ellenkushner: (Thomas the Rhymer)
Just found (via Twitter, of all things) this lovely & loving review of the French edition of my Thomas the Rhymer.  In the online 'zine Yozone.fr, reviewer Nicolas Soffray concludes his review of Thomas le Rimeur with: "Ellen Kushner est une voix majeure de la fantasy merveilleuse, hélas bien rare en français...." --and adds something nice about « À la pointe de l’épée », as well (which their other reviewer really hated - oh, well... It got plenty of nice French reviews elsewhere.  And that cover...!)

And in today's NYTimes, a big piece on KlezKamp ("a Yiddish Brigadoon" that meets annually to revive the language & folkways of the living culture the Nazis pretty successfully demolished) enlightens us as to the origins of a phrase I'd always translated as "old wives' tales":

Michael Wex, a Canadian author and philologist, taught one group about the derivation of the term bubbe mayse — literally “a grandmother’s fable” but an expression used for any implausible tale. It was, he revealed, based on a 16th-century chivalric story about a Christian knight named Bovo who improbably marries a princess under a chupah — a Jewish wedding canopy — and arranges a circumcision for twin sons. Over time, few Jews were familiar with Bovo, so the expression morphed into something said by a bubbe.
ellenkushner: (*Simon van Alphen by Nicolaes Maes)

Indeed, throughout history, male sopranos, whether in sacred music, opera or pop, have been prized as much for an ideal of angelic purity as for romantic heroism. The voice does not, as some might have it, appeal chiefly to gay men: much of pre-19th-century opera — or for that matter, Shakespearean comedy — is based on the understanding that what drives a woman wild is a boy who may or may not be a girl.



ellenkushner: (TPOTS SmallBeerPress (Clouet))
My friend Tempest is a sneaky little devil.  She wrote this gorgeous, thoughtful post about TPOTS and didn't even tell me.  It's part of an essay (yes, I know we say "blogposts" now, but it is an essay) called Portrayals of Rape in Fiction: An Exploration of Where It’s Done Wrong or Right and Why - and if you haven't read the book, it's spoiler-o-rama.  But if you have read The Privilege of the Sword, and are interested in this aspect, you might like to see it, and to join the discussion there.

Sorry if these posts seem more like little press releases, and if I'm not answering all your comments.  I do read with glee.  My new Bordertown story is finally beginning to fall beneath my repeated merciless assaults.  But, phew!  I hope the next one's not like this.....!
ellenkushner: (Joan of Arc)
"My relationship with my real dad has been spotty. And, I'll never forget this: he said, ‘If something was to ever go wrong with you, if I felt that, you know, you just messed up completely, I'll make another one of you.' You know, he has five kids, so I was a complete reject."
-- from an interview with a young new dad, NYTimes 6/20/10

I know I'm all grown up and I'm supposed to know that people can be like that.  But it's a shock, every time.
ellenkushner: (NYC: RSD)
For Alan Rickman fans  - who liked my post on meeting him after a performance of Strindberg's Creditors at BAM - here he is, discussing that production with New York Public Library’s Paul Holdengraber in front of an audience at BAM (recorded for WNYC by my friend Sarah Montague!). 
ellenkushner: (Default)
....that is not the [livejournal.com profile] debsliverlovers auction, where I've just added more cool stuff,

* The National Women's Health Network (which [livejournal.com profile] debsliverlovers & I are proud to support) warns, in their excellent monthly newsletter , against Rosuvastatin:  
When you see those ads encouraging you to “know your number”, just say no to the CRP test, unless you already know that you’re at increased risk of heart attack and stroke. I
f you’re like many women whose only risk factor is age, following sensible guidelines for a heart-healthy lifestyle will do more to improve your health than taking a test that will likely lead to being prescribed a drug that probably won’t help you — and might cause new problems.

This is of particular interest to me, as my dad is the research physician who "discovered" CRP (well, as he would say, "Aw, that's a load of cr*p" - but it's still what he has on his license plates!).  I'll ask him about this, too.

* Ben Rosenbaum has posted about economics, kids, being paid for short stories, and blogging a sequel.

