Category:

literature

“This day is call’d the Feast of Crispian…”

by Diane Duane October 25, 2016

October 25th rolls around and inevitably brings this with it. Of all the filmed versions, this is my favorite: half because of Branagh, half because of the wonderful film score by Patrick Doyle. (You can hear occasional echoes of this in his score for Thor if you listen hard.)

…And with this comes the unavoidable memory of a fun thing that happened some years ago. (Before smartphones, alas, or there’d sure as hell be video of it.)

Peter and I were guests at a little media con in the south of England. Another of the guests (among numerous others) was John Rhys-Davies. As often happens at conventions, the committee kindly took all us guestly types out for a lovely dinner at the end of the convention.

Somehow or other Shakespeare came up. Now, Peter’s degree in Eng.Lit. was angled more toward the Chaucerian end of things, but he did his share of Shakespeare while studying, and he and Rhys-Davies spent about half the dinner discussing the Bard.

I can’t now remember which of them started it, but I realized suddenly that the two of them were engaged in a tag-team recitation of the St. Crispin’s Day speech. Now, Peter’s voice isn’t exactly soft or retiring when he gets going in this mode, but even so there’s no competing with John Rhys-Davies when he gets his wheels under him. The restaurant went (unsurprisingly) quiet around us as the two of them headed for the finish line, both reciting in unison now, and finally hitting “Upon St. Crispin’s Day!” at the (joint) top of their lungs.

Our table and most of the rest of the restaurant exploded into applause. And one nice lady not far away, looking at Rhys-Davies for the first time and realizing only part of what had been going on, then said loudly enough for everyone to hear:

“Oh, isn’t that lovely? It’s Luciano Pavarotti!”

(snort)

…Good times, good times. 🙂

Anyway: here for those who prefer it is the 1944 Laurence Olivier version.

October 25, 2016

books Life literature reading

Crowds retrieve 100,000 books dumped in skip

by Diane Duane June 11, 2014

Crowds retrieve 100,000 books dumped in skip

Almost 100,000 new books were dumped into a skip outside a Derry bookshop today after the receiver ordered that the contents of the shop, which closed two years ago, should be disposed of.

…The books, valued at £60,000 (€74,253), were all new.

…As word quickly spread crowds descended on Bishop Street to avail of the book bonanza. Many motorists double parked causing temporary traffic jams as they helped themselves to dozens of the books.

Looking on as the skip was filled and re-filled with the books was Peter MacKenzie, the former joint owner of the Bookworm bookshop.

“I opened the book shop in 1978 and it was my life’s work until I was declared bankrupt in 2012.

“The books were my assets which were seized. The building was also seized and now it has been for sale for the last two years with an asking price of £375,000.

“Four years ago the same building was valued at just over £2 million.

“It’s heartbreaking to see what was once my life’s work being dumped into a skip but at least the books are being grabbed by members of the public and fair play to them”, he said.

This was crossposted from DD’s tumblr http://ift.tt/1inh3TC, where it was published on June 11, 2014 at 10:31AM

June 11, 2014

Film and TV literature Media Medicine, nursing, health TV in general Writing

“Going Deeper”: searching for the secrets in Dr. John Watson’s CV

by Diane Duane April 17, 2013

Last year I wrote a post called “The Starship and the Upstairs Flat” which concerns the longstanding (and until then, one-sided) relationship between the Sherlock Holmes and Star Trek canons. While working on that, I had cause to go have a look at the Sherlock DVDs, because in “The Blind Banker” we get a quick glimpse at John’s CV, and I wanted to examine it in detail.

(This was as much a harking back to old habits as mere curiosity. Nurses like to have the salient professional details about the doctors they know, and especially the ones they work with. Back in the day, when it was much harder to lay hands on pertinent details than just Googling for them, my colleagues and I were definitely not above quietly sending away for the State Board scores of doctors whose expertise we weren’t sure about.)

I hadn’t given much more thought to the subject until recently, when I had reason to look more closely at the Doctor’s CV. When I did, I began to realize that it says all kinds of interesting things about John Watson to a (former) health professional. Discussion follows…

April 17, 2013

Graphic and plastic arts literature News Writing Young Wizards

Up against the wall (or actually, on it)

by Diane Duane December 23, 2011

This is such a cool thing.

Some months back I had a nice email from Melissa Elliott, who’s the Senior Librarian in charge of Young Adult Services at the Burbank Public Library in southern California. (You know, as in “Beautiful Downtown Burbank.”) She was asking whether they could use a quote from one of the Young Wizards books (from So You Want to Be a Wizard, in fact) to decorate one of the walls in their new teen section.

