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641. webfeet - 5/5/2006 5:08:05 AM I don't know, Jen. When bumping smack into blinding genius, most people sputter the usual comparisons to Joyce so the receiving party usually nods and says, "Oh, right. Joyce."
In this case, he really is ahem, Joycean; he has an otherworldly ability to assume the consciousness of people so remote and bizarre and interweave their lives with a narrative that kind of expands like an accordion, with different dialects and vocabulary he's just made up thrown in, opening wider and wider then you wonder, is it ever going to close?
And then he somehow goes backwards and closes it in the opposite direction in Cloud Atlas--which is a remarkable read. And very funny.
So why am I hedging about reading Black Swan Green? Because it's an undertaking. At least Cloud Atlas was. But why not? I just hope I'm fit. 642. webfeet - 5/5/2006 5:15:16 AM What you reckon Feet, there might be a niche for it
Don Quixote comes to mind, only you haven't completely disintegrated, teddy.
I have trouble with the 'wide-eyed and wonder' part. Then again, no-one should trust a first person narrator especially if they live in a remote chalet in a cow pasture.
643. webfeet - 5/5/2006 5:16:37 AM ..in france. 644. webfeet - 5/5/2006 5:29:57 AM Oh, and the other thing. About the sartorial assistant position that you are looking to fill?
Ill waive the fee, no,no really. I insist. I will merely refer to today's NY TImes style section, their piece on 'second skin' blue jeans that are too tight in all the right or wrong places depending on how right or wrong your physique is. Now don't balk at the price. They run a little steep anywhere from $300 upward. But sex is an investment. Everyone knows that.
That should knock the milkmaids off their chairs, now wouldn't it? 645. Jenerator - 5/5/2006 6:12:27 PM Alistair,
Just think of Webbie and me as Susannah and Trinny - we'll tell you what not to wear.
 646. Jenerator - 5/5/2006 6:13:39 PM Webbie,
Let's start of with something more light and fun - I don't know, something reminscient of Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing. (?) 647. alistairConnor - 5/5/2006 10:15:08 PM Sincerely, to please you two, I'll not wear anything. 648. Jenerator - 5/7/2006 12:51:19 AM Well, I went to Barnes and Nobles to buy my son a book he wanted and guess what was on the end-cap nearby? Black Swan Green! It hooked me - buy it Webbie. It's no so genius that it hurts.
Besides, I'll inevitably want to dissect it and it is your fault.
;-) 649. judithathome - 5/7/2006 2:14:19 AM I will merely refer to today's NY TImes style section, their piece on 'second skin' blue jeans that are too tight in all the right or wrong places depending on how right or wrong your physique is. Now don't balk at the price. They run a little steep anywhere from $300 upward. But sex is an investment. Everyone knows that.
Are these anything like the jeans that inspired Karl Lagerfeld to lose weight so he could fit into the jeans? He has named the designer who inspired him but I can't remmember the name...do you know it, Webs? 650. wonkers2 - 5/7/2006 7:01:30 PM Ishmael? C'mon Herm, call him Nate. 651. alistairConnor - 5/7/2006 10:19:35 PM Bjarni, returning from the nearby driftwood fire with a pitch-pot, saw the ship lying there, almost ready for the water, in the early spring sunshine, though mast and gear all lay still in the brown shadowed shed behind him, and he felt a pang of delight at the sight of her. She was so beautiful, the unbroken sweetly-running line of her from stem to soaring stern. She had no dragon head but her carved and freshly-painted stern post ended in a curve that was faintly like a shepherd's crook, or maybe the arched neck of a swan. He had been told that her name, Fionoula, had something to do with a swan - an Irish maiden that had been turned into one, long ago.
That passage came up last night in the book I was reading to my kids - Sword Song, Rosemary Sutcliff's last novel.
She was a huge influence on me, when I was a little boy. 652. Macnas - 5/8/2006 11:35:58 AM In the land to the west, there lived a King whose name was Lir. He had 4 children named Fionnula, Aodh, Conn and Fiachra.
They lived in his castle surrounded by a deep forest, and Lir, his wife, and the children were very happy there. After falling ill, Lir’s wife died, and his children were so overcome with sorrow that Lir married hastily to give them a mother. He did not marry well, as she was a wicked woman who in time became very jealous of Lir’s children. Her name was Aoife, and she was sister to the then King of Ireland.
She took them to the lake one day and let them swim and play. She then cast a powerful spell on the children, turning them into white swans. They found they still had the power of speech and asked their step-mother why she had done such a thing, and what was to become of them.
She laughed at them and said she now had Lir to herself, and as for them, they would stay swans for 900 years. 300 years would be spent here at this lake, the next 300 years would be spent on the sea of Moyle, and for the last 300 years on the waters near Inis Gluaire.
