delphipsmith: (Elizabethan adder)
Arthur Greenleaf Holmes, the English Libertine Poet, delivers his scandalous verse and takes your live requests from the rectory at the Church of St. Thomas The Polygamist. Live on YouTube, tonight at 7pm EST.

Watch here.

Warning: With poem titles like "I built my love a menstrual hut" this show is not for the faint of heart or ear. (When he says "wildly inappropriate" he really means it.) But it is also clever, funny, elegant, highly literate, and shows off a delightfully quirky way with language. One of our absolute favorite performers at our local Ren Fest.

Edit: Here's his channel, if you want to see more/subscribe.
delphipsmith: (books)
Her Fearful SymmetryI liked Her Fearful Symmetry quite a bit. It was unexpected in a lot of ways, constantly surprising me by going in directions I did not anticipate, and presenting me with complicated situations and emotions that challenged me to think about things differently. The turn towards darkness was so gradual that I didn't even notice it until all of a sudden I found myself in the midst of the horrifying stuff -- like when the sun starts to go down and it's late afternoon for what seems like hours, and then suddenly it's night.

The Favor of KingsWritten in 1912, The Favor of Kings is possibly the earliest novelization of the life of Anne Boleyn, ill-fated second wife of Henry VIII. Bradley's Anne is passionate and lively but also young and headstrong and proud. She initially enters into her relationship with Henry partly out of awe for THE KING! and partly out of a hot desire to revenge herself on those who have insulted and hurt her, seeing him as her path to power at court. She does so with a certain innocence about his character, without fully understanding the consequences, and once in she has no idea how to extricate herself. Once she has begun, she has no choice but to see it through. In this she is probably closer to the real Anne than many later incarnations, which attempt to turn her into either a scheming witch or a religious reformer. (As a side note, the author is the mother of noted science fiction author James Tiptree / Alice Sheldon.)

Tours of the Black ClockI think I liked Tours of the Black Clock, but I'm not at all sure that I understood it. The writing is compelling, almost hypnotic -- I found it difficult to put down -- but I always felt as if the actual meaning was hidden just around the next corner. Or as if the true meaning had trickled out of the sentences just before I got there, leaving only enough shape to hint (or misdirect?) as to what was going on. Mulholland Drive meets Jorge Luis Borges meets The Guns of the South?

This is a story about...well, I'm not just sure. It's about Geli Raubal (but not the real one). It's about Dania, a woman who isn't Geli Raubal (except sort of, in someone else's head). It's about Banning Jainlight, who is in love with Dania (or maybe he just invents her). It's about Jainlight's pornographic stories about Dania (or maybe they're true stories of his love affair with her). It's about "the most evil man in the world," i.e. Hitler, who is obsessed with Jainlight's porn about Dania because in his head it's about Geli Raubal, (and who ends up a sad, pathetic, senile old man). It's about Marc, the son of Hitler and Dania, or maybe Jainlight and Dania, or maybe just Dania herself (or maybe he's fictional too).

All these people cross back and forth between realities, or maybe between reality and unreality, in a weird braiding of time and space. Some of them seem to have doppelgangers, or alternate versions of themselves, like Jainlight/Blaine, or Dania/Geli; sometimes their worlds intersect or bleed into one another; sometimes one is the other's dream. It's never clear what's real and what isn't. The most extreme example may be the silver buffalo, which you'd think pretty much have to be a metaphor since they come perpetually pouring out of a black cave and some people can't even see them, but yet they're substantial enough to trample Dania's mother to death in Africa and rampage through the streets of Davenhall Island off the coast of Washington state. Are they the hours and minutes of one reality pouring out into another?

But the book is also about love and hate and cruelty and pity and obsession and fear and loneliness and forgiveness and good and evil. The main character, Jainlight, refers to Hitler as the most evil man in the world, and about himself and occasionally the entire twentieth century as irredeemably evil, but I ended up thinking that this book is much more about the redemptive power of love/forgiveness, although it's sort of tucked into the corners of the story as it were. I don't know what Erickson's intent was, but I ended up feeling desperately sad for every single person in this story, even crazy senile pathetic old man Hitler.

If all of this makes it sound like the book is strange and puzzling and perhaps unsettling, that's good because it is. Don't let that stop you from reading it. But don't expect a straightforward narrative: it's more like a spiral or a double helix or one of those complicated Spirograph patterns.

