Bloody Jack, Bloody Ballerinas, and a Liver Carepage

[ellenkushner]

So has anyone else read L.A. Meyer's Jackie Faber books (each now listed on the cover as as "A Boody Jack Adventure")?   Omg:  they're Patrick O'Brian for teenage girls!  Think "Dido Twite meets Jane Austen and they run away to sea!"   Meyer is brilliant at walking the line between historical accuracy and what current sensibilties can bear:  before young Jackie wins the respect of each hardnosed crew, she has to deal with genuine misogyny and some pretty ugly incidents . . . not to mention (in Book 2, the first I read by happy accident a few years ago) a hardnosed Ladies' Seminary in Boston . . . I just found them again (at NYC's Books of Wonder) and am happily ripping through them as fast as I can order them.  Plus, Meyer knows his traditional music (oh, hey! just found on the website where it says The Jacky Faber series of books was inspired by British and Celtic folk music being played on the radio - hmm, he's up in Maine, my show did air there for awhile, hmm.....)

And speaking of:  Am I nuts, or is this soulful Bryn Mawr College Hymn set to the tune of a rather reprehensible old sea song? (I just love hearing it - it calls up such images of 1910, when the very notion of girls being "good comrades" who could "come back from near and far" to study academics was such a radical one!  If you're interested, here's a little College history - and here's the annual Hogwarts' Dinner - held in Thomas Great Hall . . . where 1crowdedhour  & I spent many happy hours trying to break into & climb the highest towers.  There's a reason her A College of Magics  series is popular at that school....)  The BMC Library is once again offering terrific cards.

My old friend, dance critic Debra Cash (we met at summer music camp!) has posted a review of "Black Swan" for alternet.org, calling it: "a film about a masochist seen through the eyes of a sadist. Black Swan could be a textbook demonstration of what academics refer to as the male gaze . . . portray[ing] female powerlessness on every level—youth, friendship, collegiality, retirement, motherhood." 

And another debsliverlovers  update:  Laurie Marks has set up a CarePage for Deb's liver transplant news, saying: 
All news and updates will appear there, along with photos.. . . . this is a public page, and anyone is welcome to join.  The transplant surgery date has been set [for] January 5.  Laurie's already posted one update - and, man! that woman can write!  If you're looking for that last-minute holiday gift, why not encourage her to write more by buying her Elemental Logic series? Trade or eBook of  Water Logic available from Small Beer Press, who will also publish first 3 e-Books - plus Book 4 when Deb's all better & Laurie can finish it.

Comments

[dramaturgca.livejournal.com]

You're doing it again. Recommending books that I now feel completely compelled to rush out and buy. Oh well, I'm not taking many classes next term, there ought to be lots of time for reading...

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I hope you love them all!

[quizzicalsphinx.livejournal.com]

Oh my gosh, another Bloody Jack fan! And yes, I play "spot the traditional song reference" every single time a new one comes out. They are like sweet, sweet cake to me.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I've been following the Jackie Fabers from the beginning, though I confess the later ones have pleased me less and less. The first three I enjoyed.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

That seems to happen a lot to series. I always wonder if it's that the author has lost the original impetus, and is being urged by Market Forces to keep going past the natural life of their story . . . or if the writer just gets lazy . . . or if we readers just get more demanding & discenerning as we go. I'm sure it varies from case to case. But it is one of the reasons I announced loudly after SWORDSPOINT that it would *not* have a sequel (a decision I sometimes now regret - not that I had any ideas for one, but still....!)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I suspect sometimes the author gets to writing too fast, and sometimes they had no idea it was going to be a series, so its arc goes diffuse. (Not like a roman fleuve, whose arc is envisioned from the beginning.)

In this case, I don't care for for certain aspects that keep cropping up more and more frequently, while the personalities are slowly becoming more cardboard for me.

[julieandrews.livejournal.com]

Love the Bloody Jack books! I've got an icon on dreamwidth with various Captain Jacks and she's one of them. The great thing is he seems to come out with about one a year, so there's a steady stream.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

His website is hilarious - it's like Jackie wrote it.

[bluestalking.livejournal.com]

Speaking of the tallest tower, my dad and one of his & my mum's mutual friends once stole the Bryn Mawr bell clapper and took pictures of it around campus.

I think they make also have decorated it with nail polish.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Taylor Bell?! The bell that summoned us to classes (and is in the tower in the photo)?! Wow. I wanna see those pictures.

BTW, I dunno if you or anyone you know well knits, but I thought of you when I saw this:
http://www.tsocktsarina.com/
scroll down to The Blue Stocking pattern!

Bryn Mawr

[(Anonymous)]

If that school song DIDN'T start life as a sea chanty, I'll eat my hat. And after all, Bryn Mawr rhymes with "old tar". And I keep hearing, "my lads,"after lines in the chorus.
But can't quite put my finger on it. Ask Jim Macdonald.

Jane

Re: Bryn Mawr

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Faye got it (see below)!

Appropriate choice of Song

[negothick.livejournal.com]

"The Mermaid" --for those magical Bryn Mawrtyrs.

It begins "Twas Friday morn when we set sail"

The chorus goes "While we poor sailors go skipping through the topx/and the landlubbers lie down below, below, below/and the landlubbers lie down below."

Re: Appropriate choice of Song

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Aha! I thought so!

Re: Appropriate choice of Song

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

And BMC has a fine old tradition of each class writing satiric lyrics to popular songs, so I'm not surprised. I well remember my own
Today while the gristle still clings to the bone
I'll grit my teeth bravely & try not to moan...

[phoenix64.livejournal.com]

It's so nice to see someone calling Aronofsky on his shit. It's a shame more people won't.

LAURIE MARKS E-BOOK CORRECTION

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I've updated this post with the corrected info that the first 2 Elemental Logic books will *not* be available in e-Book format until next year (per LJM's agent).

Not Mermaid I Know

[(Anonymous)]

I know an entirely different tune to The Mermaid so am puzzled.

Jane Yolen

Re: Not Mermaid I Know

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

We'll sing it for you someday.