Peta's Journal

Update and Contest Link

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:27:30 GMT

It's been a long, long time! I'm sorry I haven't been saying much or answering emails - pregnancy really took it out of me, and I had a lot of trouble in the latter trimesters, ending up on bed rest. But I have had my little baby now (pictures to come)!

His name is Mir, and he's 1 month old today (which means I'm slowly managing to get back to work). He's also 9 lbs and 7.6 oz of today, a whole 2 lbs and 7.6 oz more than his birth weight! I'm getting triceps now, people!

Anyway, since it's been so long since I posted, here's something useful for all the fiction writers out there - there are submission guidelines over at Robert Swartwood's blog, for a hint fiction anthology. If you're interested, check it out here.

And now, off to attend to Mir's bleating - it's feeding time.

As I said, pictures to come (hopefully by tomorrow), and a nice proper update. (This one is just to let you know we're still alive!)

Happy Wednesday, people!

Vegetarian Children?

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:05:29 GMT

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

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 00:26:12 GMT

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).

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:54:53 GMT

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

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:19:20 GMT

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

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:48:06 GMT

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?

Tiredness & Voting Time Again

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 04:17:01 GMT

It's that time in therealljidol again - voting. If you'd like to vote for me, you can do so here; I'm in the second tribe, tribe rm, and not doing so well. Which is also true on the home front - sometime late Saturday night, I started coughing.

I'm still coughing, which is limiting my computer time. Why? Loud, dry, hacking coughs have a tendency to make the head spin...

Finally - a couple of folks from therealljidol with great entries this week - intrepia and edith_jones . Mind, there are a lot of very good entries, but these two really stuck with me this week.

Tomorrow, coughing stay willing, I'm going to post a couple of book reviews, and catch up on general work. 'Til then.

Ranting...

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 23:34:51 GMT

Since ranting has been on my mind this week (thanks to therealljidol ), I did a search in the global OED (thanks, Harvard) for the meaning of "rant". Below is what it turned up. I find it interesting that several of the results are for languages other than English. I also quite like the idea of a rant being a jig. Hurrah for dancing!

Finally--before I let you get your rant on--the LiveJournal voting is now up here. I'm still in the second tribe, tirbe rm.

1. rant

Old Eng. 17th‐cent. dance of the jig variety. It originated in Scotland and N. England. Four examples occur in Playford's The Dancing Master ( 1657 and 1665 revisions).

(From The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music in Performing Arts)

2. rant

†be uproariously merry; declaim in an extravagant manner. XVI . — Du. † ranten talk foolishly, rave.

(From The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology in English Language Reference)

3. rant

• ant , Brabant, Brandt, brant, cant, enceinte, extant, gallant, Kant, levant, pant, pointe, pointes, rant, scant • confidant • commandant • hierophant • Rembrandt • Amirante • gallivant • aren't , aslant, aunt, can't, chant, courante, détente, ...

(From Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes in English Language Reference)

4. rant

despotricar*

(From The Concise Oxford Spanish Dictionary (English-Spanish) in Bilingual Dictionaries)

5. rant vi

~ [and rave] inveire ; what's he ~ing on about? cosa sta blaterando?

(From The Pocket Oxford Italian Dictionary (English-Italian) in Bilingual Dictionaries)

6. rant

intransitive verb ~ [and rave] wettern ugs. ( about über + Akk. ); ~ at anschnauzen ugs.

(From The Concise Oxford German Dictionary (English-German) in Bilingual Dictionaries)

7. rant intransitive verb

déclamer; to ~ and rave tempêter ( at contre ); to ~ on divaguer ( about sur ).

(From The Concise Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary (English-French) in Bilingual Dictionaries)

8. rant vb

to rant about something bheith ag radaireacht faoi rud .

(From The Pocket Oxford Irish Dictionary (English-Irish) in Bilingual Dictionaries)

9. rant vi

superbe loquor [3] ; bacchor [1]

(From The Pocket Oxford Latin Dictionary (English-Latin) in Classics)

10. RANTES

abbr. for regulated upon activation, normal T‐cell expressed and secreted chemokine; other names : small inducible cytokine A5; a chemokine secreted by T cells and macrophages on stimulation by mitogens, that acts as a chemoattractant, and stimulates ...

