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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
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| Saturday, November 14th, 2009 |
gingerkat
|
3:10p |
Set it right
Dammit, I want my fairytale back. Now where's that fucking wand? Current Mood:  sick |
gingerkat
|
3:09p |
You are not listening
Thank you to the crazees and the addicts for listening to me and not coming to the hospital today. However, it is obvious the flu people and the Tylenol ODers were not listening to a word I said. There was more of you today. At least none of the flu youngsters ended up on a vent yet. And Tylenol people, here is a hint. Benzodiazepines will not kill you, even if you take a huge overdose. Don't combine them with alcohol or other narcotics or they might. But the benzos alone make a great statement and are dramatic enough to get your point across without major organ damage. Current Mood: sick |
happydog
|
2:23a |
I really don't want to go to bed. I really want to write something profound and amazing, but I don't have it in me, or if I do, which may be the case, it is hidden under an icy crust of burnout which is not necessarily going to get better this weekend unless I take steps to do something I'm not sure I should do, that is, forego a rather serious function which I am attending out of obligation to the loved ones and not to the person themselves, who is dead and could care less. IN either case, you see, I am not on Facebook but I am here, constricted as it might be by my tiredness, I have posted something at least a bit more meaningful than a Tweet. My resolution is to be more than a couple of sentences long and tell you about myself and what I am thinking and feeling, except of course for the spiritual stuff which will be tastefully hidden, and the political stuff, which will even be more tastefully hidden, which thought throws me back into the mood to say ah fuck it, go back to Facebook and type inane two-sentence updates. |
| Friday, November 13th, 2009 |
brynndragon
|
10:24p |
Sometimes it's pretty good in here
So, every single thing I have cooked in the microwave today has boiled over, from the chicken pot pie to the green beans. Were my brain cranky it would do something like fume and bitch about this state of affairs and worry about unfortunate rearrangements of proteins and other biochemicals that can occur at high temperatures and such (I just can't do the whole "microwaves are unnatural and do terrible things to food!" thing, thankfully). But apparently my brain is a good mood - instead it shows me a music video of my microwave oven singing "I'm too sexy for your food", which is frickin' hilarious. All I can say is you guys are so lucky I have no vidding skills ;). Current Mood:  content |
nakedcomixguy
|
7:22p |
Jesse In Sepia
 Model: Jessie Marie Sometime our best efforts don't seem good enough. At one point, it felt like all I was doing with this picture is banging my head against it. (At which someone asked '"which head"?) I felt like either my artistic talent or my sex drive was failing. I couldn't get it to feel right. Nothing was working out like I wanted. Finally I just gave up on what I originally had planned and started playing around with it. I started experimenting with color overlays. Using them like photo filters. Sepia worked the best. It also muted a lot of the colors that was going out of control on me and gave the image an old photograph feel to it. I like the idea of making it like an old glamour shot from the fifties. Not totally monochromatic but with a little bit of color peeking here and there. It's not my best piece but I feel happy enough with it to put it down. I would have felt bad if I had too put it on hold until I could figure how to pull it in the direction I had originally wanted it to go. Sometime you just have to move on to the next girl. |
feritradition
[ rideout_dbza ]
|
6:17p |
hey guess what! Anaar Workshop TOMORROW
Who is the Flower above You and What is the work of this God? In this class, we will use a guided meditation to learn our true Daemonic name, the name that cannot be spoken. Then we will make a sigil of this name. Ideas and options for working with the sigil will be discussed. Anaar is a graduate of the Victor Anderson Feri school of madness and possesses an MA in Arts and Consciousness. Greatly influenced by the mad poet, she has sought to create works of great mystery and power. http://www.themysticdream.com/classes.htmSaturday, Nov. 14 1-2:30pm $20 |
veedub
|
3:31p |
excerpt du jour
In 2004 my mother died. She had had dementia for several years before this, due to a fall which caused some bleeding in the brain. Her memory was very erratic, but she could remember events up until the early 1940s perfectly. She was still pissed off at her niece Netta, who died in 1965, and even Netta’s mother Debbie, who died in 1940. They were both suicides, but Bee seemed to think that they were still alive and getting her goat in the present day. She had trouble remembering who I might be; when Diana and I paid her and Larry a visit in Fort Worth in June 2003, she didn’t know who we were most of the time, and as a result was quite charming and polite to us, as she would be to a stranger. She was able to get around the house using a walker, but didn’t like going out in the hot sun; but whenever Larry went