(NB: I have to admit the metaphor of the "black clock" was entirely lost on me -- no idea what that was meant to be about. Why black? Why a clock? What is this about numbers falling? Why is Marc listening for ticking icebergs at the end??)
delphipsmith: (bookgasm)
The Game of Kings (The Lymond Chronicles, #1)Top-notch historical fiction is hard to find. Top-notch adventure fiction is hard to find. Well-written witty anti-hero protagonists are hard to find. Good historical adventure fiction with a well-written witty anti-hero protagonist is...well, you see where I'm going with this. Game of Kings gets two thumbs up and five stars -- once I started it I couldn't put it down. I can't remember who told me I should read these books; I wish I could because I would send them lots of presents in deepest gratitude.

The story arc is not entirely original: a brilliant but dissolute younger son and a stolid older one with bad blood between them, dissolute younger son turns out to be not so dissolute after all (I shall say no more for fear of spoilers). But Dunnett executes the tale with flair, energy, inventiveness, and a remarkable level of historical detail. The 1500s is one of my favorite time periods for historical fiction -- so much going on in politics, religion, philosophy, science, an immensely active and fertile time so she's got lots to work with.

Part of my love for the book is of course due to the main character, Francis Crawford of Lymond, Master of Culter. Accused traitor and leader of a band of outlaws, yet somehow one can never quite believe the worst of him; one suspects there is more (oh how I do love a misunderstood hero). If the facts did not prove me wrong I would suspect Dorothy Dunnett of being Dorothy L. Sayers, because Lymond is very much like Lord Peter Wimsey. Lymond is less high-strung and more physically active (as you'd expect in the 16th century!), but both are aristocratic, highly (perhaps over-) educated, single-minded in pursuit of a goal, prone to quotation, chronically underestimated by their opponents, and exceedingly intelligent with a fierce sense of honor and loyalty. Both are also excellent musicians and their own harshest critic.

The supporting cast is just as much fun, particularly Will Scott, younger son of the Earl of Buccleuch, whose evolving relationship with Lymond forms one of the more interesting strands of the book. Will has been off at school in France with detrimental results:

"Moral Philosophy, that's the trouble," said Janet with gloomy relish. "They've taught poor Will moral philosophy and his father's fit to boil...He's quoting Aristotle and Boethius and the laws of chivalry and the dreicher spells of the Chevalier de Bayard on loyalty and the ethics of warfare. He's so damned moral he ought to be standing rear up under a Bo tree. And he won't keep his mouth shut. I grant," said Lady Buccleuch with a certain grim amusement, "that the pure springs of chivalry may be a little muddy in the Hawick area, but that's no proper excuse for calling his father an unprincipled old rogue and every other peer in Scotland a traitorous scoundrel."

As you can perhaps tell from Will's mother's speech above, the book's female characters are also excellent: intelligent, active, strong-willed, sensible, and perfectly willing to go behind their menfolk's backs if that's the most efficient route to the most sensible solution. (Mary Queen of Scots has a cameo as an inquisitive four-year-old to whom Lymond teaches a naughty riddle!)

The interweaving of the adventures of the Master of Culter as he tries to clear his name with the Byzantine twists and turns of Scottish, English and French politics makes for a swashbuckling story complete with duels, spies, pitched battles, cattle raids, explosions, murders, archery contests, mysterious lovers, and more. There's at least one death that will make you cry and the conclusion -- which is in doubt up until about the last ten pages -- will make you cheer.

And yay, there are five more!!

Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That HappenedThe subtitle is "unfortunate situations, flawed coping mechanisms, mayhem, and other things that happened" and yup, they're all here.

I've been a regular visitor to Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half blog for several years and many a visit has ended with me in tears and unable to speak for laughing so hard, so I was delighted to hear she was publishing a book. I was not disappointed :)

About half of the stories had been previously published on her blog, the other half are new for this book. "Depression" parts one and two, where Brosh recounts her struggle with depression, introduces a more serious note than, say, "The God of Cake" but manages to be both funny and poignant, particularly in its blunt illustration of why well-meaning friends and family are so often utterly unhelpful in the case of true depression.

As always, Brosh's artwork (done in Paint, which if you've worked with it you will know the crudeness of the medium!) is primitive but energetic and engaging, at time truly hilarious -- much livelier and more original than the vast majority of graphic novel/comic artwork which all looks very much the same. Nobody would mistake Brosh's alien-looking self-portrait, with its bug eyes, tentacular arms, pink dress, and blonde horns of hair for anyone else's work, ever, likewise her dogs with their tilted heads and mildly panicked gazes.

The stories that accompany the illustrations are endearing, funny, self-mocking, and most of all very human -- her foibles, flaws and difficulties are easy to identify with. Unfortunately I recognized a lot of myself in "This is Why I'll Never Be an Adult"!