(From Oxford Dictionary of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in Biological Sciences)

How to post a LiveJournal Rant in 6 easy steps...LJ Idol, Topic 8

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:53:30 GMT

LJ Idol
Week Eight
Topic Eight: Ranting LJ Style

1. Select a rant topic.

A. Human rights
B. Religious rights
C. Animal rights
D. Use of idiotic phrases
E. Incorrect use of one or many parts of speech
F. Political events
G. Family events
H. Incorrect understanding of a created universe
I. Health limitations
J. Financial limitations
K. Parental limitations
L. Alien limitations

2. Select language options

A. PG
B. Damn skippy I’ll swear if I damned well feel like it.
C. Does not compute

3. Select keyboard style

A. CAPS LOCK
B. Standard
C. A MixTure of CAps loCK anD StAnDarD
D. Random selection as determined by analysis of the dialect known as LOlCatz.

4. Select audience

A. Friends.
B. Parents.
C. Strangers
D. Blagosphere
E. Craigslist
F. The teacher who was really mean to you and always got your name wrong in 8th grade.

5. Select rant style

A. Sarcastic
B. Ironic
C. Literary
D. Straight-forward
E. Metaphorical/Allegory
F. Plagiarised
G. Verbatim
H. Succinct

Examples

C. Example Rant: Literary —————

He crunched his popcorn loudly, rolling the kernels about his lips before flipping them into his oversized jaws. His motions were slow and deliberate, calculated to irritate, calculated to distract me from the enormity of his wrongitude. My brother has always been like that, a wizard at the politician’s verbal sleight of hand. Today, though, the topic was too important for me to let it go—nobody, no, Nobody, can insult The Hulk (as if the She-Hulk could Take Him Down) within my immediate radius of hearing and be left unscathed.

I took a deep breath, preparing myself for the torrential flow of words locked behind my until-recently closed lips. How would I tell him? Would I say, “You are a moron of the first class, so moronic that, in fact, you could be a Colonel in a Space Opera?” Would I explain that “The Hulk is a far greater creature than yourself with powers even now yet to be revealed?” Would I simply paint myself green, bellow, and tackle him and his annoying popcorn crunching arse?

I glanced at the picture on the mantelpiece—my parents smiled back, their faces glowing despite being hidden beneath six or seven coats of Kabuki-style face paint. Yes. Face paint. Radioactive green face paint. Excusing myself, I went in search of my mother's make-up case.

E. Example Rant: Metaphorical/Allegory —————

Yesterday afternoon, my brother showed me his new WWSJD bracelet over a very early pre-movie dinner.

“It stands for What Would She-Jesus Do,” he told me proudly. “My girlfriend gave it to me. She said it’s a statement about gender equality and recognition of how much better women are at surviving in desert-like conditions.”

Desert-like conditions? I thought. Really? I mean, I like the desert--on TV. But hanging out in it definitely did not appeal. *sigh* Obviously, my dear sweet brother had yet again gotten himself mixed up with yet another group of crazy people. Like the time he’d decided that Chocolate Garlictarianism was the One True Path because a colleague had told him about the special chocolate and garlic only diet. Or the time he’d replaced all of the furniture in his house with paper contsructed equivalents because he’d read they were more environmentally friendly (also more fun if you actually want to fall to the floor every time you sit down). But She-Jesus? I shook my head.

“She-Jesus would never beat He-Jesus in a fight. He-Jesus would just convert some water into a wine cooler then laugh as she got too tipsy to fight.”

“She-Jesus is a master—no, mistress—of Drunken Kung Fu.”

“Drunken Kung-fu wasn’t even invented yet! Besides, the meaner you are to him, the greater the He-Jesus gets. Have you even read the Bible?”

G. Example Rant: Verbatim —————

Me: You’re wrong.

Him: You’re wrong.

Me: You’re so wrong you could be a professor of wrong at This Is So Wrong University.