* And thanks to [livejournal.com profile] p_zeitgeist for the link to J.K. Rowling's A Single Mother's Manifesto.  ("J. K. Rowling is a natural political/opinion essayist: lucid, witty, pointed without being shrill: a grown-up in all the best ways. I don't imagine there's any chance we could trade Maureen Dowd for her on the pages of the New York Times, but how much happier we would be if only we could.")
ellenkushner: (gargoyle)
"The worst thing about becoming a published author was that, inexplicably, it did not make all my problems go away. Walking into Barnes & Noble and seeing my name on a book jacket was exciting, of course, but when I left the store the thought filling my head was not Gee, now my life is perfect but Why didn't the cute cashier fall in love with me as I purchased my own book? Am I fat? Or could he just see that I'm a bad person?"
ellenkushner: (Default)
Here are a couple of clips from a very interesting NYTimes article on literature, the brain, and evolution:

Some scholars are turning to M.R.I.’s and evolutionary theory to explore how and why people read fiction.

English professors and graduate students . . . say they’re convinced science not only offers unexpected insights into individual texts, but that it may help to answer fundamental questions about literature’s very existence: Why do we read fiction? Why do we care so passionately about nonexistent characters? What underlying mental processes are activated when we read?

...the narrative technique known as “free indirect style,” which mingles the character’s voice with the narrator’s. ... enables readers to inhabit two or even three mind-sets at a time.... became the hallmark of the novel beginning in the 19th century with Jane Austen, because it satisfies our “intense interest in other people’s secret thoughts and motivations"...


Read the whole thing & discuss - I'll be interested to learn what the Brain Pool thinks.
ellenkushner: (Bessie McNicol)
"[O]ne of [fashion designer] McQueen's real gifts was a comprehension of an experience recognizable to most women, the feeling of being the object of someone's unforgiving gaze." -- NYTimes Style section, 2/14/10

Well, that explains a lot about the women I find confusing, the ones who really seem to think that if they go to the grocery w/o full makeup or in the wrong pair of shoes, the Furies will descend. The fierceness with which they feel this only makes sense in the presence of an imaginary Gazer installed early in life.

'"The goyim . . . do not feed their guests; it is not their custom," the girls' mother explains, bringing a cake as a gift while paying a social call. "We must respect the customs of others cultures, but that does not mean we have to starve."'
-- Cathleen Schine, The Three Weissmanns of Westport (a modern riff on Sense & Sensiblity!), as reviewed by Dominique Browning in the NYTimes Book Review

Ha! When I read that aloud to Delia, adding, "Now, who do you think wrote that?" she said, without missing a beat, "You?"
ellenkushner: (EK/DS wedding band)
[A]mid the ramshackle remains of the hospital where the country’s most infected [TB] patients used to live, Mr. Monfort runs the clinic alone . . . . unpaid and without a mask or gloves to wear, he walks to the sanatorium each day at 6 a.m.. . . .

“Why don’t you just leave us to die?” asked Clervil Orange, 39. Mr. Monfort looked offended by the notion. But he did not answer and the question seemed to stick with him.

The ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus once wrote that there was a type of suffering so intense that, even in our sleep, it bores into the heart until eventually, “in our own despair, against our will,” it taps into a terrible wisdom.
--NYTimes, Ian Urbina, 2/6/10

Read the complete article here, including Monfort's answer.
ellenkushner: (*Simon van Alphen by Nicolaes Maes)
I just copied this from the website Cogito, Ergo Sumana by Sumana Harihareswara; it was sent me as a link on Twitter by the kindly & helpful BrendanAtkins when I Tweeted about trying to run my iPhone batteries down. It will alleviate many domestic disputes, as [livejournal.com profile] deliasherman has just gotten a fancy new MacBookPro for which my soul panteth as the hart after water, esp. given that my own MacBookPro 3,1, purchased not all that long ago, is now down to 38 minutes of plug-free battery power (FEH!!! and yes, I have tried running it all the way down & letting it charge w/out hindrance. Things do not get better but worse), while Delia was told at the Apple Store to let her MacBook run down ALL THE WAY EVERY TIME SHE USES IT to keep the battery tip top, and let me tell you it is very annoying. She's now after to me run down my iPhone, but - AHA! Read on:


Everything I Knew (About Battery Care) Was Wrong: Today I learned that I've been working from an obsolete understanding of how to keep my cellphone and laptop batteries from losing gobs of capacity over time. A simplistic summary follows for your benefit.

The batteries in my phone and my work laptop are lithium-ion batteries. Check yours -- the "Li-Ion" abbreviation means it's lithium-ion. As detailed sources explain, charging/discharging battery care for lithium ion batteries is the opposite of the conventional wisdom I had in my head, left over from the old days of nickel-based rechargeable batteries.