Painted DevilsEerie, atmospheric, almost Victorian, Aickman's stories are all about hints and omens, tension and suspense. Very few of the mysteries in these stories are solved; instead one is left with an uneasy sense that there are some Very Nasty Things out there. Just around the corner or down the alley. In the dark.

I think my favorite was "The View," in which a man recovering from some unspecified illness goes on holiday, on his doctor's recommendation. On the boat over to the island that is his destination he meets a young woman who invites him to stay with her in her huge estate; he accepts and, although initially installed in a guest room, they are soon sleeping together. However, the ony fly in the ointment is that the view from his window keeps...changing. Between one day and the next things appear and disappear, or move from on place to another...

This collection also includes a classic "living dead" story ("Ringing the Changes"); a ghost story ("The Houses of the Russians"); one, or possibly two, "monster children" stories; the title story, an unnerving tale of a painter, an old woman and her daughter; and several more.

Aickman's stories share with those of H.P. Lovecraft a delicate balance between too much information and not enough -- too much and you get gore/splatter with nothing left to the imagination, too little and you get ho-hum, a story that doesn't compel or intrigue. There is a difference between horror and terror; Aickman is a master of the latter. He takes you by the hand and leads you to the very doorstep of seeing what's lurking out there in the dark...and then turns out the light.

(Bonus: The dust jacket is illustrated by Edward Gorey!)

The Fox WomanThis was a beauty of a book, a mix of myth, fairy tale, love story, and cautionary tale. The kitsune, the fox-woman, is a well-known figure in Japanese folklore and myth; here, Johnson places the story of a fox who wishes to become a woman against that of a young couple whose marriage is faltering under the weight of artifice and constraint. Above, in the house, Yoshifuji and his wife Shikujo communicate by writing each other haikus open to multiple interpretations, neither knowing what the other wants or thinks; beneath the floor Kitsune, the young fox, comes into season and mates with her brother because, well, that's what animals do. Kitsune wants (or thinks she wants) the trappings of humanity: to learn to read, to write, to understand art, to wear beautiful clothes and speak from behind a screen. Yoshifuji watches the foxes from his window and wishes he had their freedom.

Telling the story in diary form allows you to see through the eyes of each of the three main characters in turn, which gives the story both the immediacy of first person and the complexity of a multiple POVs.

Of all of them, though, I felt sorriest for Kitsune's mother and brother, dragged into this transformation mostly against their will; if I had one complaint about the book it's that Johnson doesn't offer a compelling explanation for why they have to pay the price for Kitsune's obsession with Yoshifuji.

Although the ending is left open, leaving me uncertain as to what if anything Yoshifuji or Kitsune learned from their experience (are they wiser? or more determined?), this was a real pleasure to read. Johnson is an artistic writer with a gift for description, evoking seasons, settings and the life and attitudes of Old Japan with a light touch and a painterly eye for detail.
delphipsmith: (queenie)
We have returned safely from our trek to Pennsylvania for the Blackmore's Night concert and the PA Ren Faire, huzzah!

By happy chance (so he says *ahem*) Mr Psmith picked a hotel for Friday that was across the street from not one, not two, but THREE Irish pubs!! So as a prelude to the evening's main event there was well-poured Guinness for Mr Psmith and a nice pinot grigio for me, and a bartender from Leitrim with a GORGEOUS accent (when we asked him how long he had been here, he said "T'ree weeks"). We then "garbed up" and, since the theatre was only two blocks from the hotel, paraded downtown in our Renaissance-y best, nodding regally at mystified passersby. The concert was very good; lots of fellow audience members also in garb, so it was a bit like going to see the 16th century version of Rocky Horror Picture Show, only with less toast and more shawm. Seeing Carl as the opening act on a big stage was great fun, and then Blackmore's Night played for 2-1/2 hours straight -- many old favorites and one or two we didn't know, and Candace's voice was as stunning live as it is on the CDs.