Him: Yeah, well, you’re so wrong you couldn’t be more wrong if your mother had dipped you in a vat of He-Will-Always-Be Wrong tea.

Me: She-Hulk is never, never, not ever, not even in a thousand million years, going to beat The Hulk - THE HULK - in a throw down.

Him: Brains over brawn, every time, man. And haven’t you heard, the pen is mightier than the sword.

Me: There are no pens involved!

Him: The pen is a metaphor for intelligence. The sword is a metaphor for brawn. You do the math, man.

Me: Well, The Hulk - THE HULK - is better drawn than She-Hulk any day, so he wins in that, too.

Him: Sore loser.

Me: Arse.

Him: You’re wrong.

Me: You’re so wrong your dinosaur name is Doyouthinkhecouldbeanymorewrong-Rex.

Him: Okay, that’s funny. But you’re still wrong.

Me: All right, I’m going to lay it all on the line here. Take The Hulk - THE HULK - and think. What’s his power?

Him: Like der, hulking out!

Me: What makes him hulk out?

Him: Getting angry.

Me: Right. And the angrier he gets, the stronger he gets.

Him: Yeah, well, the angrier She-Hulk gets, the stronger her intellect gets.

Me: That is complete and utter crapola.

Him: You’re complete and utter crapola.

Me: Your mother is complete and utter crapola.

Him: I’d rather have a crapola mother than be so fundamentally wrong about how the Marvel Universe works.

6. Post

A. To personal filter
B. To friends filter
C. To locked journal
D. To everyone
E. To EVERYONE, via LiveJournal, Facebook, Twitter, and email

Written for therealljidol </lj> week eight, "Ranting LJ Style".
Note: this entry does not reflect my real brother in any way.
Edit: you can now vote here.

Pandora & Idol Voting Up

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 03:55:28 GMT

Idol voting has gone up for the week. I'm in the bottom few votes of tribe RM so far...

Since my entry, mshades ' entry, and bewize 's entry have all talked about Pandora, I thought these might be appropriate. 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.

Idol - declaring a bye

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:41:46 GMT

I'd hoped to get a LiveJournal idol entry up this week, but I just don't have time--there's still a lot for me to get done between now and tomorrow night (hello, coffee cup)--hence, bye.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Mary Blair, and Voting

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 16:42:14 GMT

therealljidol has the voting list up again. If you liked Fat--I'm in Tribe Four, and you don't have to be a member of the community to vote this time around. Oh, and you can vote here. (It'll be good practice for November 9th.)

In other news...

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 Friday: The Love of the Three Pomegranates

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:39:12 GMT

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.

Also, voting is up at therealljidol. If you liked my open topic entry this week, Fat, a play in one act, mosey on over and vote for me here.

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)

Voting

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 01:41:56 GMT

More voting here. This time around you have to be a member of the community to vote; it only takes a moment to join.

Yet again...

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 04:36:21 GMT

Voting is up.

In other news, my computer is dying a slow, languorous death. I lost about three hundred words of work today which, fortunately, is not as bad as it could have been.

And now, bed. I'm doing the Tufts 10K on Monday, so I'm attempting to be healthy in the lead up to it.

Finally--there'll be a Fairy Tale Friday at the end of the coming week!

Bliss...LJ Idol, Topic Three

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 03:50:51 GMT

LJ idol
Week Three
Topic Three: A Moment of Bliss

Even across the room, I see them, vultures circling a carcass. First, coke-bottle glasses lady, her wrinkled hands shoving books into a box, her tiny raisin eyes glaring at the crowd. Then the tall, grey-bearded man, his fingers running over spines, catching at the thickest, pulling a chosen few into his hempen bag. Between them is a sign, small, nondescript, black marker on white cardstock: Reference Section.

I pick my way through the bargain-hunters, (the people who won’t pay full price for even a favourite author, but will pay a dollar for a book it’s unlikely they’ll ever read), then hike past a troop of mothers (picture books in one hand, sticky fingers in the other). A posse of D&G knockoff toting teenagers struts toward me, their eyes on the romance table. I duck, I weave: the reference section is in my crosshairs now, my path clear.