out running errands she grew fearful about being alone with just the dog, and Larry usually had to arrange with a neighbor to sit with her until he got back. Larry was her only caregiver, and did everything for her. He was (and is) quite robust for his age; he was 85 at the time, and even at age 90 he is very independent. Before Auntie Renee died in 1995, the two sisters would exchange transatlantic visits at least once a year. When Renee died Bee was truly bereft, as they had been very close. Now her closest confidant and ally was Larry, who was far too laconic to fill the gap left by Renee, much as he and Bee loved each other. Even the name “Larry” was his middle name, and nobody else called him anything by “Bob.” When they first met during World War II, he had given her a different name out of a feeling that he might not want to be entrapped by this difficult, demanding, but vivacious and attractive woman. It was standard practice among soldiers to give a false name to women they met when on foreign service, and besides, she was older than he was (she never told him how much older), married to someone else, and had a small child to boot. And she was Jewish, totally unsuitable for the wife of a small-town boy from upstate New York. But she had a certain something that broke down all these barriers, and he was never sorry he married her. After all the years they had been together, he was still a most devoted husband, and remains a grieving widower to this day. I asked him recently whether he had ever thought or marrying again, and he said that Bee was still the only one for him. We had arranged that Bee would be cremated after her death and her ashes placed in our niche, which I had just recently bought, in the San Francisco Columbarium. Larry plans to be cremated and have his own ashes scattered over a piece of land in New York State where he used to go hunting and fishing as a boy, so the niche won’t be completely full when it’s Ron’s and my turn to use it. Her death was due to more bleeding on the brain after another fall. She was taken to the hospital, and when Larry called me to ask my advice about putting her on life support, I told him that neither he nor Bee would be happy with the results if she was already brain-dead. So Bee did not go on life-support, and she died within three days. Although he was greatly affected by her loss, Bee’s death allowed Larry to travel, which he had always loved to do and which had been severely curtailed during Bee’s last years. He takes at least one long transcontinental trip by car every year, sometimes with his niece Marilyn for company and to share the driving, but often completely alone. He was always fond of the outdoors, and would have loved to be a forest ranger. His main contact with the outdoors as he got older was walking his dog around the neighboring golf course, so these long trips are a great pleasure to him. And he has kept himself in extremely good shape over the years. He was diabetic, and Bee always used to claim that she had cured him with vitamins; I think the main contributor to his continuing health is that he eats very little, gets a lot of exercise, and stays very slim. Nobody would take him for 90. Larry has a very good genetic heritage-- his father, Grampa Brown, was widowed in his 80s, married what Larry calls a “maiden lady” of 65 when he was 90, and died at 97. (Too bad I don’t share any of those genes.) Bee’s ashes arrived in a plastic bag about the size of a brick, inside a cardboard box inside another box. I emptied her ashes into a fancy tea-jar which I had bought in London years before, and made a little shrine to Bee in one half of the niche. I had asked Larry to send me some of Bee’s favorite pieces of jewelry, and placed them in there with the jar, a little portrait of her at 16 in a fancy frame, some rhinestone letters spelling out “BEE BROWN”, a tiny teapot with a teabag in it (she was always ready for a Nice Cup of Tea) and a stone on which was carved “FOCUS.” The main piece of jewelry was a gold pendant on a gold chain of the goddess Fortuna. Bee and Renee had bought identical pendants when they were visiting Italy once, and Bee’s pendant had gone missing; so when Renee died, her son Stuart sent Reneee’s pendant to Bee, and she had worn it faithfully ever since. And there was a group photo of Bee, Renee, and their nephew Victor, who had also died, and a whole lot of rose petals, scattered on the floor of the niche. So there was everything she had loved in life. I know that I should start decorating the other half of the niche, because I want grave goods too when I’m gone, but I can’t make up my mind what I want in there. All my favorite magickal objects are in constant use, so I suppose I will have to make a list and a diagram of where to put things. The Columbarium is a wonderful place. It’s a round dome with niches all around the periphery on several floors, and a central rotunda under which concerts and other musical events are held because of the marvellous acoustics. There are stained-glass windows and Victorian embellishment everywhere. Built in 1897 by British architect Bernard J. Cahill for the Odd Fellows' cemetery, San Francisco's Columbarium is the last of its kind still in use in this country. The building was abandoned in 1934 and lay dormant until 1979 when it was rescued and restored by the Neptune Society.