She returned to the King and told him his children had drowned in the lake. He went there immediately and knelt at the waters edge and wept for his children. A swan approached him and to his amazement began to speak to him as a person would. He then found out that his wicked wife had tuned his children into swans and had cursed them long into the future. He could not reverse the curse, but on his return to the castle he confronted his wife with her wickedness, and ignoring her weeping and wails, turned her into a spirit of the air, to be born on the wind in torment, with no rest, for ever more.
Lir lived out the rest of his days with his children, staying with them everyday, talking and singing with them. After his time had come and passed, the children remained on the lake until 300 years had reached their end, then they flew to the sea of Moyle. The sea was never calm and it was winter always, but they stayed on the sea for another 300 years, and then it was time to fly to Inis Gluaire.
The swans were weary unto death, but no rest from death would come to them yet. They forgot time and place, and became as mute as any other white swan, and did not sing or talk to each other anymore.
Then one day, a druid came to the island looking for plant and herbs, and as he worked he sang an old song to himself, a song as old as any could remember. He heard first one, then two, then 3 and 4 voices joining him in song, and he looked around to see who was with him, but he could see nothing but 4 white swans nearby.
He then saw that it was the swans that were singing, and he knew then who they were, for the legend of the children of Lir, turned into swans so many years ago was known to all the druids. He bade them come closer, and wading out into the water to them, laid his hands on them and told them the time of the spell was near an end. With that, the swans shrieked once and turned back into the children they had been as before. The druid took them with him, and bade the local chieftain to take them back to their homeplace. That he did, and the children of Lir lived long together, happy as the time before, when they played as children in the woods that grew around the castle.
653. uzmakk - 5/8/2006 9:40:09 PM Is that yours, Macnas? I ask because it really strikes me. I like it very much. 654. uzmakk - 5/8/2006 9:41:46 PM Oops. I didn't go back far enough. Excerpt from book, right? 655. alistairConnor - 5/8/2006 10:37:17 PM I would imagine he was extemporising from oral tradition. He does that. 656. webfeet - 5/9/2006 4:21:04 AM I had to go away for a few days...Easter Island.. again with karl.
It seems karl has become increasingly out of temper with me. Today, for example. Standing in front of my closet, not knowing comme d'habitude what to wear, karl taunted me as I tried blouses on..the agnes b. blouse was unironed and I wasn't young enough to get away with it,..the unstructured sweater made my breasts look bulky..when I suggested a white blouse, something fresh and springlike, he pointed to my head and said my highlights had oxidized and made me look in sunlight like a puerto rican.....then it was the freshly cut flowers I was trying to arrange in a bowl, 'so Ikea' he sneered, watching me from the window. Then he ridiculed me for being one of those people who are too lazy to change the garbage bags...and so on until he finally went to sleep sipping verbena and listening to Tchaikovsky's piano concertos. thank god.
657. webfeet - 5/9/2006 4:33:43 AM Judith--karl is exceedingly discreet; though i did manage to make out that it's in the atelier of a young designer off the rue de Charonne, some japanese fashion students were recently chased by wild dogs trying to get there. 658. webfeet - 5/9/2006 4:45:50 AM Jen--what is trinny a nickname of? or is it simply trinny? marvelous idea for reality show: trinny and susannah as apprentices with karl. who will survive? i'd waiger trinny. she doesn't need shinpads. she does need a mouthguard, however. and why doesn't karl have his own goddamn show?
Delicate. It's because he's too delicate, an orchid that would expire under the harsh lights of tv. and particular--about too many things.
alrite, I'll buy it. i'm not sure how i feel about this book--i'd like to just get this out beforehand, i think this novel is the equivalent of jodie foster's "Nell" and i'm too lazy and tired to go into it now, but i might try tomorrow. that whole thing about is stuttering voice..the muteness..or am i just a philstine? 659. Macnas - 5/9/2006 11:40:45 AM I had to look up what extemporising meant, but yes, that is what I was doing. If you have a couple of hours to spare I could give you the story of the Tain, but maybe not.
Uz, that story, told here in a very simple form, is from pre-christian times. There are versions of it, where the children turn into ancient old creatures who die soon after, and of course there is the christian version, where the sound of a chapel bell and baptism breaks the curse.
The version I told is that which is commonly told to children.
The full version is far more complex and not as easy on young ears as this one.
The great thing about these stories is that they are mine, a gift to me from long ago, and indeed, they belong to anyone who cares to remember them and pass them on to others. 660. PelleNilsson - 5/9/2006 12:55:40 PM That last paragraph, Macnas, remnds me, in some unspecific way, of Tolkien's world.
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