Her raisin eyes narrowed, coke-bottle glasses lady swerves to block me; tall grey-bearded man shifts to the left, his feet edging away. “There’s an opening at the science-fiction table,” he mumbles, eyes already drifting over to the stacks of mouldering Asimov. Her eyes follow his; she glances into her box, then glares at me. “I’ll be back.”

Something passes between us; she steps away.

The table is a tangle of broken spines and torn pages, but I sift through it all the same. Macquarie Dictionary—no, have it. Heinemann Dictionary—no, have it. Merriam-Webster Dictionary—no, don’t want it. Poultry Equipment in India: A Strategic Reference— maybe want it. Roget’s Thesaurus—no, have it. I skim past the spines, faster, then faster still, ‘til my fingers catch on something tall, rough-edged.

A box. “One lot, four dollars,” it reads. I peer inside.

For some people, bliss is a piece of dark chocolate, a falling leaf, a child’s laugh. For me, bliss is this:

two volumes, leather spine, gold lettered The New Oxford Illustrated Dictionary. For me, bliss is Aac-Kan, Kan-Zym.

Light-fingered, I slide Aac-Kan free. The leather is warm to my touch, but the leaves are cool. Mustiness pricks my nose; I breathe deep.

fluxion n. 1. Flowing (rare); continuous change (rare).

2. (Math) Rate or proportion at which flowing or varying quantity increases its magnitude; (method of) ~s, Newtonian calculus. Fluxional, fluxionary adjs.

Written for therealljidol week three, "A Moment of Bliss".</lj>

Edit: you can now vote here.

From Folk & Fairy Tales

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 15:32:21 GMT

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?

Week Two Idol Voting Up

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:54:28 GMT

You can vote here.

In other news, my internet connection seems to have half resolved itself: although the connection still drops off quite frequently, I can get it back within a moment or two (in contrast to having no connection at all for long periods). I think my airport card may be dying...

Word and Scrivener, unfortunately, are still crashing on a daily basis. I've not lost work yet, mostly because I'm extra careful. Now I have semi-decent internet again, at least I can start working in Google Docs.

I know, I have to go to the Apple store and get my computer seen to. But I hate giving it up. Almost every time, they say, three days tops. Last time, I had to wait a fortnight. A fortnight!

Anyway, back to work while I can still do it...

Apathetically Ever After...LJ Idol, Topic Two

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:31:43 GMT

LJ Idol,
Week Two
Topic Two: Apathy - What I Should Care About, but Don't.

Once upon a time, I believed in happy ever afters. Princess gets prince, evil stepmother gets comeuppance. Treasure seeker finds treasure, slays dragon, rescues entire family from poverty. Enchanted frog wheedles kiss, spell breaks, pomp ensues.

But happy endings are easy endings. So Cinderella marries the prince. Then what? She’s spent an awful lot of time sweeping and cleaning, biding her time as her unconscious and subconscious minds tick away, growing, maturing, becoming more aware. Yet, in a post-slipper world, there’s no need for Cinderella to do anything: there are people to cook and to scrub, to tend gardens and pick through dried peas. Perhaps this is an ideal way to live, for some. But I find it hard to imagine that Cinderella, or Snow White, or Rose Red, or All Fur, girls, women, who have worked, earned, achieved, would be so willing to lie back, put their feet up, and do nothing all day.

Why do women work? Because they need the income; because they’re asked to; because they see a need, and they’re drawn to it; because they have a vocation, because they simply are an artist, a writer, an architect, a chef, a stay-at-home mother, a CEO, a doctor, an electrician, and they have to be true to that. And although many of these positions have only become available to women in the past hundred years or so, real women have always worked. Real women have had ups and downs, good days and bad days. Real women have secrets and problems, scars and anger, sunlight-filled days and cool autumn afternoons. Real women don’t do happily ever afters.

Once upon a time, I grew apathetic about happily ever afters.

Once upon a time, I cut away the dead weight of glass slipper endings and days passed in idleness.