According to caretaker Emmitt Watson, when the Neptune Society purchased the property, raccoons denned in alcoves, doves and pigeons nested in the eaves. The roof leaked profusely, allowing fungus, including mushrooms, to grow everywhere. "It was spooky," he recalled. But Watson was simply "afraid of the ugliness, not of the dead people." --http://www.sanfranciscoreader.com/essays/columbarium.htmlEmmitt Watson was the main reason for my buying a niche. A friendly man in his middle years, Emmit will drop everything to give visitors a free tour of his restoration work and all the people whose ashes live in the Columbarium. He has his own nickname for each of the people; and he decided, when it came time to in-urn Bee, that she was “the Queen Bee.” He certainly got that right. Larry and Marilyn came up to San Francisco for the in-urning, and Diana (who by this time had moved to San Francisco), Ron and I were joined by Emmitt for the occasion. Then Larry and Marilyn got into the car, with Larry driving, intending to go to Tahoe, but he wasn’t sure where to get on the freeway. Ron told him to just follow our car, but when we got on to the freeway, Larry went off in another direction. I assume they got there okay, because I have seen him since. In fact, he was driving alone a couple of months ago from Portland, Oregon, where he had been looking up some old family graves, back to Fort Worth, when he stayed at our house for a couple of nights to visit. Politics has never been something we agree on, so I have strictly avoided any of his attempts to start an argument; but he seemed to have to have Fox News on the TV constantly, even while napping. It seemed to be a comfort to him. I am a constant MSNBC watcher, but I knew better than to tune in to Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow while Larry was anywhere around. Neither of us is ever going to convince the other, so it’s just much more peaceful to avoid the issue entirely. Current Mood:  okay |
dietrich
|
4:11p |
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yezida
|
8:19a |
Peniel: Identity is Not the I
What happens when we don't feel strong? What happens when our identity is so wrapped up in what we do that we forget who we are becoming? This happens to us all. Last weekend, I did some energy work with a person who was walking on crutches, has been out of work for over a year, and was struggling. She was used to being strong, vital, to running everywhere and being the go-to person. She could not do that anymore and was starting to have trouble holding on after two surgeries and perhaps one more to come. Pain, coupled with a sense of defeat, were making it hard for her to stay in her body. This, of course, made the pain management worse. The more we run away from ourselves, the less life energy can flow in and support our lives and healing. The more we collapse upon our systems, the more we hurt and the more numbing we need. This is true of escaping pain in the body, the emotions, the mind, and the soul. In my work with her, the message came through clearly that the lessons of her healing were not for her alone, they were her gift to the community. Everyone around her needs to partake of the hard lessons she is currently experiencing. In expanding out, in reaching her energy up and down, rather than choosing to cave in, in calling her soul back into her body, she will become the teaching. Her life is now the lesson, not in what she can or cannot do, but in how she is showing up for it. Her strength will bolster everyone around her. Her pain reflects our pain. We need those lessons. We need to look more deeply at what we run from, what causes us to collapse, what identities have become props for our avoidance of the deeper reality that We Are. Identity is not the I. Our Doing is generated by our Being. We do not experience learning through avoidance. We do not learn by always feeling strong. We learn by dancing with every particle of life as it moves forward. We are wrestling with angels. Sometimes they wear our own faces. [here is a good post on this subject, by my Sister teacher Katrina Messenger.] |
worthyadvisor
|
3:00a |
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gingerkat
|
12:15a |
Stay home!