The next morning we had a two-hour drive to the Ren Fair but a luxurious hour to get dressed once we arrived (normally at our "home festival" we have about 20 minutes!). We looked splendid, if I do say so myself, particular Mr Psmith who is quite dashing in doublet, hat, boots and sword :) We strolled the grounds like visiting nobility all day and had quite the time, inspecting the baby dragons (i.e., anole lizards), watching the various minstrels, and eating anachronistic but tasty food items. The PA Faire is more "produced" than our home festival -- for example, all the performers are mic'ed and the joust had theatrical piped-in music that sounded like the soundtrack to Ben Hur! But once you get past the different character it's a fun change of pace. The Faire's theme this year was a fierce competition between Shakespeare and Marlowe, and the "Finale in Song" (which is what PA has instead of a final pubsing) had some very funny bits indeed where they got out of temper and ranted at each other, and the Queen was clearly channeling her Blackadder incarnation. Though as Mr Psmith said, the last number was much more Glee than Tudor. Still, worth the trip if only for the chance to see Empty Hats and trot out our black velvet one more time :)

Mr Psmith scored again with Saturday night's hotel which had an excellent restaurant complete with vegetarian menu (spinach, mushroom and goat cheese quesadillas with chipotle honey glaze -- nomz!!)

We slept in this morning, then headed out and were home by 5pm, well ahead of Hurricane Sandy which was all over the news of course. On the drive home NPR taught us things about Kurt Weil and the Threepenny Opera, and we passed a convoy of five utility trucks which we speculated were being mobilized ahead of the storm. Made me feel rather reassured; not that we're supposed to get more than high winds and an inch or so of rain at Chez Psmith, but still, it's nice to know that people are Planning Ahead. We're happy to be home, and I hope that all of you who are in Sandy's path weather the storm safely and with minimal damage!
delphipsmith: (Elizabethan adder)
Clark Kent is quitting his day job with a major anti-infotainment rant about the state of the news media today. No mention yet of what the Man of Steel's new job will be -- anyone want to take a guess? Put it in the comments, we'll see who gets it right.

In other news, Spotify has discovered that music is apparently a turn-on. Thank you, Captain Obvious. The list of songs is a little surprising though; I'm amused to see that one in three participants identified Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody as a song that is "better than sex." I dunno, for big symphonic rock I think I might go for a little Nightwish.

Friday Mr Psmith and I are off to Pennsylvania for some big-time fun or, as we like to call it, hangin' with the Tudors and partying like it's 1590. Friday night we have tickets to Blackmore's Night in concert -- first time seeing them live and I'm VERY excited. If you go in garb (as of course we shall) you get special up-front seating :) Then Saturday we're off to the PA Ren Faire -- ale! Empty Hats!! weirdly anachronistic food items!!!

It really just doesn't get any better than this. I predict that A Good Time Will Be Had By All.
delphipsmith: (thinker)
Francis Bacon's recommendations for being a "gentleman scholar" (1594), and my new ambition of what I want to be/do/have when I grow up. I love the idea of "in small compass a model of universal nature made private" so that you can study whatever it is you want to, right there in your own little realm :)

First, the collecting of a most perfect and general library, wherein whatsoever the wit of man hath hitherto committed to books of worth, be they ancient or modern, printed or manuscript, European or of other parts, of one or another language, may be made contributory to your wisdom. Next, a spacious wonderful garden, wherein whatsoever plant the sun of diverse climates, out of the earth of diverse molds, either wild or by the culture of man, brought forth, may be, with that care that appertaineth to the good prospering thereof, set and cherished; this garden to be built about with room to stable in all rare beasts and to cage in all rare birds, with two lakes adjoining, the one of fresh water, the other of salt, for like variety of fishes. And so you may have in small compass a model of universal nature made private. The third, a goodly huge cabinet, wherein whatsoever the hand of man by exquisite art or engine hath made rare in stuff, form or motion; whatsoever singularity, chance and the shuffle of things hath produced; whatsoever nature hath wrought in things that want life and may be kept, shall be sorted and included. The fourth, such a still-house, so furnished with mills, instruments, furnaces and vessels as may be a palace fit for a philosopher's stone. Thus, when your excellency shall have added depth of knowledge to the fineness of your spirits and greatness of your power, then indeed shall you be a Trismegistus, and then when all other miracles and wonder shall cease, by reason that you shall have discovered their natural causes, yourself shall be left the only miracle and wonder of the world.
delphipsmith: (bookgasm)
OK, on the plus side, I discover that Goodreads has added a "stats" feature. Click on this and it shows you a nice bar chart of how many books you've read in a given year. Click on "details" and you get a pie chart breakdown by category (your own categories). Click on "pages" and it changes to give the number of pages you've read.

It's kick ass. I've updated my info for last three years based on the paper lists I was keeping, so it's pretty impressive ;)

Plus, they answered my question about how to be able to include different language versions on your list, rather than having them collapsed into a single title. So I now have both Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone and Harry Potter a l'ecole des sorciers, along with both Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter et la chambre des secrets. w00t!!