Once upon a time, I picked through a bowl of dried peas, went to the doctor, caught up with yesterday’s work, made dinner, cleaned the ferret cage, did some of today’s work, then collapsed on the couch to read a book with a high probability of a happily ever after ending.

And that’s okay. Because happily ever afters belong in books. Even if I know I should like them, love them like the fairy tale maven I am, kinda-sorta-sometimes happily ever afters are more me. And I’m kinda-sorta-sometimes happy with that.

Written for therealljidol week two, "Apathy - What I Should Care About, but Don't".

Edit: you can now vote here.

September Issue Up

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 04:21:04 GMT

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...

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 20:20:39 GMT

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!

Idol Voting Up

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 16:47:31 GMT

Voting is here.

I'm still learning the rules here, so, from the community:

We will be eliminating the bottom vote-getters in each of the Tribes, so 5 people will be leaving us this week – so make sure you vote to keep your favorites in the running!

You can vote for as many or as few people in each tribe as you feel wrote entries that merit your support. You do not have to be a member of the community to vote. It doesn’t hurt to join though.*g*

The polls open now and will close on Monday September 29th at 1pm EST. Good luck to you all.

Now...real work.

A Fool & Her Money...LJ idol, Topic One

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 04:41:58 GMT

LJ Idol,
Week One
Topic One: Saying Goodbye

“Thirteen twenty-five.”

“Thirteen twenty-five!”

“Yes. One triple-grande-decaf-no-fat-no-water-half-half-syrup-soy-white-coconut-cappucino and a fruit salad and an piece of the pumpkin loaf.”

“What, do you charge by the syllable now?”

“No, ma’am. If we charged fifty cents per syllable, it’d be twelve fifty for the drink and another three dollars for the food to bring you to fifteen fifty. Really, when you think about it, thirteen twenty-five is quite a steal!”

“Look at this wallet. Look at it. It’s long, slim, camel, elegant. It barely fits thirteen twenty-five. It barely fits quarters.”

“We take cash, card, and Starbucks card, ma’am.”

“But my card’s for emergencies.”

“If you’d just turn around and look at the line of customers behind you, ma’am, I think you’d see this is an emergency.”

“Just pay it already! It’s only thirteen twenty-five, for frick’s sake!”

“Yeah! Some of us would like to get our coffee this century.”

“But thirteen twenty-five…for coffee and a bit of breakfast…c'mon, one cup of coffee, then I'll go...”

“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to pay now, or leave so I can serve the rest of these people. They’ve been waiting patiently for the past five minutes.”

“But I can’t go! I haven’t bought anything yet! And if I don’t buy anything, I can’t sit here and look cool for half an hour!”

“Ma’am, I thin k you said goodbye to cool the moment you said ‘look at this wallet’.”

“If you’d just hurry up and say goodbye to your damned money we could all say hello to happy-happy-coffee-coffee!”

“I suppose it’s kind of an emergency. Oh, no, I can’t. See last week, there was this sale down the road and they had these really cute boots that just screamed, you know, these boots are made for walking and—”

“Lady, these boots are going to kick your tiny little arse if you don’t—”

“Wait—you think my arse is tiny?”

“Ma’am, that’s not really an issue right now—”

“—It is to me! I was buying that no fat half syrup crap ‘cause my boyfriend said I was, you know, fat.”

“Lady, you’re not fat. You’re skinny. You’re a skinny little minny of a ninny of a thing. Now could you please just—”

“You know, um, do you think I could change my order? To a full fat with full syrup and whip?”

“With the pumpkin loaf and fruit salad, ma’am, that’s still twelve twenty-five.”

“Only twelve twenty-five for full whip and syrup! Now that’s a deal! Hmm, let me just find my Starbucks card—no, wait, I maxed it out too…”

"Have a nice day, ma'am."

"Yeah, um, you too. 'Bye. So much for one cup of coffee, then I'll go..."

Written for therealljidol , week one, "Saying Goodbye".
Lyric quote, "one cup of coffee, then I'll go", from Bob Marley, "One Cup of Coffee".

Edit: voting is now open, so you can vote here.