Dear crazee people and flu infected, I did not appreciate your appearance at my hospital tonight. I feel horrible and should not have to work that hard. 15 admission in one evening when I am this ill is too many. I also have to work this weekend. Crazee people- please just take your meds. It will save you tons of frustration while being hospitalized. If you are an addict, can you please just cut back a bit until after the weekend? Flu infected- You fucking morons. There is a vaccine for this! Get it. And those 2 who were also smokers, WTF? You smoke and don't get the flu vaccine??? double fucking morons. If you really think you want to visit the hospital, can you please try to wait until Monday? Or even better, let's try for Tuesday because I am off. PS to the 2 young women who tried to OD on Tylenol, UR doin it wrong! Tylenol typically doesn't kill most people right away. You end up having to suffer through liver failure first. It's a really horrible way to go, and not at all attractive. You may end up dying of liver failure 20+ years later. You caused me tons of work tonight, and yourselves much more pain than anyone should ever have to endure. There are plenty of wonderful alternatives to try and get attention without the liver failure. Current Mood:  cranky |
| Thursday, November 12th, 2009 |
pixiesnakes
|
9:11p |
Urge to kill rising... rising...
Someone dug up my herb garden!! Except for the yarrow and lemon balm. I pulled my comfrey out of the dump. Everything is gone. The stevia! The dill! Everything! I started having a panic attack. Everyone knew I was gardening those plots and the person that I suspect did this knew quite well what I was growing there. In fact I had made herbal remedy recommendations to several people and took them out to the garden and showed them which herbs to pick. Someone is going to pay. |
veedub
|
8:09p |
egg zirpt
I have a long history of volunteering, beginning with pregnancy testing and abortion counselling at a feminist bookstore back in Chicago in the 1960’s to working with the activities director in a nursing home during my studies at San Francisco State in the late 1980’s. In recent years I have joined a group of women singers, the Threshold Choir, who sing at the bedsides of people in the last stages of life. Every Monday afternoon I walk down the hill to Laguna Honda Hospital and sing for an hour to patients in the hospice. Most of the songs in the official Threshold Choir repertoire carry the message “it’s okay to die” with more or less subtlety, but I’ve always found that people at the hospice would rather hear their own particular favorites, so I have compiled a second book of unofficial songs: Beatles tunes, show tunes, gospel songs, country songs, blues, doo-wop-- you name it. Cynthia has been singing at Laguna Honda with me for about a year now, and I generally take the harmony while she sings the melody. It’s much more fun singing with someone else than singing solo. We have even been allowed to sing for the recently dead: when someone dies at the hospice, their bed is covered with a pretty quilt and flowers are placed at the foot of the bed, so their family can see them before the undertakers come to take the body away. I have almost always experienced the feeling that the dead person is still in the room when we come in to sing for them. It takes a while for their spirit to leave. If the family is there we generally get requests for “Amazing Grace,” which is the all-time favorite song of just about everyone. It was the last song I sang for Cora when she was in the hospital, just a few hours before she died, and it always makes me think of her. Patients at the hospice can last for a surprisingly long time before dying, sometimes for years. Others die within a few days of being admitted. There’s a change that takes place in people’s faces when they are about to go, which is really difficult to describe, but is a sure tell-tale. Of course, not everyone wants to be sung to, so we always ask “would you like a song, or would you rather rest?” This always brings up the memory of singing carols at General Hospital one Xmas with Lori and a group of her friends, back in the ‘70s; we were singing our way through the wards with great enthusiasm, until a voice piped out wearily from one corner, “Enough. Enough.” It’s a good thing to keep in mind when you’re trying to be generous that not everyone wants what you want to give them. Current Mood:  sleepy |
worthyadvisor
|
5:53p |
Sci Fi Night this Sunday!