It was absolutely charming to be asked something like this, so naturally I gave my permission, and didn’t think much more about it. But this morning, I had another email from Melissa… with pictures.

It’s funny the impact it can suddenly make on you when something like this happens. You find yourself thinking, “Wait. Somebody took something I said and painted it on a wall? And not as graffiti? What planet is this?”

…Whatever: it’s a planet I like. I very much hope I have a chance to get out to LA some time in ’12, as I’d love to head over to Burbank and see it in person.

(ETA: I didn’t even realize we had these in the CafePress shop, so if anyone wants one, feel free…)

December 23, 2011

Food Home life literature

Kipling as foodie

by Diane Duane May 16, 2011

Over the last couple of months I’ve been rereading Rudyard Kipling‘s Kim, on and off. (This is part of a longstanding self-challenge to read everything that the man has ever written — a goal that would challenge even an ambitious reader who had nothing else to do whatsoever. Well, you hit more if you’re shooting at the sun than if you’re just firing into the underbrush.) And during this rereading, I’ve started to become conscious of a hidden truth:

Kipling was a foodie.

This is probably a subject on which whole theses could be based, but briefly: there’s a lot more reference to food in Kim alone than what a conscientious writer will normally insert into a narrative as as part of a well-built background. And the pattern repeats across other works.

But in Kim in particular, every now and then something foodie-ish pops out unusually strongly. For example: after a traumatic series of intelligence-oriented escapades upcountry, Kim has come back down to the Plains in bad shape and needs some rest and recovery. He and the Tibetan lama whom he’s been serving as “disciple” arrive at the home of a very retired and cantankerous rani, an old acquaintance, and the Sahiba takes Kim in hand. She first sees him through a long therapeutic massage, and then —

Then she fed him, and the house spun to her clamour. She caused fowls to be slain; she sent for vegetables, and the sober, slow-thinking gardener, nigh as old as she, sweated for it; she took spices, and milk, and onion, with little fish from the brooks — anon limes for sherbets, fat quails from the pits, then chicken-livers upon a skewer, with sliced ginger between…

This is way more than offhand background material. It is both skilled character exposition and a shameless appeal to the senses, and I want to go to her house for dinner. Oh, Rudyard, you food tease. Where are the recipes?!

And there’s more. Just from this book:

…his mouth watered for mutton stewed with butter and cabbages, for rice speckled with strong scented cardamoms, for the saffron-tinted rice, garlic and onions, and the forbidden greasy sweetness of the bazars…

“…meet us again under the big railway bridge, and for the sake of all the Gods of our Punjab, bring food — curry, pulses, cakes fried in fat, and sweetmeats. Specially sweetmeats….”

(a song sung to entertain a small child:) “This is a handful of cardamoms, | This is a lump of ghee: | This is millet and chilies and rice, | A supper for thee and me!”

(on a begging-bowl of rice:) “A little curry is good, and a fried cake, and a morsel of conserve would please him, I think.” … [the vendor] filled it… with good steaming vegetable curry, clapped a fried cake atop, and a morsel of clarified butter on the cake, dabbed a lump of sour tamarind conserve at the side…

And this is only a sampling of the yummy bits in Kim. Lots more can be said about this whole subject (and probably will be) at a later date. But right now those chicken livers and ginger are on my mind, and dammit, we’re flat out of quail…

May 16, 2011

Film and TV History literature

What, no Burton?

by Diane Duane April 22, 2011

Was watching the BBC program last night on the Arabian Nights, featuring Richard Grant. When they started dealing with the issue of translations, it surprised me a little that not a single word was said about Sir Richard Burton, though a fair amount of air time was spent on Edward William Lane, whose version of the Thousand Nights and a Night was extremely sanitized.

I find myself wondering whether some scholar involved with the program had a bug up the butt about Burton’s fairly explicit translation. Granted, it’s not as if the man isn’t a source for continuing controversy: you run into scholarly opinion suggesting that Burton had committed that most heinous of offenses, “getting too close to the material” — the literary version of “going native”. Stilll, it’s odd to see an analysis of the Nights that doesn’t even mention his name. I wonder what was going on…

It’s interesting also to note in passing that Burton discusses Lane in his introduction to his own translation. “That amiable and devoted Arabist,” Burton calls him, and then gently takes him to task for “converting the Arabian Nights to the Arabian Chapters. Worse still, he converts some chapters into notes. He renders poetry by prose and apologizes for not omitting it altogether; … he is at once too Oriental and not Oriental enough. …Worst of all, these handsome volumes are rendered unreadable …by the stuff and stilted style of half a century ago when our prose was perhaps the worst in Europe.” (Well, don’t mince words, Sir Richard, tell us what you really think…)

April 22, 2011