.
I believe in... In the READER being a vital and integral and complicit participant in the building of worlds. So that THEY (we) may spin untold stories with the thread the author has given us. We, in fact, become... each of us, an alternate universe, starting with the seedstar of the original story.
I like pieces of things. I think that's why I don't mind starting series in the middle. I like piecing together the past with... implications!
This story felt FAMILIAR to me, but familiar in a way that does not mean to imply the cliche of contempt. It was familiar the way Gaiman's CORALINE was familiar. As if I'd been there before, or dreamed it. And every sentence was remembering.
I frikkin love that feeling. That feeling that once upon a time, I knew ALL THE STORIES. But when I was born, the tumult of my passage erased all stories but my own, and even they are buried deep in the bedrock of amnesia, revealing themselves as time erodes the forgetfulness away.
Without OTHER AUTHORS (or any artists -- or scientists -- or historians!), I'd never learn the whole of it. I'd never see more of... of the MYSTERY!
***
I returned home from NYC on Saturday night, having spent all day Friday and Saturday there. My mother picked me up from the train. We zoomed the four minutes to our flat, had a cuppa, did lightning-speed catch up, a brief back massage (she'd had a 9 hour day at Home Depot), and then I, in my turn, drove her to the train station, where she caught an overnight to D.C., and there she shall remain until Wednesday night.
It has been since January 2011 that I have lived alone in my own place. So strange and so familiar all at once. Not unpleasant. But not (at this juncture) preferable either in the grand picture. But I'm glad for it. Brain space. Typing at my kitchen table. Eating all the bell peppers and leftover brown rice! Okay, well, two of the four peppers, and she DID buy them for me. She said so.
First things first.
Friday.
I arrived in New York at 10ish, and since Penn Station (who knew???) is a heckuva lot closer to the Riversiders than Grand Central Station is, I was there in no time flat, dumping my stuff and chatting away with the Fairy Aunties. We ate Indian Food and drank Chai and talked about Delia's book, and the playwright Liz Duffy Adams, and the nature of best friends. Then Ellen thought I should go see a play for $9 (I had specified I was game for anything in New York, so long as it cost less than $10), and gave me a list to choose from.
I narrowed the list to three. I might have gone to see this Lovecraftian radio theatre thing, or possibly an Alice in Wonderland only it's in Manhattan thing (I can't for the life of me find a link for that!), which I seem to remember being called "Wanderland" but that could be my imagination, or "Voices from the Edge" by New Perspectives theatre. I wasn't in a Dagonesque mood, and that particular Alice retelling seemed a bit too whimsical for my taste (blonde 20-somethings wandering New York, wide-eyed, chasing the rabbit...), so I chose the latter. I'd hoped it would give me something new to think about.
The theatre had a neat mission statement:
1) develop and present new plays and playwrights, particularly women and people of color,
2) present classic plays in a style that sheds new light on our lives and work, and
3) present theatre to under-served audiences-especially young people-to build life skills and promote participation in our society.
Artistically, we are interested in returning theatre to its ancient role of gathering the community to examine social, political and spiritual issues that affect us as individuals and as a whole. Our emphasis on multi-racial casting and the development of new works by women and writers of color is an attempt to bring to that examination a range of voices that reflect the true diversity of contemporary America. Our aim is not to exclude, but to cast a wider net.
2) present classic plays in a style that sheds new light on our lives and work, and
3) present theatre to under-served audiences-especially young people-to build life skills and promote participation in our society.
Artistically, we are interested in returning theatre to its ancient role of gathering the community to examine social, political and spiritual issues that affect us as individuals and as a whole. Our emphasis on multi-racial casting and the development of new works by women and writers of color is an attempt to bring to that examination a range of voices that reflect the true diversity of contemporary America. Our aim is not to exclude, but to cast a wider net.
Now that's a mission statement you can stand behind, right? Shazam!
I'm not sorry I went. Not all of the four short pieces were to my taste, and some I felt should have come with footnotes, but still they were good and chewy, and the actors were sweating and whole-hearted and having fun. There were clowns and frenzied dancing and witty repartee. The fourth piece - my favorite - did some fascinating Dystopia-building, and this with just two people in the cast: a fighter and his trainer.