Yes, it's that time again! The time where we watch DS9, eat popcorn (and other foods), and watch some more Sci Fi, and then call it a night (usually starting around 6:30-ish in the evening). So, this week's episodes of DS9: S1E11 The Nagus Watch out Universe! Quark is now the Grand Nagus....maybe...sorta kinda...for a little while, anyway... S1E12 Vortex A man comes to the station with a possible clue to Odo's origins, but he has a little problem of being a convicted criminal, and not totally on the up and up. After these, we might watch more DS9, or possibly more Alien Nation. I also recently got (because my girlfriend is teh awesomezors) the Bab 5 spinoff Crusade, which we could also start watching. There will be popcorn. Oh yes, there will be popcorn....:) This entry was originally posted at http://worthyadvisor.dreamwidth.org/497204.html. Please comment there using OpenID. Current Mood:  amused |
|
officialgaiman
|
10:04p |
A VERY SEKRIT PASSPHRASE
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/very-sekrit-passphrase.html posted by Neil
There were 38 independent bookshops around the land who had Graveyard Book parties. The people at Harpers somehow got it down to 11, and they sent them to me to judge the winner. The winner gets me for a signing in December. I watched the 11 videos/descriptions/ photos. I watched them again. I watched them yet again, this time with Lorraine, my assistant, watching too and saying helpful things like, "They are all so good. Whoo. Don't know how you'll make a decision. Look at that! They're line dancing to Monster Mash! And that Death is on stilts, isn't he. Is that a horse? A horse in a store? These are amazing." The fourth time, Woodsman Hans wandered in from the deep woods (where he is making a pond) and watched them too.
Then I made my decision. I called Elyse Marshall at Harpers and told her. "Ah," she said. "I'll have to check with the lawyers to find out if you can do that."
So we wait.
...
Today it occurred to me that in the past when I've had friends on tour, I've often done special "Neil sent me" things, where people who come from this blog get some special free thing, which a) is nice for the people who get the free thing and b) tells the person on tour that people are really coming from the blog. I did it with Thea Gilmore (who is starting a new UK tour next week. People in the UK, go and see live Thea Gilmore, for she is wonderful: http://www.theagilmore.net for dates and venues.) I've done it for The Magnetic Fields, who, incidentally, have a new album coming out on Jan 26th. And then there's the Green Goddess restaurant in New Orleans, where you can mention the "Mezze of Destruction" to tell them you came from here and get sent something wonderful to eat or drink. (It changes, depending on what chef Chris DeBarr feels like making.)
I should do it for Amanda. I called her up and told her.
She called me back. "Beth and I have put our heads together and come up with a code phrase for people from your blog," she said. "So they say it and get a special free thing from the merch table."
"Fire away," I said.
"We think they should come over to the merch table and point to this poster...  ...and say 'That chick in the yellow corset crowdsurfing looks kind of hot. I wonder if she's dating anyone?' And then they get something for free."
I said I thought that was a very bad idea, because people might say that anyway, and it was an awful lot for people to remember. And what if they sold out of that poster early that night?
I said, "What about any variant of 'Neil sent me from his blog?'"
"Absolutely not," she said. "That's boring."
I told her to leave it with me.
And then I stared at this screen glumly, with nothing happening in my head, and real work I should be doing starting to nip at my heels. So I turned to the Oracular Orb of truth at http://www.neilgaiman.com/oracle/ and I clicked on the orb and shook it.
Here is Doug Jones and some strange man it said.
If you go to one of Amanda Palmer's shows on this tour, wander over to the Merch table, and say that you found about it from some strange man's blog. And something good will probably happen. (If they just stare at you, tell them it was me, and this blog. If they keep staring tell them that the chick in the yellow corset in the poster looks like she probably has a really nice boyfriend.)