Finished a new bio of Anne Boleyn yesterday. Being accustomed to Genevieve Bujold in Anne of the Thousand Days, Mr Bernard's Anne was something of a startlement since he assumes she might actually have been guilty of the charges of adultery brought against her, but as historical analyses of primary sources go, he's on pretty solid ground. Given that the earliest biographers (not detractors, but biographers) of Anne were writing during the reign of her daughter Elizabeth, it's not surprising they would have inflated the power, piety and Protestantism of the mother of their beloved queen. Bernard does some scrupulous deconstruction of contemporary sources to demonstrate that in fact Anne might simply have been a beautiful sexy woman who engaged in a few indiscretions and then had the appallingly bad luck to be found out. He still makes some large-ish assumptions, but his logic and his deductions hold up pretty well.

I always thought Genevieve was so beautiful. Until I googled her tonight, however, I had no idea she was the original choice for Capt. Janeway in Star Trek: Voyager!!

And people say the internet isn't useful for education...
delphipsmith: (shiny)
Agh, agh, agh. How is possible to be reading not one, not two, but THREE books at the same time?? Not to mention breaks for The Economist, Newsweek, The Hedgehog Review, and my local paper. It ought to be impossible. The sheer number of words beating on my skull ought to somehow cancel each other out, or the most interesting ones ought (by the law of survival of the fittest) to beat the %&*^ out of the other ones until they limp quietly away. And yet it does not happen. I lug multiple books to work with me, in the insane belief that in a 45-minute lunch hour I can somehow inhale all of them, or at least some of each of them. I pile them next to my bed at night, in the happy delusion that in the half hour between the time I lie down and the moment at which my eyelids acquire a weight of roughly 2.6 earth normal, I will wade through a chapter or two of each.

I need an intervention. Or an external hard drive I can plug into my head. Or something.

Currently I'm working on a ginormous behemoth of a book, Neil Stephenson's Anathem, which in addition to weighing about eight pounds has the dubious distinction of more made-up words per page than anything I've ever read anywhere, including Clockwork Orange. It's so brain-straining that I have to take breaks and work on the next Sandman volume. Which is short, so in between those I've got a new bio of Anne Boleyn -- yay! At least that one's vaguely topical since the Ren Fest is going on and we're there every weekend in garb. ("Say it now and say it loud, I'm a Rennie and I'm proud!")

So there you go. A little TMI about my addiction to the written word. Go stories! Go words!! Go narrative!!!
delphipsmith: (face sodding your shut)
Another catch-up post with bunches of books. I meant to do this last week but the past week has been, to put it mildly, a steaming pile of poo. "The devil farts in my face once again, Percy" about sums it up. I'm starting to feel semi-human again, so here we are. Following are some goodies I highly recommend.

Ugly War, Pretty Package = an in-depth analysis of how Fox News and CNN packaged, presented and sold the Iraq War as a "high-concept" film, complete with heroes, a soundtrack, special effects, and a catchy narrative. It's amazing, fascinating, and very creepy. The creepiest part is that -- Fox's loud protestations notwithstanding -- the two networks basically sold the exact same narrative, slavishly following the government's and military's "party line." Read it; you'll never watch television news the same way again.

It Can't Happen Here = dystopian America in which a populist loudmouth (who sounds frighteningly like Sarah Palin) is elected and sends the US into a spiral of totalitarian terror and oppression. Although written in 1935, it's almost eerily prescient in its portrayal of a media-created candidate, and Berzelius Windrip and his second-in-command Lee Sarason (who runs everything behind the scenes) are scarily like Dubya and Cheney. I could easily picture Cheney engineering a coup.

Wolf Hall = Henry VIII's divorce from Katherine and marriage/beheading of Anne Boleyn, told from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell. Booker Prize winner. Interesting -- written in the present tense, which took some getting used to, and in a style less narrative than poetic. Interesting to see a sympathetic portrayal of Cromwell, as a talented bureaucrat who just wants the country to run smoothly, and a very unsympathetic portrayal of Thomas More as an unbending fanatic willing to torture those who don't see God his way.

That about gets us up to speed. Oh no, one more -- Volume 2 of Neil Gaiman's Sandman tales, The Doll's House. VERY cool indeed. Love the spectacle of Morpheus having to track down and kill or recapture escaped nightmares, the idea that Desire and Despair are twins, and the story of Hob Gadling which poses the theory that Dream could be lonely and want a friend. The Cereal Convention was brilliantly creepy, and Morpheus' older sister Death makes an appearance. So far no glimpse of the Library of Dreams, though. Still waiting for that.

So. There it is, then.

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