It used to be that you'd want to run batteries all the way down before starting to charge them again, because otherwise the capacity might get messed up. That's not true with lithium-ion batteries; it's recommended that you only rarely let an Li-Ion battery run down below 10% of its charge.

Lithium-ion batteries lose capacity, in the long run, if they sit overcharging a lot, or if they run hot a lot. So don't let them sit plugged into a charger all the time, and if you usually run your laptop plugged into AC power, think about removing the battery and setting it someplace cooler.
[I'm not sure what she means by that - ek]

The moment a lithium-ion battery gets manufactured, it slowly starts losing capacity. So buying a primary battery + a spare battery simultaneously might be a worse decision than using a primary battery, then getting the spare battery years later, when your capacity has substantially degraded.

This came up because I assumed I should let my new N900 run down completely (on the partial battery charge from the factory) before plugging it in, and I was annoyed that plugging in the USB-to-microUSB cable to transfer files meant it was getting juice while the battery hadn't totally discharged. But I was wrong to worry! Thanks for straightening me out, Sjoerd.
ellenkushner: (EK/DS wedding band)
This morning's haze of slightly carboned toast & melty cheese (well you can't get the cheese properly brown without risking the edges of the bread) enlivened by Delia's dramatic reading of A.O.Scott's NYTimes review of the new Holmes movie. Honest - I thought she was improvising when she said: "It seems that an evil aristocrat, executed for a series of murders, returns from the dead to mobilize an ancient secret society that he may have time-traveled into a Dan Brown novel to learn about. Doesn’t that sound fascinating? I thought not."

You have to admit it sounds like her.

And now, on to music:

[livejournal.com profile] sdn's FaceBook query a few weeks back re. people's most loathed Xmas song has had me brooding ever since. I realized I don't so much hate any particular song as hate certain musical styles. --OK, there are certain lyrics I really loathe - but you can also ruin a song I love by giving it an arrangement to match those other lyrics. I mean, I'd say something blanketty like: "I hate all Xmas songs written after 1895" - but in fact, there are a couple Victorian ones I could do without, and anything by Irving Berlin is fine by me - as long as it isn't sung by Frank Sinatra. I'm the wrong generation to enjoy Frank Sinatra. (And Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself: As I say, It's Complicated - and would require a lengthier and more thoughtful explication - with charts & texts & Be Specific, Give Examples - than I have time or inclination for here. And I like "The Little Drummer Boy." It's trad-friendly.) Anyhow, Arrangements: I was delighted to learn, this morning, that the right musical arrangement can redeem even the most abysmal song. This morning's edition of The Takeaway featured an interview with Twisted Sister members Dee Snider & Jay Jay French about their new album, Twisted Christmas.

When they played the opening of the original of "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." I wanted to curl up and die - but when it kicked into Twisted Sister's version, I knew that was the way it was meant to sound! A delightful tune, really. You just have to put some heart & guts into the roasting bit.

So you see, children, there is nothing that cannot be redeemed by art. (They also pointed out that the opening bars of "We're not Gonna Take It" are in fact "Adeste Fideles" - as poor Snider [or was it French?] kept pointing out: "Well, I am a classically trained counter-tenor with 19 years in church choir!" Bless his heart.)
ellenkushner: (*Simon van Alphen by Nicolaes Maes)
No, really, I insist. If you're near NYC, see Liz Duffy Adams' play "Or," if you possibly can. It's about a woman who wants to be a famous writer, and theatre people, and kings with deliciously long hair, and language and gender. See?

Tix are $20 if you turn up 1 hr before the show (and there are still seats.) The NYTimes loved it, and was not wrong to mention Stoppard in the review, I think. If you can't go - or you need encouraging - Ms. Adams has kindly given me permission to print her Prologue
here: )

See? As [livejournal.com profile] deliasherman said; written for us!
ellenkushner: (EK:  Twelfth Night)
Welcome to my Breakfast Table, where I am sitting and reading you amusing bits from past NYTimes Arts Sections, as I go through and throw out old papers in preparation for incoming:

BANDLEADER PETER DUCHIN: His Music Still Makes Society Whirl

Mr. Duchin’s father, Eddy Duchin, was also a bandleader and was famous for a string of Top 10 records in the 1930s. His mother, Marjorie Oelrichs Duchin, was described by newspapers at the time of her marriage as a “New York and Newport socialite,” though by marrying Eddy Duchin, a Jew and an entertainer, she was forced to relinquish her spot in the Social Register. When she died a few days after giving birth to Peter, his father was apparently so pained, and certain that his frail newborn son was also dying, that he decided to go on an extensive tour with his orchestra. Peter ended up being raised amid extraordinary wealth and privilege by his godparents, W. Averell and Marie Harriman. Mr. Harriman, in addition to having served on President Harry S. Truman’s cabinet, and governor of New York, was also one of the richest men in the country.

