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661. Macnas - 5/9/2006 1:09:01 PM All old world story telling traditions have things in common, Tolkien invented a lot of his own, but, in my opinion, utilised Nordic styles much more than Celtic.
I'd never consider myself a seanachai (story teller/bard), but I do love to tell my children these stories when they care to listen. 662. Jenerator - 5/9/2006 8:24:04 PM Webbie,
He [David Mitchell] isn't speaking a different language in Black Swan Green. And if was like anything like Nell, I wouldn't have bought it. Now, Cloud Atlas is a different story. Maybe I'm lazy or uncultured, but deciphering linguistic code isn't my idea of fun fiction. High brow Esperanto? No thanks.
BSG seems like a much easier and natural read. 663. webfeet - 5/11/2006 7:32:57 PM Things are getting curioser and curioser...today at Barnes and Noble, shopping for Black Swan Green which-- and this is sad news for New York--was not displayed *anywhere* in the store, unlike Texas apparently--I encountered SuperVitamin Man, in gym shorts, fresh from his work-out, at the in-store Starbucks. He was with a chick, who was also in some kind of spandex. I suppose you could say she's his 'work-out' partner.
Serendipitously positioned behind him in front of the smorgasbord of unappealing, pasty cookies and cakes, I stood with Juliette, fresh from Baby Swim, on line where i could get a true-close up without seeming like a pervert, of the back of his neck. Hirsute and compact, Vitamin Man has the girth of a small, Italian sportscar. Perhaps he's just a little too au naturel in the neck hair department, with a few strange ones sprouting like tubers in odd places. He needed to be taken to, I don't know, one of those barber shops at Grand Central Station and get properly groomed.
I've always wanted to get picked up in a bookstore. But this wasn't one of those moments. And, I'm not sure SuperVitamin Man really enjoys literature. Although he does enjoy a certain type of round-the-year tanning salon gym bunny who looks like the seventh grade definition of 'slut'.
As I stood there checking him out, while he and spandex chick ordered their lattes, my daughter kept on shouting, "Darfish! Darfish!"
I didn't know what she was saying. And she kept on screaming it again. "Darfish! Darfish!" pointing excitedly at the cookies and cakes.
Head started to turn in our direction. And still, I didn't get it. Then, it hit me. Starfish! There was a cookie with yellow icing shaped like a starfish.
After ordering our darfish and a mint tea, we snagged a dirty table with a copy of the Village Voice on it. Then as SuperVitamin man and his spandex bunny, walked past us, I had to move the stroller which was blocking their passage.
664. webfeet - 5/11/2006 7:39:19 PM The other bizarre part, which I can't even get into today or ever maybe, was that after leaving Starbucks, there was a dad wearing some kind of plaid cap standing in front of the book check-out, pushing a double stroller.
It wasn't clear whether he was actually on line, getting on line, thinking about getting in line--or what.
So I turn to him and ask, "Are you on line?"
He's about to answer, when I notice his beautiful green eyes and then I realize, desperately, madly, psychotically--all these emotions rising--that I made-out with him, stoned, in the women's room at the grimy sailor's tavern in our hometown when I was twenty! Then a second later, he realizes the same thing and we both kind of scattered as if someone sprayed napalm, in opposite directions.
I would have drunk supermarket sherry when I got home, but I took an advil instead. 665. webfeet - 5/12/2006 4:39:43 PM Having endured all that to get Black Swan Green, it was worth it. I began a few pages last night--and was relieved that I didn't have to wade through strange dialects and tongues as in Sloosha's Crossin'--one of the chapters in 'Cloud Atlas' that is an exhaustive but mind-bendingly brilliant read.
The style in BSG is similar, even if it's the slang of british teenagers in the 80s instead of Hawaiian islanders in the post-nuclear age.
For example, "Moron grinny-zitty as ever. His bumfluff's getting thicker, mind." Or, "He pongs of gravy" --which I take it means he (Moron) is poor. Anyway, I like it. Mitchell is incredibly funny. 666. webfeet - 5/16/2006 5:31:18 AM This is sort of feeling like vaudeville...now is this a book club, jen? Look me square in the eye: or, have you abandoned Black Swan Green for The Prada Murder Mysteries?
Since living inside Black Swan Green, and Mitchell's poetic, pastoral Lord of the Flies adolescence, I am starting to feel like an adolescent reading it. L'oreal hair gel, Thatcher, the Faulklands War, Reagan and Haig, the "dusty flute" from that Men at Work song..today I read it on the subway en route to my doctor's office while I ate from a bag of cinnamon hearts, like a seventh grader discovering Judy Blume. Oblivious.
667. Jenerator - 5/16/2006 7:24:23 PM Don't be so gay~! 668. Jenerator - 5/16/2006 7:26:41 PM We are a bookclub - a ya ya sisterhood of the Mote. I, too, am having flashbacks to parachute pants and Human League and am having fun with it. Just wish I could have more interruption free time and less screaming children! 669. arkymalarky - 5/17/2006 12:12:08 AM Jen are you teaching now or are you still home? 670. webfeet - 5/17/2006 2:56:37 AM Here, you wanker :Interview with David Mitchell
671. alistairconnor - 5/17/2006 10:12:28 AM I'm not sure who the "wanker" is for, but I'll take it. (I can take it.) I'll take the Mitchell anyway. Next time I order some books. 672. Ulgine Barrows - 5/17/2006 10:16:46 AM i'ts cold out here and rough 673. judithathome - 5/17/2006 12:37:00 PM Yep, it's hard out there for a pimp, that's for sure. Or so they said at the Academy Awards. 674. Jenerator - 5/17/2006 10:10:11 PM Arky,
Still teaching. How about you? 675. Jenerator - 5/17/2006 10:11:08 PM Webbie,
Great interview.
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I love how subtle he is with the relationship between Mum and Dad. 676. arkymalarky - 5/17/2006 10:28:26 PM I'm out for the summer after next week, but I didn't know if you were still on maternity leave. We've got three or four pregnant teachers, so next year's going to be a real juggle for the district trying to cover for them. 677. Jenerator - 5/17/2006 11:10:53 PM I didn't get maternity leave - I had to take my once a life supplemental leave and that was for 6 weeks.
It was hard going back to work so soon.
I'm ready for summer, how about you? 678. arkymalarky - 5/17/2006 11:15:00 PM Oooh. We work leave differently, evidently, and I accumulated enough days to take the rest of the year off after surgery in April. I had Mose around Thanksgiving and came back around mid-January, if I recall (21 years ago).
I'm ready for July. I have a 12-day, 12-hour a day seminar in June, as part of my Masters. But once I get it behind me I'll be halfway through and the rest of the summer will be nothing but fun. 679. arkymalarky - 5/17/2006 11:16:17 PM That is the hysterectomy I had last April. I'd accumulated enough between having Mose and the surgery because I hadn't had to take off much in between. 680. Jenerator - 5/17/2006 11:18:40 PM You're lucky you had so much time. We only get 7 days of leave per year and with a young child at home, taking 7 days off per year (or close to it) was easy.
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