peta's journal

An End to Intolerance

2009-04-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

When I was in highschool, I worked on a student journal called An End to Intolerance. The journal's focus was educating students about the Holocaust, and fostering awareness of other human rights atrocities around the world.

While skimming through my hard drive (I'm a virtual packrat and need to offload on to a disk more often than I actually do), I found a draft/half-sketched out article I wrote after an interview with Holocaust survivor Helen Grossman. Since the file is still relevant, I reworked my find - and here it is.

Helen Grossman was born in Poland. She was thirteen years old when her family ran away from their hometown. “We were caught by the Germans and sent back,” she says. “Our house [had] burnt down, so we went to live with my grandfather.”

We’re standing on the second floor of Sydney’s Holocaust Museum, where Mrs. Grossman is leading a tour. Walking over to a wall covered with artifacts, she takes a round metal object from the shelf, and brings it to the center table.

“A few months later,” she continues, “an SS man broke the door down, and my parents were deported and my brother and I were sent to a camp to work in a factory.

“When I was 15, I was sent to Auschwitz and separated from my brother. I caught typhoid. [Then] I was then sent to Birkenau, a section of Auschwitz [that] was known as the ‘forest of death’ [because] people sent [there were forced] on a death march there to die. I worked on shell casings there for a few months.”

Leaning over the metal cylinder, Mrs. Grossman’s fingers move, swift and deft, as she breaks the shell into pieces. Just as nimbly, she re-assembles the casing and replaces it on the shelf.

“Then I was sent to another Auschwitz camp,” she tells us. “The Russians were coming, and the Germans were afraid. We were sent on a death march through knee-deep snow.” She makes eye-contact with each of us, matter-of-fact. “If you lagged behind, you were shot.”

The SS destroyed the gas chambers at Birkenau in November of 1944. In January of 1945, Nazi personnel began to leave the facility. Most of the prisoners were sent toward the West, on a death-march.

“Eventually we were put on a train. I was lucky. I was put in an open carriage […] The closed carriages were worse […] there was no air and no room. People were constantly dying, being sick and going to the toilet all the time. It was terrible.

“We were on the train for days going this way, then being sent that way. We had no food or water. People were begging for water. People were eating snow that was falling into the open carriages and getting diarrhoea and dying.

“We travelled through Czechoslovakia. When we reached the camp, we looked for food at the garbage dump. The female commandant did not like this, and as a punishment, we were not fed for another 48 hours. People were dying like flies. […] There were no burials or cremations so we were waking up amongst dead people.”

Current estimates suggest that almost 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. Somewhere between 1.1 and 1.4 million Jews died at Auschwitz, alongside 150,000 Polish Catholics, and 23,000 Romani and Sinti (more commonly known as Gypsies).

“We stayed in these conditions for a long time until eventually the Russians liberated us.” At the end of January,1945, the Soviet Red Army caught up with prisoners sent west from Bireknau. Approximately 7,500 people were liberated.

Turning over her wrist, Mrs. Grossman shows us the line of small black number; people crowd ‘round to see. “these experiences still haunt me,” she says, calm and self-possessed, “but I can't remember the faces. I can see the German officers in their uniforms and their name tags, but my mind has blocked out their faces."

Mrs. Grossman is still an active volunteer at the Sydney Jewish Museum.

Vegetarian Children

2009-03-30T15:05:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Joe and I are both vegetarians, and happy about it. Granted, it wasn't very easy at first, especially for Joe (I've never been a big fan of meat - it was a seafood habit I had to kick). But, now that we're expecting (six months along on Wednesday), we've been considering the ramifications of our vegetarianism.

Sure, I have to be a little extra careful with my diet while pregnant, but what about after I've had our little Pikachu? Will he grow up to be a vegetarian? Will we say no to meat products at grandparents' places? Will he always order vegetarian meals at restaurants? What about fast food? McDonald's, Burger King, KFC - many childhood "treat foods" are brimming with meat.

That's when I stumbled across this article on Slate.com. Granted, it doesn't exactly address our situtation - neither of us eat meat - but it does raise a few interesting questions. What do you think?

From "Daddy Eats Dead Cows", by Mark Oppenheimer:

My wife, Cyd, is an unlikely vegetarian. Her mother is a genius with a chicken or a pot roast, and their small apartment in New York remains a kosher carnivore's delight. For nights out, her family could walk to temples of meat like Sammy's Roumanian Steak House and the Second Avenue Deli. But as a young girl, Cyd decided that eating meat was unethical, and she resolved that someday she would become a vegetarian. The summer before college, she worked to acquire a taste for eggplant, chickpeas, and other staples of the meat-free diet. She became a fine vegetarian cook; today she can do indescribable things with lentils.
From the time we met, I admired Cyd's commitment to vegetarianism. I had taken baby-steps toward vegetarianism myself: After reading Peter Singer's Animal Liberation in my mid-20s, I had given up chicken, which seemed to me the most cruelly abused of all the factory-farmed animals. Yet when, during our courtship, Cyd said that having a vegetarian household, and doing our best to raise vegetarian children, was important to her, I hesitated (or, rather, picked a long, loud fight). I didn't object to the meat-free household, and she was not asking me to abstain from meat in restaurants or at friends' houses. But trying to raise vegetarian children seemed to be buying trouble. I immediately generated a list of potential problems: Would it be healthy? What would our parents think when we asked them not to serve the grandchildren tuna fish? Would our children feel left out, abstaining from hot dogs at ballgames and birthday parties? Most important: Would they seem like freaks?

Decimate

2009-02-21T16:14:00.000-08:00

Joe's sitting next to me watching Battlestar Galactica. Now, though I'm not a fan of the show - I've never successfully stayed awake during an episode before, I've been asking questions on and off throughout this one. And what I've learned so far is this: Joe can't misuse the word "decimated".

Part of me rejoices at this - I'm married to a man as pedantic as me. And part of me just finds it funny, especially since "decimated" is not one of my trigger words; even though I'm aware of the way it should be used, and the way it's usually used, I don't make the distinction (a very rare thing for me!).

So, what does "decimated" actually mean? Interestingly, "decimated" has two meanings - the original, and a created one (the first definition) that's grown out of general misusage (other examples of this include "irregardless" and "inflammable"). So, in the words of my trusty OED:

1 kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage or part of : the project would decimate the fragile wetland wilderness | the American chestnut, a species decimated by blight.

• drastically reduce the strength or effectiveness of (something) : plant viruses that can decimate yields.

2 historical kill one in every ten of (a group of soldiers or others) as a punishment for the whole group.

USAGE Historically, the meaning of the word decimate is ‘kill one in every ten of (a group of people).’ This sense has been superseded by the later, more general sense ‘kill or destroy a large percentage or part of,’ as in : the virus has decimated the population. Some traditionalists argue that this and other later senses are incorrect, but it is clear that these extended senses are now part of standard English. It is sometimes also argued that decimate should refer to people and not to things or animals such as weeds or insects. It is generally agreed that decimate should not be used to mean 'defeat utterly.'

And the result? Joe is a traditionalist, and I can say whatever I want (with only the tiniest twinge of guilt).

Pride & Prejudice - an audio book

2009-02-19T13:49:00.001-08:00

For any Jane Austen fans out there - Learn Out Loud has been putting Pride and Prejudice up, chapter by chapter, as an audio book. The reader, Catherine Byers, is very good, though, thanks to the BBC, Ms. Byers Mrs. Bennett makes me think a little more of Lady Catherine than the flighty, nervous woman I'm used to.

Download or listen online here, and be sure to check out the rest of Learn Out Loud's excellent library!

Edit: I'm listening to this now, and I think Ms. Byers may have Miss Bingley and Donald Duck a little mixed up...

Girl & Castle in the Sky

2009-02-11T12:43:00.000-08:00

I've spent a lot of time sketching lately - I find it relaxing, and I enjoy seeing something take shape on the page. Unlike reading (I'm still having pregnancy-induced reading trouble), it doesn't hurt my eyes. And unlike piano practice, I don't have to sit up in a specific position (pregnancy is tough on the joints, people!). But, perhaps most of all, I like it because I'm learning how to do it. One of my greatest character faults is that I hate not knowing how to do a thing; sketching every day makes me happy because I'm slowly filling in a gap.

