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Talking turkey
Nov. 30th, 2009 08:56 amThanksgiving weekend was a nice break from the seasonal blahs. Thanksgiving itself was a good time, with my parents, their kids and grandkids, and my mom's youngest sister and her husband, kids, and grandkids. Nineteen in all, with my cousin's daughter the youngest at three years old. She was cutest and highest maintenance as well. My aunt, the granny, wanted us all to take note when she said "no" to her for the first time ever. My aunt teased me about my beer belly, which she only just noticed this year. I think it took that long for it to break through her image of me as a skinny little boy. My sister was shocked to learn that I use reading glasses now. Hey, the baby in the family is turning fifty next year.
Other than that, the weekend was pretty mellow, except for one intense family discussion about my eldest nephew's latest flirtation with doing something stupid. The guy really needs to learn how to button his lip, at least around his grandparents, because there's no reason they need to know this stuff. I kept far worse from them in my own day. That aside, it was mostly getting caught up on everybody's latest plans. My sister is looking for another five-month teaching assignment somewhere in the world, maybe in Chile or Rwanda. My niece's photography business is slowly building. My youngest nephew wants to go to Tunisia for two weeks to study French. My parents had a wonderful time at a fifty-year reunion at the Mennonite college in Heston, Kansas. Mom was especially reflective on how their experience there was pivotal in changing the course of their lives from farm folk to white collar workers.
I read Michael Swanwick's Hope-in-the Mist, which is a short book about Hope Mirrlees. As the title indicates, it's an answer to the question, "Who wrote Lud-in-the-Mist?" Mirrlees was the daughter of a wealthy family, and she was a dilettante who was the friend of Virginia Woolf and TS Eliot and the companion (and maybe lover, nobody really knows) of the Cambridge classics professor, Jane Harrison. Mirrlees wrote an avant garde poem called "Paris" that some think was an influence on Eliot's "The Waste Land", and two novels that Swanwick is somewhat dismissive of, along with Lud-in-the-Mist. Neil Gaiman's introduction echoes Swanwick in seeming to think that Lud-in-the-Mist is an extraordinary book that stands head-and-shoulders above her other work. After it was published in 1926, she wrote almost nothing else except a handful of poems, although she lived another fifty years. A strange life, and a strange little book about it. I read it in one sitting. I'd say it's probably mostly of interest to fans of Lud-in-the-Mist, although anyone interested in the Bloomsbury group or Jane Harrison might find it worth reading too. I always have mixed feelings about biographies, but this one does at least shed some light on a fascinating novel.
I also read some fanzines over the weekend -- the latest issues of Banana Wings and Relapse, and a fistful of year-old issues of Vanamonde. Fanzines may be a dying form, but they're not going out with a whimper. I feel itchy to do something worthy of what my friends are publishing. What the hell, I do think the new Chunga can stand with these zines, but I want to do another one in response to what I've just read. Pete Weston's article about a boxful of old fanzines, in particular, makes my latest piece for Chunga seem pretty feeble and underdeveloped. The old man has kicked sand in my face! I'd better start lifting weights.
Well, so much for getting away from it all. Now it's back to work.
Other than that, the weekend was pretty mellow, except for one intense family discussion about my eldest nephew's latest flirtation with doing something stupid. The guy really needs to learn how to button his lip, at least around his grandparents, because there's no reason they need to know this stuff. I kept far worse from them in my own day. That aside, it was mostly getting caught up on everybody's latest plans. My sister is looking for another five-month teaching assignment somewhere in the world, maybe in Chile or Rwanda. My niece's photography business is slowly building. My youngest nephew wants to go to Tunisia for two weeks to study French. My parents had a wonderful time at a fifty-year reunion at the Mennonite college in Heston, Kansas. Mom was especially reflective on how their experience there was pivotal in changing the course of their lives from farm folk to white collar workers.
I read Michael Swanwick's Hope-in-the Mist, which is a short book about Hope Mirrlees. As the title indicates, it's an answer to the question, "Who wrote Lud-in-the-Mist?" Mirrlees was the daughter of a wealthy family, and she was a dilettante who was the friend of Virginia Woolf and TS Eliot and the companion (and maybe lover, nobody really knows) of the Cambridge classics professor, Jane Harrison. Mirrlees wrote an avant garde poem called "Paris" that some think was an influence on Eliot's "The Waste Land", and two novels that Swanwick is somewhat dismissive of, along with Lud-in-the-Mist. Neil Gaiman's introduction echoes Swanwick in seeming to think that Lud-in-the-Mist is an extraordinary book that stands head-and-shoulders above her other work. After it was published in 1926, she wrote almost nothing else except a handful of poems, although she lived another fifty years. A strange life, and a strange little book about it. I read it in one sitting. I'd say it's probably mostly of interest to fans of Lud-in-the-Mist, although anyone interested in the Bloomsbury group or Jane Harrison might find it worth reading too. I always have mixed feelings about biographies, but this one does at least shed some light on a fascinating novel.
I also read some fanzines over the weekend -- the latest issues of Banana Wings and Relapse, and a fistful of year-old issues of Vanamonde. Fanzines may be a dying form, but they're not going out with a whimper. I feel itchy to do something worthy of what my friends are publishing. What the hell, I do think the new Chunga can stand with these zines, but I want to do another one in response to what I've just read. Pete Weston's article about a boxful of old fanzines, in particular, makes my latest piece for Chunga seem pretty feeble and underdeveloped. The old man has kicked sand in my face! I'd better start lifting weights.
Well, so much for getting away from it all. Now it's back to work.
