Home Again
May. 31st, 2005 11:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellenkushnerWiscon was just dandy! At the LiveJournal party, I ran around like an idiot excitedly demanding to see everyone's stickers (some smart cookie had produced everyone's Userpics for us to put on our badges) and cackling and admiring and being delighted to meet everyone.
But don't worry; I'll have forgotten most names and faces in about a week: the joys of a short (but intense) attention span and too much coming at me all the time [as in: tomorrow I pick up our friend Michael-from-Amsterdam at his hotel and bring him here for some laundry and home cooking; he's been in rehearsals all week with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson & Peter Sellars for the 2 Bach Cantatas being performed this week as a benefit - the recording was deliriously well-reviewed, but I hear the live version justabout tears your heart out, and I look forward to seeing it this week. We met Michael at our friend Ruth's last year, but we had actually seen him perform the previous year in Paris when, crazed with jetlag but realizing that it was the final performance, we dragged ourselves out to see the first production of John Adams' El Nino (also directed by Sellars. I'm a big Sellars fan). Michael played the Angel Gabriel. About 45 minutes after we'd met him at Ruth's, Delia looked hard at him and said, "Oh! I'm sorry; I didn't recognize you with your clothes on." So then on Friday I am going to New York for a rehearsal of a special Barnard Reunion version of The Moth, which I'll M.C. - it's not my reunion year (and I was only 2 years at Barnard, so I never really knew anyone there), but last year their M.C. was NPR's Susan Stanberg, so how could I refuse? Anyhow, you get the idea; it's a wonder I can remember my own damn' name sometimes. When I see you again 12 months - or even 12 days - later and need to be reminded what we last spoke about, and where, it's no reflection on your charms.].
I really enjoyed my final Wiscon event, a Monday morning reading in which![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
1crowdedhour teased us with the opening of the next Sorcery & Cecilia book, and I discovered the remarkable work of Marie Jakober. I read a 15-minute chunk from my new novel (title still in dispute; scheduled for May 2006 from Bantam), a section I had just revised in response to my writing group's complaint that when Katherine and Marcus follow Lucius Perry out of the Riverside house and trail him halfway across the city, there's no real reason for them to do so. I had tried to think of some exciting new red herring to motivate them, but then realized that, as always, simplest is best: why not simply have Katherine remember that she has indeed seen Lucius (some 200 pages back) at her friend Artemisia's under very different circumstances?
Or, as Marcus says when they have failed to climb the wall behind the house that Lucius has entered, “That was fun. Now are you going to tell me why we did it?”
Meanwhile, over in my Friends List [a very short list, but with no offense to anyone, I hope; I just don't read much of anything regularly (and this includes the NYTimes and New Yorkers piled up on the diningroom table which I won't let Delia - to her despair - throw out, because I might want to read them soon . . . .) - however, just because I don't "Friend" you doesn't mean I don't run over to see what you post from time to time, so don't get too comfortable!],eegatland in Scotland has posed an interesting question about manga - do not be put off by the hideous pun in her subject header, she's a lovely person, really, and a divine writer (and excellent villainous henchman.
But don't worry; I'll have forgotten most names and faces in about a week: the joys of a short (but intense) attention span and too much coming at me all the time [as in: tomorrow I pick up our friend Michael-from-Amsterdam at his hotel and bring him here for some laundry and home cooking; he's been in rehearsals all week with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson & Peter Sellars for the 2 Bach Cantatas being performed this week as a benefit - the recording was deliriously well-reviewed, but I hear the live version justabout tears your heart out, and I look forward to seeing it this week. We met Michael at our friend Ruth's last year, but we had actually seen him perform the previous year in Paris when, crazed with jetlag but realizing that it was the final performance, we dragged ourselves out to see the first production of John Adams' El Nino (also directed by Sellars. I'm a big Sellars fan). Michael played the Angel Gabriel. About 45 minutes after we'd met him at Ruth's, Delia looked hard at him and said, "Oh! I'm sorry; I didn't recognize you with your clothes on." So then on Friday I am going to New York for a rehearsal of a special Barnard Reunion version of The Moth, which I'll M.C. - it's not my reunion year (and I was only 2 years at Barnard, so I never really knew anyone there), but last year their M.C. was NPR's Susan Stanberg, so how could I refuse? Anyhow, you get the idea; it's a wonder I can remember my own damn' name sometimes. When I see you again 12 months - or even 12 days - later and need to be reminded what we last spoke about, and where, it's no reflection on your charms.].
I really enjoyed my final Wiscon event, a Monday morning reading in which
1crowdedhour teased us with the opening of the next Sorcery & Cecilia book, and I discovered the remarkable work of Marie Jakober. I read a 15-minute chunk from my new novel (title still in dispute; scheduled for May 2006 from Bantam), a section I had just revised in response to my writing group's complaint that when Katherine and Marcus follow Lucius Perry out of the Riverside house and trail him halfway across the city, there's no real reason for them to do so. I had tried to think of some exciting new red herring to motivate them, but then realized that, as always, simplest is best: why not simply have Katherine remember that she has indeed seen Lucius (some 200 pages back) at her friend Artemisia's under very different circumstances?Or, as Marcus says when they have failed to climb the wall behind the house that Lucius has entered, “That was fun. Now are you going to tell me why we did it?”
Meanwhile, over in my Friends List [a very short list, but with no offense to anyone, I hope; I just don't read much of anything regularly (and this includes the NYTimes and New Yorkers piled up on the diningroom table which I won't let Delia - to her despair - throw out, because I might want to read them soon . . . .) - however, just because I don't "Friend" you doesn't mean I don't run over to see what you post from time to time, so don't get too comfortable!],
eegatland in Scotland has posed an interesting question about manga - do not be put off by the hideous pun in her subject header, she's a lovely person, really, and a divine writer (and excellent villainous henchman.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-05-31 08:23 pm (UTC)OK, that's pretty great.
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Date: 2005-05-31 08:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-31 10:01 pm (UTC)And at the Moth! My sister is good friends with one of the board members (Alan Manevitz) we were just discussing the moth at lunch today.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-01 04:24 am (UTC)