In the past, I've done a lot of freehand-see-where-it-takes-me things. I still do those from time to time, but, since I'm attempting to learn a bit about how to draw sans a class, I've started doing copies of things. The copies rarely end up being exact - once I have an idea of the lines, I tend to let my own hands take over. This first image (creatively titled "girl") began life as a copy of a bookcover - one of Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic books, in fact. And, though I had planned to get around to reading that series at the time, I have to admit, I bought the book more because of the cover than anything else. Unfortunately, because the book is a UK edition I picked up in Australia, it's been difficult to track down an original image. The best I can do is the tiny one below, and a link to the original illustrator, Liselotte Watkins.

Liselotte's original

My copy

Somewhere along the way, the girl became a lot more middle eastern, and the hair grew into a veil. I'm not sure why, but I think I like it. I'm never quite sure!

The next picture began as a copy of a book I recieved for Christmas, The Complete Fairy Tales of Charles Perrarult, illustrated by Sally Holmes. Although I can't put up the original illustration, if you page through the "Look Inside" feature on Amazon, you'll get an idea of the wonderful illustrations throughout the book.

In the original picture, from Bluebeard, the castle is atop a well-treed hill, with riders racing through the forest, and haystacks in the foreground. I went for a more castle in the sky feel, changing the trees and adding in clouds, some extra castle, and the pines.

(Please forgive the strange line; the scanner doesn't cope very well with my sketchbook!)

Castle in the Sky

Before doing this sketch, I had an idea of how castles and individual trees worked, but I'd not really understood how to draw a forest. Now, though, I'm much more comfortable with the idea, and I think I'll try a few general foresty sketches soon.

Reading: Dingo, by Charles de Lint

2009-01-14T06:18:00.000-08:00

High school senior Miguel’s life is turned upside down when he meets new girl Lainey, whose family has just moved from Australia. With her tumbled red-gold hair, her instant understanding of who he is, and her unusual dog—a real Australian dingo—she’s unforgettable. And, as he quickly learns, she is on the run from an ancient bargain made by her ancestors. There’s no question that Miguel will do whatever he can to help her—but what price will each of them have to pay? Dingo is quintessential Charles de Lint, set close to his beloved, invented city of Newford—a mixture of darkness and hope, humor and mystery, and the friendship within love.

The cover of Dingo immediately caught my eye - the title was arresting (many Americans are completely unaware of the dingo, so hearing/seeing the word is rare), and the colours were bright without being garish. So I added the book to my already overflowing arms, paid, and carted it home, where it sat on the shelf for a month (my reading list is long, my time is short, and pregnancy-induced migraines are making life difficult). This weekend, I picked it up.

And was surprised.

Now, I read the inside jacket when I bought the book - I always read the synopsis, the author biography, and anything else that looks vaguely informative before taking a book home - but I forgot the exact details somewhere between buying and reading. So, thanks to the the cover, I spent the first few pages thinking I was reading a teen girl's voice.

From the first page of chapter one:

No one lies to think it of their father, but there are days when I can't help but feel that somehow I got stuck with the biggest loser of all loser dads. It's mostly on days like this when he's off on a house call to buy new stock and I'm stuck minding the store.

MIKE'S USED COMICS AND RECORDS, the sign says above the door in paint that's chipped and starting to fade.

Okay, so he's not a deadbeat, because ever since Mom died, he's always made sure we had food on the table and a roof over our heads. And some kids might think it was cool to have a dad so into comics and music. But try living with it, day in and day out. It's Superman this, and Spider-Man that, and wow, a Grateful Dead boot with a version of some song that they only ever played live one or two times and never recorded officially.

It was another two paragraphs, when the narrator begins to talk about hand-me-down clothes, before I realised I was reading a teen boy's voice.

So, what do you think?

How does a book's cover affect our perception of the main character?
Do you find the excerpt above leans toward the voice of a particular gender? Is it ambiguous?
Do the mentions of comics and superheroes tip your perception of voice either way?

Kangaroo Cousins?

2008-12-15T12:39:00.000-08:00

From the UK Newspaper, The Daily Mail:

'Kangaroos are Closely Related to Humans', Scientists Claim
Humans and kangaroos are close cousins on the evolutionary tree sharing a common ancestor 150 million years ago, according to Australian researchers.
Scientists have mapped the genetic code of the Australian marsupials for the first time and found large chunks of DNA are the same...[more]

This isn't a fairy tale. But it is pretty cool. Prior to this research, we could see some degree of relation between kangaroos and humans, the way we can see some degree of relation between humans and anything else that gets as far as Class Mammalia. (Kangaroos then split into Marsupials, while humans split to Eutherians, or placental mammals). Of course, now that I'm in the throes of morning sickness, I'm beginning to think the kangaroos got the better deal...

More Pandora

2008-11-07T20:53:00.000-08:00

After my Pandora work, I started thinking about representations of Pandora, which led me to these. All are late-nineteeth/early-twentieth century works by British artists.

Henry Meynell Rheam, Study for Pandora, 1902

I find it interesting that in this painting, Pandora looks inevitably drawn to the jar, while in the Rosetti (below), she is a touch sad, but calm and resigned--the whole painting has a very fateful feel to me.

Dante Gabriel Rosetti, Pandora, 1879

John William Waterhouse, Pandora, 1896

Usually, I find Waterhouse's work overripe (think La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Apollo and Daphne), but I find this painting, with its whisper of escape, with Pandora's bare feet and bare shoulder, with her almost hunted-yet-still-drawn look perfect.

Henriette Rae, Pandora, 1894

This so very early twentieth century fairy painting that while it may not be exactly suited to Greek myth, I find it haunting, arresting even. Perhaps it's the photorealism of the model's face--I'm not sure. But I'm drawn to the picture all the same.

The Jar

2008-11-07T19:57:00.001-08:00

I wrote this yesterday, as part of a prompt, "Hope". It's inspired by the myth of Pandora, which was first recorded by Hesiod, though it's likely the story is older than that. There've been many interpretations of the story, and much discussion of the idea of hope being left within Pandora's jar; I'll be writing something about that once I've done the pomegranate post for Fairy Tale Fridays.

It’s small as a butterfly, and bright, bright like the inside of a daffodil.

Across the way, he sleeps, his breath heavy, his stomach heavier. The others, dark, hungry-looking swathes of red-tinted blackness hover about him.

Yesterday, they had been harmless, just small patches of grey, dust grey, belly button grey, shadows I could see if—when—I held the jar to a flame.

Now, they are real.

“Epimetheus.” His name is still thick against my tongue, and I stumble over it as if my mouth is coated in honey. The blackness draws closer; my breath catches . In the jar, the brightness flickers, casting small streams of silver into the dark. Breath falls out of me, slow as a summer rain, and my heart slows. “Epimetheus.”

He rolls away. The blackness rolls with him.

In the jar, the streams of silver grow thicker, twining themselves into rope. I step forward, left foot, then right foot, left foot, then right foot.

The blackness stills.

Left foot, I tell myself. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.

The blackness shifts back, back, back.

“Epimetheus.”

He rolls toward me this time; the blackness shifts behind him, oozing toward the window.

“Epimetheus.” I set the jar on the bed, then sit next to it, next to him. The silvery rope is even thicker now; the centre is bright, bright like the inside of a daffodil.

He reaches toward me, lets his fingers come to my brow. “Pan? You look—”

Ashen, I think. Worn. Frightened.

He shakes his head. “I thought—I hoped you were—” his hand flutters downward, rests on the bed. “I thought you might have wanted me.”

In the jar, something flashes; I reach for his hand.

“I did.”

2008-10-25T09:34:00.000-07:00

Sleepy Hollow, by Mary Blair. Image provided by Peko_chan

He saw the walls of the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected the place where Brom Bones's ghostly competitor had disappeared. "If I can but reach that bridge," thought Ichabod, "I am safe." Just then he heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him; he even fancied that he felt his hot breath.