Croopus! Who's going to write the novel?


JUDGE RULES IN FAVOR OF 'TWILIGHT' AUTHOR

The speech in “The Nocturne,” he wrote, is “an amalgamation of largely archaic and some modern language that is likely unparalleled in either classical or modern literature.”

Don't read much slush, Judge Wright, do you? Stay as sweet as you are.
ellenkushner: (book swords music)
Why Authors Need You to Buy Lots & Lots of Books
or,
Why Most of Us Don't Quit Our Day Jobs,
or,
What is this Thing Called Royalties?


a most Excellent Explanation & Analysis by Mr. Barry Lyga, which I urge everyone who wants to understand the publishing business to read.
ellenkushner: (*Simon van Alphen by Nicolaes Maes)
"Our fathers used to say that the railway had killed the understanding of towns, that men came to them hurriedly, arrived by the back-door, left hurriedly, and had no sense of approach, fruition or farewell. They said - quite rightly - that the road and the river were the two proper entries to any town, any town of tradition and lineage, any town that had grown up through the millioned intercourse of men.

"But the railway did not do as much harm as the automobile has done . . . . [T]oday Saulieu is but an episode on one of the most obvious of modern trajectories, and one where when men stop they stop only to eat. They come to it in a flash, not knowing through what they came; and to go on through that landscape which is crammed with history . . . is only another flash: all over in an hour, and nothing seen."
-- Hilaire Belloc, "Saulieu of the Morvan" [a town in French Burgundy], from the series "The Tuileries Brochures, published bi-monthly by Ludowici-Celadon Company, Makers of Ludowici Tile, for distribution among the members of the architectural profession" Vol. IV, no. 1, January 1932


Also of interest are passages like: "...the automobile runs in crowds - or ran when people had money - through the place. For the rich coming from Britain to the Riviera found Saulieu on their way, and it was a convenient place to stop for food " and later: "They cook (or did cook when the rich still passed through, as they may pass again)...well.."
ellenkushner: (Bordertown)
I haven't even finished the no doubt excellent new Salon article by Laura Miller on "the kickass young heroines of urban fantasy fiction" but this had me seeing red:

"...the term "urban fantasy" (meaning fantasies set in the contemporary world) was first applied to the work of such writers as Neil Gaiman and John Crowley, whose aspirations are more literary. . . . "

Oh, the giantness of this GIANT FAIL!!!!!

Of course it's only 2 male authors who are cited - probably the only fantasists who she can even think of with "literary aspirations" . . . . .
ellenkushner: (Default)
. . . and quoted Cynthia Heimel: "Don't listen to anybody, don't copy anything. Go after that twisted, deranged core of your being, wrench it into the light, and you will make one million dollars." (--an old essay in the Village Voice, reprinted in her collection A Girl's Guide to Chaos)

Now Louise Marley is singing the same song, in the key of Wise: http://lmarley.livejournal.com/84992.html

Linkage

Jun. 24th, 2009 11:57 pm
ellenkushner: (Default)
My Post-Apocalyptic Barter Skill - can you guess? Guess, then click on this delicious compilation by Liz Gorinsky for Tor.com (which includes a KGB report) and let her know yours.

Why isn't my website as clear & gorgeous as Michelle Shocked's?

$50,000 fourth novel prize for works published Jan 08-July 09, juried by Michael Chabon et al! Deadline July 1, so hurry up.

4 days left to listen to BBC's radio drama Darger and the Detective: "A play drawing on the writings of reclusive artist Henry Darger, imagining his inner life....Recorded in Chicago by actors from the Steppenwolf Theatre Company" by my radio pal Judith Kampfner!

MythPunk Army shirt from Zazzle by Cathrynne Valente (want! want!!)

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