The playwright was Rafael Jordan; the piece was called LEAD, FOLLOW or GET OUT OF THE WAY: Musings on (un) Civil Discourse. This is described in the literature to be four original short works that explore the current state of human relationships as we stand, perhaps, on the precipice of major social upheaval. They were directed by Jenny Greeman and Marissa Molnar.
So, after eating lunch with the Fairy Aunties, and then whisking myself away ($9 theatre tickets in my little velvet bag) to SoHo, I met up with an actress named Anne Bobby, ostensibly to sip champagne and catch up with each other's lives. Unfortunately, I could only do things for under $10, so I had a ginger ale. But catch up we did! And then she took me around SoHo and the Lower East Side and showed me places I might want to bring my little 45-minute story-poem show...
...For my poetry collection...
...Which is coming out May 7th...
...Which is in ONE WEEK!...
MINE! MINE! MINE!
Ahem. On sale this Monday at an internet retail superpower near you.
And we went to DIXON PLACE, and I thought the lounge there would do quite nicely, if I'd ever get the gumption to, you know, make reservations... And find 20 people in New York willing to sit through 45 minutes of CHEEKY RHYMES!
Then Anne breezed off to a film festival and I stayed around and ate tacos, and then I went to my own theatre experience, and, satisfying it, went home. I was very tired, for my train that morning had left at 7 AM(ish), and I'd been tramping rather a lot. I was just curled up on the Fairy Aunties' couch, reading the very informative pamphlet that had been passed out, I guess, at the play "In the Next Room: Or the Vibrator Play" which was FULL OF ESSAYS of a feminist and/or feminine nature, and it was thoroughly engrossing, and that, my friends, is when the Fairy Aunties came home.
I won't say it's sort of but not really like when you're watching a movie over at your parents' house, and you're totally of age and everything, and it's no big deal, but they STILL AND ALWAYS walk in right at the sex scene? But they just said, "Oh, isn't that fascinating stuff? The play wasn't all what it was touted to be, but the pamphlet was great!"
They'd been at Cat's birthday party at The Firebird restaurant, and were dressed up in rich finery.
"Someone told me I looked 'like Rasputin, but in a good way,'" Ellen said, looking disgruntled in her long velvets. "I said, screw that, I'm a Russian Prince!"
"You're an IVAN!" I said.
"Yes, all except my earrings," she said, and showed them to me. These were long gauntleted hands clutching pearl droplets. Badass.
Soon, I fell asleep on the couch. And when I woke many, many, many delicious hours later, I got to meet the playright Liz Duffy Adams over my oatmeal, and admire her coat, and general awesomeness. And hearing her and Ellen and Delia talk was like witnessing long lost childhood companions reunited after a gulf of years... Except they haven't known her all that long. But she does, as Ellen put it, have a warmth in her, and a sweetness, and a sharp, burning intelligence, and you can feel it from the first time she shakes your hand. So that was cool. And now I want to read her play "Or" and I will. Thank you.
After this, we RUSHED to The Met, although I wasn't entirely clear on why, except that a friend of the Fairy Aunties was there, and I'm afraid I had a fangasm or faneurism or whatever it's called when you suddenly start giggling uncontrollably at the sight of LINCOLN CENTER looming above you...
....And then it turned out that the friend was Beckie Kravetz, a maskmaker, and she was having a showcase in the gift shop of The Metropolitan Opera house... Where she was making OPERA ART - sculptures and masks (wearable and un) - based on famous opera characters. And it was FLIPPING GORGEOUS and I got all crawly-skinned and covetous...
And THEN Ellen and Delia introduced me to the artist's husband, another friend of theirs, Alan Weisman, a writer...
And the name rang a bell, but not like a huge clanging one. But he had these dark, kind, sharp, tired eyes and I immediately liked him as much as I liked the Siegmund and Sieglinde piece. And when I asked (like a doofus, sorry, sorry, I should know everything and everyone's names and be awesome, but I'm not, and I don't think I ever will be, which is exactly why I don't really belong in New York City) what he wrote, he answered, gently, "I'm a... journalist," and Delia said, gently, "He wrote The World Without Us."
And I'm afraid my eyes got very big indeed. And then I babbled a bit about how it was on the trunk right next to my bed, and how I've been meaning to read it ever since my friend told me that bit about the bridges and the birdseed, and then we talked about his new book and I could've just listened to him talk forever. While looking at the bronze of Odin in his eyepatch.