---From The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving

Mary Blair was a very influential animation artist who provided concept art for a number of Disney works including Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and, of course, Cinderella. She even influenced the design of the It's a Small World attraction at Disney!

Blair also worked as a children's illustrator, working on such titles as I Can Fly by Ruth Krauss (The Carrot Seed) and was posthumously honoured as a Disney Legend in 1991.

Check out some of her Cinderella work over at the Fees blog, or in the lovely Peko_chan's Mary Blair gallery.

Fairy Tale Fridays: The Love of the Three Pomegranates

2008-10-24T09:13:00.000-07:00

Melagrana frutto, Pomegranate fruit, Granatapfel-Frucht, by Pizzodisevo

This story is excerpted from Italo Calvino's marvellous Italian Folktales (translated by George Martin). It's from Abruzzo, and is a variant of the better known The Love of the Three Oranges. It's also part of the new Pomegranate Project (and possibly wiki) we're going to be starting over at Les Bonnes Fees.

A king’s son was eating at the dinner table. While slicing the ricotta, he cut his finger, and a drop of blood fell on the white cheese. He said to his mother, “Mamma, I would like a wife white like milk and red like blood.”

“Why, my son, whoever is white is certainly not red, and whoever is red is by no means white. But go out all the dame and see if you can find such a girl.”

The son set out. After some distance he met a woman, who asked, “Where are you going, young man?”

“How can I confide my secret to a woman? The very idea!”

On and on he went, and met a little old man, who asked, “Where are you going, young man?”

“You I’ll tell, respected sir, who will certainly ear further of me. I’m seeking a girl both milk-white and blood-red.”

“My son, whoever is white is not red, and whoever is red is not white. Take these three pomegranates, however. Open them and see what comes out. But do so only beside the fountain.”

The youth opened a pomegranate, and out jumped a very beautiful girl white like milk and red like blood, who immediately cried:
“Dear young man, bring me some water,
Otherwise I’m Mother’s dead daughter!”

The young man dipped up water in the hollow of his hand and offered it to her, but he was too late: the beautiful creature was dead.

He opened another pomegranate, and out jumped another beautiful girl, saying:

“Dear young man, bring me some water,
Otherwise I’m Mother’s dead daughter!”

He brought her water, but she was already dead.

He opened the third pomegranate, and out jumped a girl still more beautiful than the other two. The young man threw water in her face, and she lived.

She was as naked as the day her mother gave birth to her, so the young man threw his own cloak over her, saying, “Climb this tree while I go for clothes to dress you in and a carriage to take you to the palace.”

The girl remained in the tree beside the fountain. Now every day, this fountain was visited by the ugly Saracen[1] woman, who came there for water. As she went to dip up water with her earthen pot, she saw the maiden’s face reflected on the surface of the fountain from the tree, and sighed:

“Why must I, who am so beautiful,
Trudge home with water by the potful?”

At that, she slammed the pot down, smashing it to smithereens. When she got home, her mistress said, “Ugly Saracen, how dare you return with no water and no crock!” She therefore picked up another earthen pot and returned to the fountain, where she again saw that image in the water. “Ah, I am truly beautiful!” she said to herself, adding:

“Why must I, who am so beautiful,
Trudge home with water by the potful?”

Again she slammed down the crock. Again her mistress scolded her. Again she went to the fountain and smashed still another pot. Up to then the maiden had merely looked on from the tree, but now she had to laugh.

Ugly Saracen looked up and saw her. “Oh, it’s you? You are the one who made me smash three pots to smithereens? But you are truly beautiful~ just a minute, I want to do your hair for you.”

The maiden was reluctant to come down the tree, but Ugly Saracen insisted. “Let me dress our hair, so that you will be still more beautiful.”

Helping her down, Ugly Saracen undid the maiden’s hair and found a hairpin, which she thrust into the poor girl’s ear. A drop of blood fell from the maiden, then she died. But when the drop of blood hit the ground, it changed into a wood pigeon, which flew away.

Ugly Saracen went and settled in the tree. The king’s son returned in the carriage and, seeing her, said, “You were milk-white and blood-red when I left you. How on earth did you become so dark?”

Ugly Saracen replied:

“Out came the sun
And made me dun.”

“But how could your voice have changed so?” asked the king’s son.

She replied:
“The wind came up,
My voice came down.”

“But you were so beautiful, and now you are so ugly!” said the king’s son.

She replied:
“Also rose the breeze
And caused my face to freeze.”

That was that. He took her into the carriage and carried her home.

From the moment Ugly Saracen settled down in the palace as the wife of the king’s son, the wood pigeon would alight on the kitchen window ledge every morning and say to the cook:
“Cook, O cook of the cursed kitchen,
Tell me, tell me
What the king is doing with old Ugly Saracen.”

He eats, drinks, and sleeps,” replied the cook.

The wood pigeon said:
“Please, a bit of soup for me,
And plumes of gold I will give thee.”

The cook served her a plate of soup, and the wood pigeon gave a little shake and shed a few feathers of gold. Then she flew off.

The next morning she was back:
“Cook, O cook of the cursed kitchen,
Tell me, tell me
What the king is doing with old Ugly Saracen.”

“He eats, drinks, and sleeps,” replied the cook.

“Please, a bit of soup for me,
And plumes of gold I will give thee.”

She ate her soup, and the cook took the golden feathers.

A little later, the cook decided to go to the king with the whole story. The king listened carefully, and replied, “Tomorrow when the wood pigeon returns, catch it and bring it to me. I shall keep it.”

Ugly Saracen, who had eavesdropped and heard everything, knew only too well that the wood pigeon would be her undoing, so next morning she beat the cook to the window when the pigeon lit, pierced it through with a spit and killed it.

The wood pigeon died, but a drop of blood fell in the garden and right there a pomegranate tree sprang up at once.

This tree had the magic property that whoever was dying and ate one of its pomegranates got well. And there was always a long line of people begging Ugly Saracen for a pomegranate.

Finally only one pomegranate remained on the tree, the biggest one of all, and Ugly Saracen announced: “I will keep this one for myself.”

An old woman came to her, asking, “Will you give me that pomegranate? My husband is dying.”

“I have only one left, and I am keeping it for decoration,” replied Ugly Saracen, but the king’s son objected. “Poor old thing, her husband is dying, you can’t refuse her.”

So the old woman went back home with the pomegranate. She got home and found her husband already dead. “That means I keep the pomegranate for decoration,” she told herself.

Every morning the old woman went to Mass. And while she was at Mass, the girl would come out of the pomegranate, light the fire, sweep the house, do the cooking, and set the table. Then she would go back inside the pomegranate. Finding everything in order upon her return, the old woman was baffled.

One morning she went to confession and told her confessor all about it. He replied, “Know what you should do? Tomorrow morning pretend to go out to Mass, but hide somewhere at home instead. That way you’ll see who’s doing all your housekeeping.”

The next morning the old woman pretended to leave the house, but stopped outside the door. The maiden emerged from the pomegranate and started on the housework and the cooking. The old woman came back in and caught the girl before she could reenter [sic]the pomegranate.

“Where do you come from?” asked the old woman.

“Peace to you, ma’am, don’t kill me, don’t kill me!”

“I’m not going to kill you, but I want to know where you come from.”

“I live inside the pomegranate…” And she related her story.

The old woman dressed her in peasant garb like her own, since the maiden was still as naked as the day she was born, and on Sunday took her to Mass with her. The king’s son was also at Mass and saw her. “My heavens!” he exclaimed. “I do believe that’s the maiden I met at the fountain!” So he lay in wait for the old woman on the road.

“Tell me where that maiden came from!”

“Don’t kill me!” whimpered the old woman.

“Don’t worry, I only want to know where she comes from.”

“She comes from the pomegranate you gave me.”

“She was in a pomegranate too?” exclaimed the king’s son, who turned to the maiden and asked, “How on earth did you get into a pomegranate?” And she told him everything.

He returned to the palace with the girl, and had her tell the whole story once more in front of Ugly Saracen.