....
This seemed like a very good cause to me: Hi Neil,
I am a long-time fan, and have even met you backstage at a Tori show (though that was many years ago!). I am writing to ask a bit of a favor.
About 10 years ago, I appeared on 20/20 with Tori, speaking about sexual violence. Since then, I've stayed close with Tori whose been a mentor of the best kind. I also started a nonprofit, Pandora's Project, that provides support, information, and resources to rape and sexual abuse survivors and their supporters. We operate Pandora's Aquarium, an online support group with more than 20,000 registered members.
Recently, I was named a 2009 L'Oreal Woman of Worth for my volunteer work with Pandora's. I was chosen for this honor from more than 2,500 applicants.
Now, one of the ten 2009 Honorees will be selected as the national honoree through a public online vote. Her cause will get an additional $25,000, and a lot of media exposure. This is the first time L'Oreal has recognized a sexual violence organization, and becoming the national honoree would allow me to shine a spotlight on this issue that affects so many women and women.
Voting is easy - people just need to go to the url below, enter their email address in the box on the right, and click the "submit vote" button. Each email address is allowed one vote, and voting ends November 24.
http://www.womenofworth.com/Honorees/Honoree2009Detail.aspx?nomid=5657c940-425b-47a2-879d-ed3c2d82b56f
I am wondering if you might be willing to send people to this voting link via your (infinitely popular) twitter or blog. I understand if it's not something you can do, but my experience running a small-budget nonprofit tells me it's always wise to ask!
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Shannon LambertI'll plug it happily. Your correspondent asks "Will you be reading the original version where the wolf actually is killed, and not the 'oh my goodness our kids can't hear about death' version in which they bring him to the zoo?"
I fear she's in error; in the original version, written by Prokofiev, Peter snares the wolf, then convinces the hunters NOT to kill it, but to take it to the zoo.I've been researching, and that's what I found out too. Wikipedia has a list of changes made in various versions of the story (Disney, for example, had the wolf not eat the duck). But the wolf was always taken to the zoo... |
anaar
|
4:05p |
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loreleyjacob
|
11:55p |
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elorie
|
12:00p |
Writer's Block: If these walls could talk
Oh, honey. I'm a witch. Also I grew up in a haunted house. I ain't skeered of ghosts, and blessing houses is something I do as a matter of course. What the neighbors believe is one thing. If there were in fact a ghost, I'd offer it a job. Failing that, I'd negotiate an amicable co-existance. Failing that, I have ways of getting rid of it. Ask me a harder one. |
gingerkat
|
11:03a |
So if I have laryngitis bad enough that I can barely talk, how the hell am I supposed to answer the phone tonight at work? Maybe I'll just breathe heavy at them and they will go away and leave me alone. Current Mood: sick |
gingerkat
|
11:01a |
Turkey Day
Thanksgiving is only a two weeks away (Thursday, Nov 26th). Mattison and I are hosting our annual orphan's Thanksgiving for our friends who don't have family in the area, or those that prefer to avoid their's. If you are interested in joining us please drop me a line. It will be a pot luck dinner. Mattison will be making ham with cranberry and Burgundy sauce. There will probably be a turkey for poultry eaters and if we have vegetarians I suspect there will be some Tofurkey. Current Mood: sick |
catbirdgirl
|
10:55a |
phone wire question
does the old fashioned phone wire, the kind you could make jewelry and little animals out of, still exist? it came in a huge grey cable, was copper covered with pretty plastic colors and even striped sometimes.... if so, how do I get some? I got ahold of AT and T and they said they dont give away wire. I wanted to use some to make jewelry out of with the kids....you can even make baskets. |
ewigweibliche
|
2:47p |
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warjustice
|
9:42a |
Soulmate, Soulfate...
*Dedicated to the one who stole my heart more than once*
When I was the Cave Priest and you were my assistant
The tribesmen hated it-they considered it a crime
We fell in love in almost an instant
Still we had to save our love for another time
Soulmate, Soulfate...