Short, Sweet, & Very Nearly Forgotten...

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:19:26 GMT

Here's the statement post I forgot to make: I'm joining/playing LJ idol this season.

Here it be, in its 828 word glory - LJ idol, week 0

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:51:28 GMT

I’m supposed to be writing an introduction, something to tell people about myself. What can I say? What should I say? What should I not say? It’s all quite intimidating really, like a page out of the entirely French fairy tale book I own; so far, I can make out the words ‘princess’, ‘roses’, ‘red’, ‘pink’, ‘your’, and ‘flowers’.

French. That’s as good a place to start as any. I went to a posh all girls Anglican/Episcopalian high school, where we were forced to take French and Japanese in our first year of high school. I hated Japanese. The words never interested me—all I ever wanted was to practice drawing the characters, to practice getting every stroke perfect. But I digress. Back to French.

My teacher was a very chatty woman, Miss Ackerly. We all called her Deirdre. She was a Deirdre, from her not-quite-neat gardener’s hair to her alternately stern and fawning nanny voice. She learned French as an au pair. Her “I’m Miss Ackerly, let me tell you a bit about me” speech was the very first time I heard the word au pair. It sounded so, well, French, accented and mysterious. Like something you would find in a fairy tale. Like Cinderella. Up ‘til that point, I’d liked fairy tales. I’ve always liked them. But the way she said that word, au pair, made something just click: right there, in the middle of the first class of the first week, with my left leg jigging like I had St. Vitus’ dance (something I still do, by the way) and a room full of very bored students, I could see Miss Ackerly with her hair piled high atop her head, glass kitten heels (though I didn’t know that’s what they were called then) and a dress more poufy than Elton John’s hair (or Elton John, for that matter).

That night, I skipped my homework (I was a dedicated homework dodger back then), and read my Brothers’ Grimm instead. I lingered over every tale, pounding along with Aschenputtel as she fled, getting scratched and bruised alongside her as she shot up a tree.

For me, reading fairy tales is still like that. I know a lot of people think they’re infantile, or even a waste of tree. But I find fairy tales more fascinating, more thrilling, more real than most stories. The characters aren’t well-rounded, no—but that’s because they don’t have to be. We already know the characters. We see them everyday: the girl who punches my coffee order into her suped-up register is Cinderella; the boy down the beach is the Frog Prince; the overly-gossipy-doom-and-gloom woman at work is a blackbird, waiting to swoop in with sorrow's tidings; and the wind that teases your hair as you race for the bus is that very same wind that teased Conrad and whispered to the Goose Girl.

I suppose that’s why I became a writer, really—I could never give up my fairy tales. It’s also how I came to start Les Bonnes Fees, my online fairy tale magazine—I needed more fairy tales to read. I also needed an excuse for my book buying habit.

That’s it, really. All I can think of. Other things people may care to know (also known as The Important Stuff):

I’m 27. I’m married. I think the joke, "Why are black holes good for the US Economy? Because they help us stretch our dollars,” is snort-laugh funny.

I have ferrets, and a budgie (parakeet). I adore them, and I spoil them. I dare anyone, anywhere, to produce another parakeet that has her own special iTunes playlist (I’ve just geeked myself, haven’t I?). I’m a vegetarian. And an animal rights person (though, despite the shared name, I dislike PETA). Sometimes, I have secret fantasies that I have a superpower that allows me to eat muchethly of the chocolate yet never get fat.

I’m an Australian (and so is my other half), but I live in Massachusetts. I’m proud of the fact I can spell Massachusetts. I love snow. I hate it when people misuse apostrophes, and I love semi-colons. They’re my favourite piece of punctuation. I like to draw, but it’s not one of my skills. I love to pretend I’m a poet, but I never get farther than “roses are red, violets are blue”. I knit scarves. Only scarves, though I’m about to attempt a shrug. I'm revisiting my French. I’m a lackadaisical paper-folder. I’m a runner. I’m a babbler, too, in case you haven’t noticed.

Still, I have to add: I want to build an igloo. I say this every year, but it never gets done. Except for this year. This will be my year.