“Did you hear that?” the king’s son asked Ugly Saracen when the girl had finished her tale. “I don’t want to be the one to condemn you to death. Condemn yourself.”

As there was now no way out, Ugly Saracen said, “Coat me with pitch and burn me to death in the centre of the town square.”

So it was done, and the king’s son married the maiden.

(Abruzzo)

From Folk & Fairy Tales

2008-10-04T08:29:00.000-07:00

Out at a local used bookstore the other day, I came across a university course reader, Folk & Fairy Tales (3rd ed), edited by Martin Hallett and Barbara Karasek. From the introduction:

The distinguished American critic Leslie Fielder once observed that children's books introduce all the plots used in adult works and that adult responses are frequently based on forgotten or dimly remembered works from childhood. This is particularly true of fairy tales, which, in providing much of our earliest literary and imaginative experience, have surely exerted an enormous influence over us. [Our goal]...is to draw attention not only to the fascination inherent in the tales themselves, but also to the insights of some critics who have demonstrated, from a variety of perspectives--literary, psychological, and historical--that fairy tales have a complexity belied by their humble origins.

How true do you think it is that our childhood reading influences our adulthood reading?

September Issue Up

2008-09-28T21:05:00.000-07:00

Excerpted from The Ifreet Father, Les Bonnes Fees September 2008

Les Bonnes Fees is live, and I am exhausted. Good night, People. Happy reading.

The Debate...

2008-09-27T12:51:00.000-07:00

I like politics. I very much enjoy watching politics and political debates, though I try not to get involved in anything in the US, since I'm not actually a citizen or permanent resident, and Australia has its own share of problems. That said, I couldn't resist posting this little bit of sunshine from Googlefight:

Does anyone else have a good Googlefight to share?

And now, more work. The next issue of Les Bonnes Fees will be up tomorrow!

[Also, for anyone interested, my recent LiveJournal idol post is available here.]

Reality Bites

2008-09-18T17:33:00.003-07:00

Because I've been having trouble keeping with posting lately (Fees is eating into my time, as is other work), I'm trying out the LiveJournal Idol (LJ idol) competition. I'm not going to post entries &c. here, but I'll note the link to latest entries at the bottom of any posts I make here.

So--my introduction post is up here.

Kalo Dant & the Seventh World, part II

2008-09-18T17:33:00.001-07:00

Kalo Dant thanked him kindly, took his leave and departed. He traversed the forest, came to the meadow, sat down and waited. But no one came. Night fell and he lay down in the grass and fell asleep. In the morning he awoke—again no one. He waited and waited. The day passed, and not a soul appeared. It was the same the next day. On the third day Kalo Dant was half dead with hunger, but he decided he would rather die than return with his task unfinished. Whereupon he lay down in the grass and closedhis eyes once more. And all of a sudden he heard a voice above him.

“Stand up, Kalo Dant!”

He was taken by surprise, jumped up and saw before him the tall fair figure of an old man with a long white beard. And as he looked at him, he was seized with such hold awe that he fell on his knees and bowed his head.

“So you have taken it into your head to look at all my worlds, have you?” asked the venerable old man severely. “And did it not occur to you, you miserable mortal, that if I separated them from each other to prevent people like you from running one to ther other, that I probably knew why I was doing it?”

Whereupon Kalo Dant knew that this was not a man, but the Creator of the Seven World Himself. He remained silent a while and then said, “Curiosity, of Lord, is an evil thing. It is like thirst. If a man doesn’t want to die of thirst, he must dig himself a well. Some people are clever; they know at once where to find water in the ground and have tools with which to dig. Others are more foolish—they know nothing and have nothing. But even the fool must drink. If he has no toold, he must dig with his bare hands.”

“That was well said, Kalo Dant,” said God. “You people are very inquisitive, but that is right. He who asks no questions learns nothing, and he who does not seek finds nothing. You have asked and sought. That pleases me and I will help you. But listen well and think it over before you give your answer. I will allow you to look at all the worlds, but I won’t help you get back. That you will have to manage yourself. Do you accept such terms?”

“Yes, I do,” answered Kalo Dant.

Whereupon the Lord waved His hand and Kalo Dant rose up into the air, up and up, higher and higher. And that was how Kalo Dant landed on the third world. He roamed about it for some time, had a good look at it, but soon discovered that it did not differ much from the first two. There was only one difference—there seemed to be fewer people inhabiting it. He hardly met a sould on his wanderings. And when he soared to the fourth world, he found there were even fewer people. By the time he reached the fifth and sixth worlds he was quite sure that the higher the world, the fewer the people that lived on its surface.

Finally, he found himself in the last, the Seventh World. Here there were only bare mountains and cliffs, and endless forests and luxurious meadows, where herds of animals were pasturing. Above them flew all kinds of birds in great flocks.

In none of the lower worlds had Kalo Dant seen such vast numbers of birds. And the insects! There were white clouds of them, they flew low over the ground, buzzinf around and stinging him faster than he could chase them away.

I wouldn’t like to stay here, Kalo Dant thought to himself, and then he suddenly remembered that he had no idea whether or how he would get away from the place. He felt very hot. The sun hung quite low above his head, and it was scorching that he soon threw off his shirt and all the rest of his clothes. He stretched himsel out in the shade of an enormous tree, just as naked as the day God made him.

Suddenly he noticed it was getting darker. Looking up at the sky, he saw a dark red cloud passing in front of the fiery ball of the sun. It’s going to rain, he thought with relief.
And indeed, a moment later the first drops fell on his face. But what rain! The water was hot, so hot that when it touched his skin it almost burnt him.

He jumped up and sought shelter. The tree under which he had lain had a thick crown. So Kalo Dant climbed the trunk and hid himself among the leaves. Suddenly he heard a plaintive squawking. He glanced up to the top f his tree and saw a large bird’s nest.

No wonder they’re complaining, poor babies, he thought compassionately; this fiery rain will destroy such small fledglings. He climbed up swiftly to the very top and found seven large, but as yet unfeathered, fledglings in the nest. He threw his shirt over them, crouched down and waited for the rain to stop.

At last it did, and Kalo Dant stretched out his hand to take his shirt. But at that moment a large black bird was circling the treetop. The span of its wings was so great that it completely veiled the sun. The bird alighted on the edge of the nest and spoke with a human voice:

“Thank you for saving my children. You are in the Land of Birds, and I am their King. How can I reward you for this?”

“Probaly best by advising me how to get away from here,” answered Kalo Dant. “Couldn’t you perhaps carry me down to one of the lower worlds, where people live?”

“That’s not possible, I’m afraid,” said the King of the Birds. “But I can give you one of my subjects, who will. He’s known as Dragon Sharkan. Climb down and I’ll take you to him!”

When Kalo Dant reached the ground, the King of the Birds circled low over his head and said:
“Now pull out one of my tail-feathers!”

Kalo Dant did as he was bid and the King of the Birds soared up with him and showed him the way.
Suddenly Kalo Dant saw a mountain ahead. In front of it was a meadow, where a herd of cattle was pasturing. The King of the Birds flew down and alighted, saying:

“This is Salt Mountain. Inside there is a cave and that’s where Sharkan lives. The cattle you see are his. Go to the cave and call Sharkan by name. When he emerges, order him to destroy all his cattle. Then skin the animals, gut them, cut them up in pieces and preserve them in salt. Then make two large barrels from wood which you’ll find in the forest. Put salted meat in one and drinking water in the other. Tie both the vats to a long pole, which you must yoke behind Sharkan’s neck, and seat yourself in the centre of it. He will carry you down to whichever of the lower worlds you choose.”

“Even to the lowest?” asked Kalo Dant. He had had enough of roaming and wanted to get home.
“Yes,” agreed the King of the Birds. “Should he for some reason want to disobey, just show him my feather, or tap him lightly with it. You’ll tame him at once that way.”

The King of Birds took his leave and flew off.

Kalo Dant went up to the cave and called Sharkan’s name. The dragon heaved himself out and looked round threateningly. He measured a good fifteen feet from head to tail, and fire blazed from his nostrils.