When I was your slave and you were my master
We repressed our love-vowing to meet again
You made my heart beat faster and faster
-Against all policy, considered vile sin
Soulmate, Soulfate...
So beautiful that we're in the here and now
What's missing is that your heart isn't mine
It's great to know that we both kept our vow,
But all I can do this time, is pine
Soulmate? Soulfate?
With my luck you won't even read this
Because in THIS life our love doesn't exist... |
worthyadvisor
|
3:00a |
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officialgaiman
|
6:00a |
Radio! Books! Violin Lessons! Also, a haircut I do not mention anywhere in this blog!
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/radio-books-violin-lessons-also-haircut.html posted by Neil
Went in to KNOW radio station in ST Paul today and recorded an introduction to the NPR MORNING EDITION "Open Mike" piece I've been recording on audiobooks, and heard the edit. Asked them to see if they could find a bit more time in the piece for Audible founder Don Katz, who did an amazing interview and was pared down to about a sentence in the current edit. It'll go out in the next ten days, and as soon as I know when it goes out I'll put it up here. I talk to David Sedaris, Martin Jarvis, Don Katz and veteran audio producer/director Rick Harris in it.
Also popped in to DreamHaven and signed a bunch of books. The piles of books have grown so high, and the administration was proving so hard for Greg now that he is a one-man operation that I'm no longer personalising books there. But lots of signed books now in for the Holidays at DreamHaven's Neilgaiman.net site.
Spent much of the rest of the day driving around, being a dad, taking a daughter and her friend to violin, all that normal sort of stuff, and listening to Martin Jarvis's Good Omens audiobook as I did so. I'm about half-way through it now. It makes me so happy, especially hearing Adam Young read in something sort of close to Martin's Just William voice. Weirdly, I found it easier to hear what I wrote and what Terry wrote than I could if I looked at the text (which I discovered a few years ago, when I proofread the Harper Collins edition). The text is a bit of a blur, after all these years, but listening I'd find myself going, "Me... Terry.... Me in first draft, Terry in second.... Terry in first draft, me in second.... My footnote to his bit.... His footnote to mine..." feeling vaguely like an archaeologist. Even spotted a couple of tiny continuity goofs we should have caught 21 years ago that I may call Terry about and correct in future editions.
(She has an East Coast Tour on right now -
11.12 Portland, ME
11.13 Northampton, MA
11.14 Brooklyn, NY (SOLD OUT)
11.18 Philadelphia, PA
11.19 Falls Church, VA
11.20 Carrboro, NC
11.22 Knoxville, TN.
Go see her in concert. She's a wonder live. Tell her I said hi.)
I just read about your event in January, where in you will be narrating Peter and the Wolf. My husband and I are over joyed by this. We will hopefully be bringing our three girls up to see the performance. We did have one question though. Will you be reading the original version where the wolf actually is killed, and not the "oh my goodness our kids can't hear about death" version in which they bring him to the zoo? We are both, obviously, really hopeful that being you, and not afraid to scare children (thank you for that btw) will be speaking the true to the story version in which Peter shoots the wolf and then his dead body is paraded through the town as a trophy.
Thanks for your time,
~Cecily
PS- Do you know if there will be tickets for the event or the reception afterwards? It will be a long drive, and it would be nice to be prepared for either staking out seats all day or having tickets in hand. (We could not find any reservation information on the website)I'd forgotten - or never knew - that there was an alternative version. The script I was sent is the Zoo version. I'll investigate... And no, I do not know about tickets. I will find out. Dear Neil,
Your Web Goblin offered to post photos of Coraline pumpkins, and when they were told this, my 8 and 11-year old daughters decided to make some. Here they are, along with 2 emoticon pumpkins and a turnip.
http://www.steampunkfamily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IMG_01521-300x225.jpg
I used them to illustrate a ghost story: http://www.steampunkfamily.com/2009/10/philomenas-fright/
Three of the four of us were Coraline characters for Halloween. (The 11-year old went her own way as Susan Sto-Helit.)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37435081@N03/4077708519/sizes/l/in/set-72157622616148613/
The Other Mother is the scariest thing I've ever been for Halloween. All the children (even the 4-year olds!) knew who I was, and I elicited much nervous laughter when I offered to sew buttons in their eyes.