And after that, we rushed out again, met Cat and Kat at the bagel shop, got food, went back to Riverside, started eating. And Dima came by and was sent off to get pastries. And then Lev came. And Dora Skyped in like Lucy Skypewalker. And we had our Injustice League meeting. We focused on Delia's new novel The Wizard's Apprentice, which is an expansion on an idea and characters from her short story of the same title. (That link goes to the cool Podcastle version, which is how I first read the short story.)
I love the new, longer one too, and feel so... Oh, I dunno. Full to bursting with the honor and excitement of it all? Spilleth-overing? (Should we shorten that to "spove"? As in, "I'm feeling a bit SPOVED right now"!) Listening to the other critiques and how Delia engaged with us was enough to make my eyes cross (TOO! MUCH! DAZZLE!), but this second meeting of ours seemed less fraught than the first one.
And I hope we continue this, at least for a little while, because I think it is very beautiful.
Then I came home, took my mom to the train station, got to sleep about midnight, woke up and worked. Came home, watched some Inspector Lynley BBC mysteries, which I'd never heard of, but which were available at the library. And slept. And worked. And came home and did the same. And now I'm blogging, and then to bed.
OH! But in some down-time at work today, I finished reading Kage Baker's THE EMPRESS OF MARS, and OH MY GODS!
I have found, in its heroine Mary Griffith, someone I'd want to drag across spines and pages and galaxies to introduce to Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan. And then just sit on a couch between them while they talked.
Tell me, is there a third Science Fiction Heroine to equal Naismith and Griffith? Tell me there is one! Tell me her name!
I recommend Empress up the wazoo. I may even blog on Black Gate all about it. Ah, I have been neglecting Black Gate shamefully whilst Getting Other Fings Done. But perhaps. Perhaps there will be time.
The belugas are still beautiful. Penguins make a funny sound when they flap-swim. I have a day off tomorrow, in which I am going to rehearse and do dishes and read Coal's new book. And I hope, hope, hope, write. I did, after all, plot out the new ending of Martyr's Gem, and it has two very good lines in it. One of them is the new last line of the story, and my skin reacted with a chill. So even if it's no good to anyone else, I know it's the right one for me.
VROOOOM! AND IT'S THE BED FOR ME!
***
Ahem. Arts.
But boy... Even if I just had pearls for my eyes. I'd pluck 'em out and pawn 'em and give the money to the Accidental Shakespeare Company.
I am going to quote from the website, but you can just read it all plus more for yourselves, too! If this interests you, please help them out! OR SIGNAL BOOST!!! Thank you so much!
About the project
The Accidental Shakespeare Company is a new classical theater company in Chicago. The Accidentals want to bring a high level of dramaturgy and acting skills to an affordable storefront theater space. We are raising money for our first mainstage show, The Tempest. We are raising the funds to cover the production costs so that we can maintain a very affordable ticket price for all.
The Tempest is a show about magic and most productions make the show about the magical stuff, the spectacle and the show. We like spectacle as much as anybody, but what makes our show unique is that we put the magic into the context it would have had in the early 17th century. Our design team has invented what we call “Alchemy Punk”: like Cyberpunk or Steampunk, but powered by wind and magic. So-called magicians, astrologers and alchemists were just discovering elementary physics, chemistry, astronomy, and navigation. Do not be confused by all the talk of spirits. Scholars of the natural world studied the supernatural with the same intensity. Fairies and elves and witches were believed to be every bit as much a part of the natural world as Mendel’s peas or Galileo’s stars. Furthermore, Christendom had been in flames for a century over issues of faith. Their culture, like ours, hovers on the brink of overwhelming change, and not all of those changes were good.
It is very important to us to raise the entire cost of the production so that people who cannot afford the high ticket prices of many Chicago theaters will be able to come to our show. To achieve this goal, we need to raise $3,000 to cover these costs. Fortunately for us, 3Arts will match a third of our funding goal to ensure our success. So, with your help and the support of 3Arts we can bring this production to life.
The Tempest touches on issues with such contemporary resonance that legislators in Arizona have banned the teaching of it in the public school system. They think the play is provocative. They are right.
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- C.S.E. Cooney
- C.S.E. Cooney
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