Up to this time no dragons had yet been seen in our world. And if it hadn’t been for Kalo Dant, perhaps no dragon would ever have reached us. So when Kalo Dant first saw him, he got a good fright. Indeed, Sharkan was not a pleasant sight and, what’s more, he didn’t even try to look a bit friendly. But when the dragon saw the King of the Birds’ feather, he said politely, “I am your servant; what am I to do for you?”

Kalo Dant ordered him to do just as the Bird King had said. He helped him a bit with the slaughtering of the cattle and so they more or less became friends. When they had a sufficient store of meat, kalo Dant made the two barrels, filled one with meat, the other with drinking water and then told the dragon to carry him to the lowest world.

“That’s terribly far away,” said the dragon irritably, but as soon as Kalo Dant touched him lightly on the back with the feather, he stopped making excuses and set off.

The journey lasted long, ever so long. Not just because the dragon had to cover the tremendous distances between the various worlds, but also because it always took him quite a while to find a whole in the solid celestial arch bored through by the peak of some great mountain or other. Fortunately they had enough meat and drinking water with them. Whenever Sharkan felt hungry or thirsty, Kalo Dant would take a chunk of meat from the barrel and put it in one of Sharkan’s claws or tip the barrel of water over towards his mouth.

Finally, both barrels were empty and Sharkan began to get restless. He would swish his tail more and more often, and Kalo Dant only just managed to remain seated on his back. When he realised that the dragon was doing it on purpose, he began to feel hot under the gills. Then he remembered the Bird Kng’s tail feather, pulled it out and stroked it several times up and down the dragon’s back. Sharkan was tamed at once and continued the flight more amiably.
But everything finally comes to an end, and so it was that suddenly, as Kalo Dant was looking down, he saw a landscape that he recognised. It was the spot where, long ago, he had begun his climb up the mountain.

When Sharkan landed on the mountainside, Kalo Dant slid from his back and heaved a great sigh of relief.

“Thank you,” he said to Sharkan, “so now we’re home again.”

“You mean, you’re home all right, but I can’t say that I am.”

“True, but you’ll go back now, and all will be well,” said Kalo Dant.

“But how can I get back?” asked the dragon.

“Why, you’ve got wings and surely you’ll find the way?” replied Kalo Dant.

“And will you get me meat and water for the journey?” asked Sharkan.

Kalo Dant scratched behind his ear. To get large supplies of meat for the dragon’s journey would not be as easy in this world as in his. Here all the cattle belonged to the farmers, and they didn’t give anything away for nothing. When the gypsies , who themselves were poor, relieved them now and again of a chicken or a sheep, the farmers ran straight for the magistrate. My, what a hullabaloo they’d make if Kalo Dant were to steal as many cattle as the dragon would need for his journey.

“You know what?” he said after a moment. “You wait here. I’ll go and ask my people for advice, and we’ll see how we can get you some meat.”

But Sharkan didn’t like the idea.

“I don’t like to be left here alone,” he said. “I feel all out of place in this world. Besides, by now I am so desperately hungry, I could eat a whole herd of cattle on the spot.”

“You’ll have to last out a little longer,” said Kalo Dant. “There’s a large cave here in this mountain; I’ll show you the way and you can wait there till I get back. But you mustn’t show yourself outside. People would be frightened!”

Sharkan still didn’t like the idea. So Kalo Dant pulled out the feather and threatened the dragon with it, and straightaway he crawled obediently into the cave to which Kalo Dant had led him and promised he would wait there till Kalo Dant returned.

You’ll learn how he kept that promise in the next tale.

Photo Meme

2008-09-17T19:46:00.000-07:00

I've been seeing a lot of memes lately, and this one really appealed, as it's all about catching one's self in the act of being one's self. It reminds me of the way self awareness and understanding sneak up on some fairy tale characters.

So:

Take a picture of yourself right now.
Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair...just take a picture.
Post that picture with NO editing.
Post these instructions with your picture.
[borrowed from kradical, over at LiveJournal*]

I've just come home from a run, hence the wind-touched hair...

For whatever reason, I can never look directly at the camera when taking a picture of myself. It's far too Snow White's evil mother/stepmother for me.

The end of Kalo Dant and the Seventh World will be up tomorrow.

* I maintain a copy of this journal on LiveJournal too, as it allows to me participate in a fairy tale community, told_tales, and keep up with some other fairy tale enthusiasts. If you're interested, pop on over--LiveJournal uses Open ID, so an account isn't necessary.

Kalo Dant and the Seventh World, part I

2008-08-31T08:35:00.000-07:00

The re-design a friend of mine, the lovely elva-undine, did on her page recently inspired me to finally finish off my work on this one. It's not perfect, by any means, but I wanted it to blend a little more with my new site, even if confined by blogger and my less than stellar CSS skills.

Other news: for those who have asked, Les Bonnes Fees is not dead. She is simply sleeping. The past month has been a busy one for us--three of our team are in what, we hope, are the final throes of their Ph.Ds, while I've been receiving a lot of on-request work. Due to our new, overflowing schedules, we've been forced to push ourselves back to bi-monthly issues, i.e. every two months. The new issue will be out in late September.

Now, because I've been so slack--though I really am trying to return to a regular posting schedule of sorts--here's a fairy tale. It's a Gypsy story, excerpted from the 1966 volume Gypsy Folk Tales, by Marie Voriskova, translated by Jean Layton. Because it's quite long, I've broken it into two parts; the rest will be posted tomorrow.

Note: this tale has a slight religious theme.

Kalo Dant was a gypsy boy. He had roamed the world with his tribe ever since the day he was born. As he grew up, he came to know many foreign lands, and by the time he was twenty he had already seen so many that he could scarce believe he would ever see another new one in the days to come. He thought the tribe must soon reach the place where the world ended. But Kalo Dant was filled with great curiosity; he liked travelling and always wanted to be seeing something new.

When he learned that God had created seven worlds, just like ours, placed one on top of the other, he was very pleased.

“So I won’t have to return to places I’ve been before when I reach the end of the world,” he thought to himself happily. And he began asking everyone how he could get to those upper worlds. The gypsies just laughed at him. “No one can get to the upper worlds, because they’re divided from one another by solid celestial vaults!”

Now, long before Kalo Dant’s time, God had been angry with the gypsies because they were lazy, and He had driven them from their lands. He had also lifted the skies high above our world so that the gypsies could not steal his clouds.

“Just look how high the sky is!” said the gypsies to Kalo Dant, pointing to it. “Only a bird could fly as high as that. And in the end, even a bird would bash its wings against the solid vault of the heavens!”

Kalo Dant lay on his back in the grass, looking at the sky while he sucked at a straw. “True, the sky is high. But some of the mountains are high too, their tops get lost in the clouds. If a man were to climb one of them, I wonder whether up at the top he would find his head in the world above us?” He thought the idea seemed pretty sensible, but he didn’t tell anyone else about it. He just decided that he would set out by himself for one of those mountains, clib it and see if he could succeed in getting to another world.

He strapped up his bundle, stole away from the camp and set off towards a high mountain whose peak was lost in the clouds. When he reached it, he began climbing the steep sides, clambering up, and springing over the rocks and crevices like a mountain goat, for he was still young and agile.

Finally he got so high, that he found himself enveloped up to the waist in thick white mist. “That surely must be a cloud!” he thought. He stretched his arm up to see if he could touch the solid celestial arch yet, but he couldn’t feel anything solid. He was fearful lest he would fall into an abyss in that mist, so he decided to rest a while. He sat down and fell fast asleep.

When he awoke the mist had vanished. But whether what he saw around him was that other world or not, it was certainly a terribly barren and unpleasant place—not a tree or a bush or even a tiny flower, just bare black rocks and cliffs.

He got up and went a bit farther, and suddenly what should he see—a tree! So something did grow here after all! Yet what a strange tree it was—it soared up and up—straight and slender right to the sky. However hard he tried, Kalo Dant just could not see the top of it. Nor could he see whether the tree had any branches or leaves.