Thank you for being VERY SCARY INDEEDI love how many families were Coraline families, this year. If, like me, anybody else was intrigued by your mention of Kenneth Grahame's other works and wants to read them with a minimum of searching, they'll be happy to know both 'The Golden Age' and 'Dream Days' are available for free on the always invaluable Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/291
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/270
Thanks for mentioning them in the first place; I'm always interested in children's lit of that time that has managed to slip through my net.
- B. BolanderWhat a good idea. Two very beautiful, gently funny books by the author of The Wind in the Willows. I really enjoyed them, but stylistically they are, well, out of fashion, and will not be everybody's cup of Edwardian tea. Here's a passage that describes the illustration I put up yesterday, as small children steal through the house on a midnight expedition to obtain biscuits (ie cookies, if you are American): The Blue Room had in prehistoric times been added to by taking in a superfluous passage, and so not only had the advantage of two doors, but enabled us to get to the head of the stairs without passing the chamber wherein our dragon-aunt lay couched. It was rarely occupied, except when a casual uncle came down for the night. We entered in noiseless file, the room being plunged in darkness, except for a bright strip of moonlight on the floor, across which we must pass for our exit. On this our leading lady chose to pause, seizing the opportunity to study the hang of her new dressing-gown. Greatly satisfied thereat, she proceeded, after the feminine fashion, to peacock and to pose, pacing a minuet down the moonlit patch with an imaginary partner. This was too much for Edward's histrionic instincts, and after a moment's pause he drew his single-stick, and with flourishes meet for the occasion, strode onto the stage. A struggle ensued on approved lines, at the end of which Selina was stabbed slowly and with unction, and her corpse borne from the chamber by the ruthless cavalier. The rest of us rushed after in a clump, with capers and gesticulations of delight; the special charm of the performance lying in the necessity for its being carried out with the dumbest of dumb shows.
Once out on the dark landing, the noise of the storm without told us that we had exaggerated the necessity for silence; so, grasping the tails of each other's nightgowns even as Alpine climbers rope themselves together in perilous places, we fared stoutly down the staircase-moraine, and across the grim glacier of the hall, to where a faint glimmer from the half-open door of the drawing-room beckoned to us like friendly hostel-lights. Entering, we found that our thriftless seniors had left the sound red heart of a fire, easily coaxed into a cheerful blaze; and biscuits—a plateful—smiled at us in an encouraging sort of way, together with the halves of a lemon, already once squeezed but still suckable. The biscuits were righteously shared, the lemon segments passed from mouth to mouth; and as we squatted round the fire, its genial warmth consoling our unclad limbs, we realised that so many nocturnal perils had not been braved in vain.
"It's a funny thing," said Edward, as we chatted, "how I hate this room in the daytime. It always means having your face washed, and your hair brushed, and talking silly company talk. But to-night it's really quite jolly. Looks different, somehow."
"I never can make out," I said, "what people come here to tea for. They can have their own tea at home if they like,—they're not poor people,—with jam and things, and drink out of their saucer, and suck their fingers and enjoy themselves; but they come here from a long way off, and sit up straight with their feet off the bars of their chairs, and have one cup, and talk the same sort of stuff every time."
Selina sniffed disdainfully. "You don't know anything about it," she said. "In society you have to call on each other. It's the proper thing to do."
"Pooh! YOU'RE not in society," said Edward, politely; "and, what's more, you never will be."
"Yes, I shall, some day," retorted Selina; "but I shan't ask you to come and see me, so there!"
"Wouldn't come if you did," growled Edward.
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