Posts by Jolisa
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Heh. Every day is BoobQuake at my house.* But sure, in the interests of science, I'll crank it up a bit. And because it's spring.
I only wish I'd had enough notice to pin down a sponsorship deal with Bravissimo.
*Also, every day is Scientific Method day, what with a physicist at the other end of the table. My money is on the no-correlation hypothesis being correct. (We don't exactly have a control experiment running, but there have been exactly zero earthquakes in New England since I've been living here. Not even when my sister visits.)
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Loved by all?
Curse you! Er, I mean, no, you'd never get away with that. Not a weak spot at all. No sir.
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GASP! Poison Pen Reviews Were Mine, confesses historian Orlando Figes
According to a spokesman from Birkbeck College neither Figes nor his employer had anything further to say. "He's on sick leave and we're offering our support," he said.
Oh dear.
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What's stopping you? :)
Ten thousand miles, or so. I'd need a ruthless and dedicated accomplice...
when it comes to writing, it's quality, not quantity (or frequency), that fosters immortality.
Which is why I reckon that Keri H is entitled to sit on her laurels, like Harper Lee. The book is on bookshelves everywhere I go. I can't tell you how many people, on hearing where I'm from, have said "I read the most amazing novel..." (usually in tandem with the more common "I've always wanted to go there").
Both of whom are name-checked in my piece in this week's Listener, by the way, about the Women's Bookshop Fifty-Fifty Women poll (there's an inexplicable typo in the online version - title should be "Votes for Women").
And I'm reliably informed that there's a piece on the Stead story in next week's Listener.
I also got distracted making a list of "literary gossip" blog names.
Ngaire, that's a brilliant idea. A person I cannot name and I were thinking of something similar once, but figured our style was too identifiable. A writing challenge for some brave soul?
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Andre:
I don't think there's much point in imagining ways in which Stead's revenge fantasy could have been divorced from the events that so obviously inspired it.
Except, perhaps, as a creative writing exercise. And one that reveals some of the holes in the original scenario (see above, re Manic Pixie Dream Widow).
A more interesting question, I think, is whether the judges knew about the background of the story before they awarded it the prize. Surely they know how to use Google?
Ah, but I doubt they'd have found anything - especially once Stephen Stratford had been asked to take down the (then fairly obscure) blog post reprinting the original article.
Philip, thanks for this:
There was also a lively discussion of all this at The Dim Post.
I knew there was another link I was forgetting. I spent some time scrolling through the Fundy Post looking for it. Fundy, Dim - can't think why I confused the two. </threadmerge with David H's thread>
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Craig, again:
Then again, Anthony Powell was rather bemused by various people who ran around claiming they were the real life models of his "chateau-bottled shit" Kenneth Widmerpool
Quite. We all want a piece of the action, even if it's nasty action. Which reminds me of the observation made by whomever it was (you?) in the long Witi thread, about how the best defense is to preemptively grant your based-on-life character an enormous willy, on the grounds that they'll be too flattered to sue. Hard to think what the feminine equivalent would be; I don't think we're that flatterable.
Ian:
Eyjafjallajokull but that is the glacier underneath Eyjafjoell the volcano.
Ah, geographical pedantry! A man after my own heart. So, too lazy to google, I ask: was there an Eyjafjöll already? Or is that new? Was it as if a volcano erupted under, say, the Fox Glacier, and we called it the Fox Glacier Volcano before settling for Fox Volcano? (Which, incidentally, would be a nice name for a character in a short story).
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Graeme
Now that was a great collection of short stories!
I think of them as "hums", but yes. (Unless you're talking about Elizabeth Bowen, or possibly the Hawkwind albums?)
Craig:
I've got half a dozen unpublishable novels gathering dust, that suggest to me that it's too damn hard work for the kind of malicious bitchery best reserved for a diary. Or a blog. :)
Memoir, darling. It's all the rage.
recordari - you do have the second sight. There I sat last night, putting in all the links, thinking "must post before Russell fires me."
So this state of 'writer-ship', which clearly Stead has a special handle on, lapses after a certain period of time?
Or is it that every career must follow the same arc as, presumably, his?
Danielle
That [gender flip] sounds awfully... feminist.
True. And not just that, but awfully unlikely, narratively speaking. Which in turn is a reminder of how, erm, familiar the shape of the story is. Is there a middle-aged, bereaved equivalent of Manic Pixie Dream Girl? Because that's more or less what the dead writer's wife functions as in this story. In my world, she'd have cut him dead, not giggled and made a mix tape. (Tip of the hat to one of my off-screen correspondents for pointing out this aspect of the story).
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it's feeling to the common man that literature may once again be teetering on dangerous.
I know! Also, mad and bad! Vive Lord Byron.
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Then the boys, in the form of kids, came out, and began to dance round Him; and the women, seeing this, were very much astonished...
... And immediately, while these women were standing by, the kids were changed into boys.
OMG: Jesus turned the kids into kids, and then back into kids again? It's a miracle!
Celibacy. Ur doin it wrong.
Heh.
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And that's pretty much been my impression: that Matt Smith's been blown off the small screen by Karen Gillan. Feel free to disagree.
Impossible. To disagree, I mean. She's ablaze!
Matt Smith's growing on me. I did like the kindness he managed to convey in the kitchen scene with young Amy, though. Nice touch. Tennant's Doctor, while childlike in many respects, pretty much regarded children as amusing aliens -- but this guy spots a kindred soul and reaches out. I liked it.
(All this on only half of the first episode! Mumble youtube mumble download missing mumble grumble).