“I’ll shin up it,” he said to himsel and he began climbing. He climbed and climbed, till he got quite tired. Then he paused for a moment to get his breath, and looked up. Indeed, the sky was almost within arm’s reach. Yet still he couldn’t see the end of the trunk, but there was something else he could see. He blinked with surprise and rubbed his eyes, reddened and half-blinded as they now were by the sun, which seemed to be glowing only a few feet above his head. And still he saw this strange thing! Believe it or not, it was a slipper! A quite ordinary battered old slipper. Was it just stuck there in the air, or was it perhaps hanging from something? No, it was on a foot—a human foot—which was rather dark-skinned and bare and looked to Kalo Dant just like one of his own.

He looked a bit higher and saw a gypsy sitting above him. He felt much better at this discovery, and grinned at him cheerfully. The gypsy grinned back and said, “I was beginning to think you would never get here, Kalo Dant!”

“You know me?” asked Kalo Dant in amazement.

“I should think I do, why I’ve been waiting for you here all this time,” said the fellow from above.

“And why?”

“Well, you see, I knew you would take it into your head to take a look at the world above us, and I wanted to help you.”

“But why?” asked Kalo Dant in wonderment again.

“Because it will be easier tat way than watchng you all the time to make sure you don’t fall anywhere and break your neck,” said the gypsy gruffly. “You see, I’m your guardian angel.”

“You could have fooled me,” shouted Kalo Dant. “And where are your wings?”

“We gypsy guardian angels don’t have wings glued to our shoulders like the guardians of the white-skinned races,” explained the dark-skinned angel. “We have winged feet.”

Kalo Dant looked curiously at the bare foot hanging there in the slipper. For an angel it might have been a bit cleaner, but he couldn’t see anything ese strange about it.

“That’s my wing!” said the dark angel, wriggling his big toe inside the old slipper. “This is no ordinary slipper,” he went on, “though it may look like one. It’s getting a bit worn now from all the wear I’ve given it these last few thousand years. But it has the magic power of being able to carry me hither and thither, wherever I wish, and it does so more swiftly than the swiftest bird’s wings.”

“That’s the sort of thing I will be needing,’ sighed Kalo Dant.

“Well, I’ll lend you my slipper,” said the angel, “but you must promise you’ll kick it off as soon as you reach the next world. I can’t carry out my duties without it.” Kalo Dant promised willingly.

So the dark angel stretched out his leg and told Kalo Dant to pull the slipper off and put it on his own foot. The moment he had done so, Kalo Dant started floating up in the air. He rose at such speed, that he was quite frightened. Suddenly he came to a halt. He felt firm ground beneath his feet. And then he noticed that crowds of people were running towards him from all sides, and they were all gypsies.

There were many chilren among them, and Kalo Dant love children. He searched his pockets to see whether he could find some kind of sweet, a coloured button or at least some scrap of paper to give them, but there was nothing. Then he remembered his promise to the angel and hastily kicked off the slipper.

The children shouted with delight and fell on it, thinking not doubt that the stranger was giving them a slipper as a present. But the magic slipper began darting about, slipping between their hands more swiftly than a snake, and before they knew what had happened, it was gone.
The children were disappointed, and Kalo Dant tried to explain that it wasn’t his fault that the slipper ran away, but he realised they didn’t understand a word he said. The language spoken by the gypsies who surrounded him was completely strange to him. Luckily, they behaved in a friendly way, slapping him on the back and grinning at him.

They led him t a small wooden hut standing in a little garden. In the garden was a bench and on it sat an old, old gypsys. He was so old that his face was deeply furrowed and his skin was like yellow parchment. His hair and beard were long and white as milk but his black eyes sparkled with youthful fire. When the crowd arrived, he stood up, smiled, and said:

“Welcome to you, stranger!”

“You speak my language,” said Kalo Dant joyfully.

“I speak as many languages as I am years of age,” replied the old man, “and as I am ninety-nine years old, I know ninety-nine languagesg, which means—except for the language I haven’t learned yet—all the languages of the seven worlds.”

“And which don’t you know yet?” asked Kalo Dant.
“The language of the birds, my son,” replied the old gypsy. “The most beautiful and the hardest of them all. But in a year’s time, by the time I’ll be a hundred, I will know that, too. Where have you come from?”

Kalo Dant told him truthfully just where he had come from and how he had got there. When he had finished, the old man said:

“Curiosity is the first step in the ladder which we call knowledge. Now that you are here, you ought to try to learn something from us.”

“Gladly,” said Kalo Dant, “and I think you are just the person from whom I could learn a lot. May I stay with you awhile? Don’t be afraid that I’ll eat your bread and give nothing in return; I want to work.”

The old man agreed, and Kalo Dant remained there with him.

On the next day, Kalo Dant noticed that the wood-pile in the yard was getting low, so he offered to go to the forest and cut some fresh wood for the old man.

“It’s not as easy as all that, my lad,” said the old fellow. “First of all you’ll have to learn the language of the trees.”

“You mean the trees can speak?” said Kalo Dant in amazement.

“Of course they can, only so quietly that people don’t even notice it,” replied the old man, “Some trees speak, and those are living. Others don’t, because they are dead, and one may chop them down. I’ll come to the forest with you and show you which trees you may fell and which you may not.”

They went to the forest, and it was just as he had said. When the old man spoke to some of the trees, they answered; others didn’t. Kalo Dant felled the silent ones and while he sawed the wood and chopped off the branches, the wise old man taught him the language of living trees.

So Kalo Dant lived in this way with the old man for a whole year. During that time he learned a great many things, but one day the old man said to him:

“Well, Kalo Dant, what you’ve learned you know now. I can’t teach you any more, as my time is spent. Today I shall be one hundred years old to the very day and hour—I now know also the hundredth and final language—the language of birds. You must leave me and return home.”

“But how can I?” said Kalo Dant dejectedly. “Besides, since I’m here already, it’s certainly nearer to the worlds above us—and I wouldn’t like to return before I’ve come to know them all. Can’t you advise me how I can best reach them?”

“As for that, I can give you some advice all right,” replied the old man, “but I’m not sure how much use it will be to you. If you travers the forest where we saw the lived and dead trees, you will come to a meadow. Sit down there and wait till somebody comes. But I warn you in advance, the place is very deserted and hardly anyone ever passes that way. If anyone does come, however, they will surely be able to tell you how to reach the next world.”

New Site Design & Status

2008-08-26T12:06:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted--life has been busy. But somewhere in the runaround, I had a chance to redesign my website. I'm going to redesign this page, too, once I learn a bit more about the templates. I'm okay with CSS and HTML, but not much else.

Fairy Tale Fridays are on a bit of a hiatus while I work on Les Bonnes Fees, but they're still in existence, and I do have a couple of half-written commentaries waiting for me to get back to them.

There are a few other bits of news, and I'll post more about BYU soon.

Far & Away...part II

2008-07-22T05:57:00.000-07:00

“Straight down this aisle, thirteenth row on the left.” I nod and smile despite the attendant’s somewhat condescending attitude. Perhaps they think I’m dyslexic, I tell myself, staring at the big printed 13 on my ticket. Or maybe they think people with accents can’t read English. “Or maybe they’re just idiots,” I mutter, stowing my carry-on and clambering into my seat. Moments later, a nice young man—I know, I sound like mother—sits beside me and smiles. I smile back, check my watch, and reach for my laptop. Fellow travellers are interesting, yes, but I have work to do.

About twenty minutes more, and the plane is full. Really, truly full. Every seat is filled, the cabin crew have trouble closing the overhead compartments, and most every seat has a bag stowed under it. My great coat, too big to fit in the cramped overhead storage, rests beside me. I’m usually cold on aeroplanes, anyway. Of course, as soon as I think such a thing, sweat pricks my brow. I reach up to turn on the vent. Nothing happens.

“It is a bit hot, isn’t it?” says the guy next to me. “I can’t get my vent to work either.” We commiserate for a moment; I learn that he’s from Salt Lake City. I ask him about Provo. “It’s about forty-five minutes out along the highway, near the college,” he tells me. “But I don’t really go there much, so I only know the touristy stuff.” I raise my eyebrows. I love doing that. “It’s family-oriented, like most of the state. Lots of marriage. Used to be big on steel, now there’s a lot of call centres and computer industry stuff.” He shrugs. “‘Cause it’s so family-oriented, a lot of big companies have bases in Utah generally. People are willing to work for less in return for flexible schedules (I flinch at the hard ‘c’), nearness to family, and a kid-friendly environment.”

“Uh, hi everyone, this is your Captain speaking.”

“Finally,” mutters someone nearby.

“We’re, uh, having a slight problem with the auxiliary power here—some of you have probably, uh, noticed that there’s no airconditioning, and that the lights are off.”

The cabin falls silent.

“So I just wanted to let you know we’ve, uh, called maintenance, but they say it’ll be a while since there’ve been a few, uh, incidents today. You, um, uh, understand.”

“You’re lucky they’re Mormons,” calls a guy somewhere to the right. “If this were New York, we’d be rioting right now.”

Nobody says anything.

“Well, we would. New Yorkers know when to stand up for themselves!”

The overhead speaker is silent. The New Yorker for Passenger Representative subsides. I reach for my computer again, flip it open, pray for internet. Instead, it connects to an ad hoc network, and some guys unsecured phone (I didn’t know phones could be unsecured like that). Disconnecting, I try again. The wavy icon wavers—the airport network is nigh!

And then we start to taxi.

There are still no lights. The cabin is warm, the same yeasty sort of warm as bread taken from the oven about fifteen minutes before. Not too hot, but certainly not too nice.

The wavy icon stops wavering. The airport network is gone. I curse (silently, so as not to disturb my possibly Mormon neighbours) and run spotlight, trying to find a .pdf I need to read. The guy beside me rests a hand over his eyes.

“New Yorkers would riot all right. That’s what we should be doing, too. How long have we been here?”

“An hour.”

I glance at my watch. An hour ten. I have so missed my shuttle.

Time passes. I try not to look at my watch; I put Scrivener on full screen to hide the computer’s clock. Sweat trickles down my back. Both coats rest on the seat beside me. Shoes are off. Socks are off. I wonder how long before someone else starts stripping down.

“We should riot,” says the Passenger Representative. Nobody has breath enough, will enough, to answer him. He subsides.

“Is it cold in Australia?” the guy next to me asks.

“No. But it’s cold in Boston. Lots of snow. Lots of ice. And it was well below freezing in Montreal. Even more snow. Even more ice.” This takes me a while to say, but I try, hoping the thought of coolness will affect me the way it affects Archie and Jughead during an awful Riverdale summer.

It doesn’t.

Sweat beads on my scalp; I resist the urge to scratch my head.

I wonder why the cabin crew hasn’t brought around drinks. It’s been two and an half hours. My water bottle is long empty. I feel like licking my lips. Maybe, if I make smacking noises, someone will get the hint. But I don’t have the guts. I’m a wuss. I am often a wuss. Instead of speaking up, I marvel at the human body’s capacity to sweat and thirst at the same time. Perhaps this is the answer. Consider: drinking—or licking—sweat replaces lost fluid (literally), and ends thirst. Bonus—blow on skin after drinking for a refreshing cool change.

Alternatively, die of dehydration.

I call Joe. Tell him what’s happened. Ask him to call about my shuttle. There’s still no wor—not since that first announcement—from the captain. I, in a stroke of very delayed conventional thinking, call the operator and ask to be patched through to the airline. Then I wait on hold.

And wait.

And wait.

“New Yorkers wouldn’t take this sitting down.” The Passenger Representative begins to stand. The woman beside him pulls him down. So much for New Yorkers.
“In the interests of customer service, this call will be monitored. If you do not wish your call to be recorded, please tell the representative. Connecting…connecting.” I want my call monitored, my ire recorded. I say nothing.

“Hello, thank you for calling. My name is Jack. How can I help you?”

“Can you move my plane?” Idiot. Start from the beginning.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Could you say that again?”

“Hi, my name’s Peta, and I’m on a flight from Phoenix to Utah. It was supposed to leave nearly three hours ago, but we’re still sitting on the tarmac, and they haven’t told us what’s happening. Can you help?”

“Phoenix to Utah…Phoenix to Utah. Hmm, well, I can get you on another flight that leaves in half an hour, if that would be okay?”

“That’d be great, if you could get me off this plane.”

A pause. A longer pause. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand, could you say that again?”

I repeat myself, emphasising the time we’ve waited, adding a bit about sweat, smells, New York riots (“Yea! New Yorkers would riot!), and missed shuttles.

A pause. A longer pause. “So another flight wouldn’t help?”

“No.”

“What flight number is it again? Yes, yes, right…it just says maintenance problems, but your expected departure is 2:45, so you should be in the air soon.”

“It’s 2:55.”

“Oh, is it? Well, let me just refresh that…” Is the airline check-in system based Firefox or IE? I roll my eyes. Probably IE. Everything that breaks is Microsoft (not that Apple has the best hardware record, Mr. Jobs). “It’s still saying 2:45.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me? It’s been a long time, and we’re hot, and we want to get moving.” My voice cracks, and I cough—the cabin is silent, and the sound reverberates, tickling my ears, embarrassing me. A flush (possibly imagined) spreads over my face and neck.

“I understand, but there’s nothing I can do from here, unless you’d like me to change your flight? I’m really very sorry.”

“Perhaps you could organise a drinks cart?”

“That’s at the discretion of the cabin crew, though I will say it is very strange that they haven’t been around yet. Please don’t judge this airline based on this particular crew.”

Then what should I base my judgment on? The poor, barking hydraulics? The delays? The lack of infomation? The impression that the crew think I may so moronic that I can’t find my seat?
Oozing niceties, Jack hangs up. A couple of guys behind me lean forward. “What’d he say?”

“Nothing useful.”

And so we wait. And we’re waiting here still…

Around 3:30—three and an half hours late, we take off. As before, the hydraulics are Baskervillian, and I huddle in my seat. I dislike most noise at the best of times, but woofing hydraulics on an aeroplane, well, they engender a special kind of hatred (and fear).

Drinks come around. No food, of course, despite the fact that we’ve been on the plane for three and an half hours already, and we’ll be on it for a few more. Several people buy alcohol, food. My stomach rumbles, but I ignore it. I’m not giving this airline any more money on principle, I decide. After all, it’s not like they use it on useful things like upgrading shonky planes.

Come 10:00, I get to my hotel, fall into bed, and wish for home...

Lobsters

2008-07-15T03:47:00.000-07:00

This is a busy, busy week for me, so I'm cheating a little on my posting. I've been thinking of posting the pieces I wrote during exercises at the BYU writers and illustrators conference for a while, but couldn't quite bring myself to do it. Yes, I'm a writer, but I'm a kind of shy, reserved writer who doesn't like to share work much, and certainly not before it's polished. So, posting this very unpolished work--I've only read it twice--is my attempt at growth.

The work I'm posting is the result of an exercise focusing on the use of dialogue. It didn't have to be all dialogue, like this piece is, but I had just read A Clean Well-Lighted Place, which, I think, led to this. It's not even on the same page as the Hemingway, but I did enjoy playing with it.

“You know I hate this sort of place.”

“You hate every sort of place.”

“No. I don’t. I only hate the sort of place you bring me too.”

“They’re just lobsters. It’s not like they have a purpose.”

“Everything has a purpose.”

“Not lobsters. Lobsters eat, lobsters get eaten. That’s it.”

“How many?”

“Two.”

“Right this way.”

“Look at them! Just look at them! They’re so sad. Binding their claws like that is just cruel!”

“Listening to you is just cruel. Get over it, already.”

“Your waiter will be here in a moment.”

“Don’t you dare order one!”

“I’ll order whatever I want.”

“You’ll order something lobster-less, or I’m going home.”

“Hi, my name’s Kirby, I’m your waiter for this evening. Can I get you anything?”

“Some champagne. And can you tell us the specials?”

“Sure. First, we have lobster with a simple garlic butter sauce. Then there’s a clam risotto, and finally a mussel and tomato pasta.”

“The lobster would be great, thanks.”

“Didn’t you hear me? If you eat that, I’m going home.”

“So?”

“So? That’s all you can say, so? So what about the lobsters? What about the lobsters’ rights? Haven’t you ever thought about that?”

“All the damned time.”

“You’re a murderer, you know that? A lobster murderer. They boil them alive, you know. Boil. Them. Alive. And it’s just because they’re lobsters, too. You’re—you’re endoskeleton supremacists! You heard me, endoskeleton supremacists! If those were puppies in that tank, all fur and cuteness, or bunnies, or cats, you wouldn’t boil them alive. You’d say ‘awww’, ‘no way’, ‘eat a puppy? Never?’ But lobsters, oh no, boil ‘em up, dip ‘em in, eat ‘em all!”

“Ma’am, if you could just sit down—”

“No! Why should I? It’s time you bigots—all you bigots—heard this!”

“Can we go home now?”

“She’s right!”

“Yeah, lobster rights!”

“I’m a vegetarian!”

“Shut up, you stupid hippie!”

“Ma’am, please, if you’d just sit, I could get you a salad—”

“I won’t do anything you say, you endoskeleton supremacist! I demand you free the lobsters!”

“Ma’am, you have to pay for that—”

“Run, babies, run free! Return to your oceans!”

“Here. Just take it. Charge whatever you like.”

“Free!”

“Ma’am, if you could just—”

“Charge it. Just charge it all. I’m going home.”

“But sir, your wife—”

“—is allergic to shellfish. She’ll pass out in a few minutes. Call an ambulance if she starts to swell, okay?”

Cat

2008-07-12T13:01:00.000-07:00

This cat has moved into my room, and on to my bed. When I wake up, she follows me. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, she pads up to my face and stares. Right now, she's sitting at my feet grooming.

She's a lovely cat, but I think she has abandonment issues.

Moreover, I really wish I could move my feet when I'm in bed, but they tend to get trapped. Ack.

Now she's purring. Loudly. I wonder if the neighbours can hear...

Far & Away...part I

2008-07-11T07:36:00.000-07:00

First I want to apologise for my lackadaisical posting of late. I’ve been without reliable internet since the 15th of June, when I flew to Utah. I haven’t forgotten “The Twa Sisters”, though, and I’ll put a commentary up soon. So, where have I been exactly? Well…

I flew into Australia on Tuesday morning, after a week in Utah (I’ll post more soon), and a couple of days in L.A. And I had a great time, for the most part—the conference at Brigham Young was excellent, the couple of days relaxing in L.A. were exactly what I needed, and it was wonderful to come home. Except…

Yes, that’s right. Except. There’s always an except.

My except comes in a couple of ways. First, and perhaps most frustrating, is my computer. About six hours before I was due to leave, it died. My OS went kaput. Fortunately, though, I did not get sad macced[see below], and the whole thing was salvageable—just. I’m still carrying most of my data around on an external drive, as I’m afraid to rely on this dying husk of a thing for too long. Second, and most time-consuming, were my flights.

I’m a fairly seasoned flyer—I’ve done the trip from Boston to Brisbane so many times I’ve lost count. I recognise most of the QF 176 flight crew. I know my way around LAX, right down to the good coffee place (in contrast to the bad coffee place, where everything smells stale). I always get an aisle seat, but not an exit row. I always eat before I fly, so I’m not left with a five dollar snack pack filled with one bag of chips and a bunch of stuff I don’t eat. I stop drinking caffeine at least three days before I fly.

I’m good at stopovers, too. I’ve waited out 6 hours in Heathrow, and 4 in Singapore. I’ve rushed from the international to the domestic terminal in Sydney, and cleared customs in LA in under half an hour. I have never, though, spent three hours on a tarmac in 120 F (~ C) heat with no airconditioning, no power at all, and no information. I’ve never been diverted to Albuquerque. I’ve never flown with hydraulics that sound like a dog with diarrhea. But I’m getting ahead of myself, so I’m going to take a cue from Julie Andrews, and start at the very beginning…

Despite my computer calamity, I made it to Logan with about ten minutes to spare. Check in was fast, and so was Joe—while I did the ticketing thing, he bought me a doughnut. (Our lives are unreasonably filled with doughnuts, but I don’t question it. I just eat them, hot, overflowing with jam.) The plane left, almost exactly on time. And I pulled out one of my many books.

About an hour in, there’s a rustle. Whispers of doctors, medications, and vomit rippled through the rows. I studiously kept my eyes on my book (a difficult task, as it’s atrocious, but I need to read it for work). Cabin crew bring around drinks, and try to sell us snacks.

Another hour passes; the people next to me call out to their family, handing around the portable dvd player and chatting about which grandkid is the favourite (no definitive consensus). Strange sounds from the front of the plane. A worried attendant flits up and down the aisles.

A third hour passes—we’re now about halfway to Phoenix. The family has settled down. The grandfather is watching “We are Marshall” (go team), while the grandmother and mother discuss “The Other Boleyn Girl” (not very good, that Henry was a bad man). The intercom crackles: Is anybody a doctor? A paramedic? Heads begin to crane. A woman behind me cracks her neck.

A call light pings; a man in a sweater vest is rushed up the aisle. “Acute appendictis” and “surgery” are overheard as they pass.

And then it falls, that which I had been dreading, “Hi folks, it’s the captain here. Look, we have a little girl up here who’s very sick, so we’re going to divert to Albuquerque. The good thing about Albuquerque is that it’s on the way.” Cough, cough. “If you could all just remain in your seats, we’ll be in and out in no time, no connections should be affected. The paramedics will meet us at the gate.”

There’s more whispering. I ask my row-mates about Albuquerque. It’s in New Mexico, apparently.

Moments later, the plane tilts, and I know we’re descending. Well, the tilting, and the horrible Baskervillian woofing the hydraulics make.

I don’t see much of the rescue. There’s a fire-engine-come-ambulance on the tarmac, a lot of low-voiced chatting, and a few white shirts, then the doors close. The captain tells us we’re on our way again, and the hydraulics start up their frightening song once more. The family looks a bit frightened, and I sympathise. But I don’t say anything. Never admit fear is my policy when travelling. Helplessness, yes—after all, I am dependent on airlines—but never fear, else I may start throwing up.

About seven minutes in, the plane levels off, and the noise stops. There’s a collective sigh of relief. We haven’t lost much time, either, so I feel okay. When we finally land, I take the opportunity to seek out food (overpriced fruit salad) and tea (iced, green). I have an hour before my next flight, and free (really free, not just unsecured) internet, so I spend my time pretending to work.

More tomorrow! I promise!

For non-mac users: the "sad mac" icon is a terrifying sight as it usually indicates serious damage or data loss. This image from Wikipedia is a sad mac indicating that an illegal error has occurred.

The Golden Bird & Other Fairy Tales

2008-06-11T01:11:00.000-07:00

I said I'd look out a list of fairy tales referenced in the commentary for The Golden Bird. I've updated the post to link to these tales in the introduction, but I thought I'd post them here as well.

The Bird Grip - online at children's author Rick Walton's website, excerpted from Andrew Lang's Pink Fairy Book Wheeler, Post. Russian Wonder Tales. New York: The Century Company, 1912.

Tsarevitch Ivan, the Fire Bird and the Grey Wolf - online at Surlalune, excerpted from Wheeler, Post. Russian Wonder Tales. New York: The Century Company, 1912.

The Nunda, Eater of People - from an online version of Andrew Lang's Violet Fairy Book.

The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener - an online version excerpted from More Celtic Fairy Tales, Joseph Jacobs 1892

The Golden Bird - and, of course, the golden bird, available here as part of Fairy Tale Fridays.

And now, to bed...

In the hazel wood...

2008-06-09T11:52:00.000-07:00

Jim Frazier, Common Witch-Hazel

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

-- William Butler Yeats

Read more at the National Library of Ireland's The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats, an Online Exhibition.