Foiled by the Hill AGAIN!

Okay, it's bad enough when you constantly check books out of the library like these:

(Yes, that last one really is the size of my head -- it's a little over 1000 pages and weighs about five pounds. I think I have a serious problem when the books I check out for kicks and giggles are bigger than the ones I check out for actual classwork.)

But it's really bad when you're looking for obscure books in the library catalog and not only does your library have them, but they're so obscure they're held at the RARE BOOK LIBRARY on your campus.

Yeah, that's right. I've been foiled by the Hill Manuscript Museum and Library on not one, but TWO books tonight. I wanted a copy of "Berengaria : in search of Richard the Lionheart's queen" and "A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea" (the Babcock translation) and both of them are at the Hill.

I know, I need a new hobby. Or a life. But I really don't care.

And I just found out this evening that Hildegarde of Bingen, my favorite 11th century mystic, told someone not to marry Princess Sybilla of Jerusalem. This makes me excited!

...Yes, I have a favorite 12th century mystic. Deal with it.

Colonialism at Work

...in P O'B's HMS Surprise. Mr. O'Brian starts his description (Maturin's description, actually) with some of the stock images we've come to expect when talking about the east, and then he veers off a little, talking instead about what the British have also brought to India, what some of the hands refer to earlier as 'the spicy coast'. (Recall Colonel Brandon's response to Margaret's inquiry about what India is like in Sense and Sensibility -- "The air is full of spices!")

"Bombay: Fresh fruit for his invalids, iced sherberts for all hands, enormous meals, the marvels of the East; marble palaces, no doubt; the Parsee's silent towers; the offices for the Commissioners of the former French Settlements, counters and factories on the Malabar coast; the Residence of Mr. Commissioner Canning." (P.189)

That is the expected -- in the next chapter we see the real.

"Fresh Fruit for the invalids, to be sure, and enormous meals for those who had time to eat them; but apart from the omnipresent smell and a little arrack that came aboard by stealth, the wonders of the East, the marble palaces, remained distant, half guessed objects for the Surprise." [bold my own] (p.190)

It's interesting (and telling) that P O'B uses the same phrase twice, the 'marvels of the East'; He, like so many others before him, is using Orientalist stock images, renting a crowd, as Achebe would say. And his last line, about how the crew of the Surprise will remain in the dark about what India really looks like, says a lot about how those stock images are transfered -- by ignorance and a lack of original data.


Quotes from O'Brian, Patrick. "HMS Surprise" Reprinted WW Norton and Co, New York, 1991.

'Cause We Are Living in a Colonial World

...and I am the product of a colonial system. *music notes*

Not the Madonna song you all know and love, is it? Hey, materialism has everything do with colonialism. Joseph Conrad's insistence on the prevalence of the ivory trade out of the Congo tells me so. ( I could use this post to rant about how much I hate Heart of Darkness, but I have other fish to fry.)

In my Post-Colonial Lit class we started out by reading several articles by people like Edward Said, theorists and authors who have made it their life's work to understand the relationship between 'The West' and 'The East' in thought, writing, and politics. Said posits that there's a mindset Europeans have called Orientalism that colors the way they see the Eastern world (ie, anything that's not Europe) and that this mindset is still prevalent in today's society, especially in our news and entertainment media.

Today's example comes to us courtesy of BBC's recent adaptation of the Robin Hood legend. As BBC dramas go, it's not their best, but it's entertaining and it kills time on weeknights when I'm supposed to be doing homework. I've got a lot of problems with it, though, and one of them is increasingly becoming the portrayal of non-Europeans on the show, mainly because all the non-European characters turn into stereotypes. My problem yesterday was that some of the characters were of African descent, and, while I have the highest respect for equal opportunity hiring practices, I contend that there were no people of African descent wandering around in England in the 12th century, slave or freeperson. However, today's problem was with their portrayal of Arabs. Since this is the 12th century, and Robin has just come back from the Crusades, I buy that they can (and should) show up in this story. However, the re-occuring Arabic character on the show, Djac (say: Jack -- I have no idea where this name came from, as it doesn’t quite sound right for the period or the character) is played by an Indian actress (a very fun, spunky actress -- I give her props) and this, I think shows just a little of what Said is talking about when he indicates that Europeans tend to group everyone into "Us" and "Not Us."

The episode I'm watching today includes the character al-Malik, Saladin's nephew and a real historical character. However, this man is portrayed as wearing eyeshadow, bright red robes, and speaking English without necessary articles like 'the' and 'a.' He eats food that the European characters don't, he's a little effeminate – these are all hallmarks of the classic stereotype of the Eastern male. (He also refers to himself as Saracen, something no Muslim or Arab would EVER do, as Saracen is a European designate.) Chinua Achebe, whose article “An Image of Africa” we had to read for next class, gives the reason for these negative portrayals thusly, a description that applies to Arabs as much as it applies to the African peoples Achebe is really talking about –

“For some reasons which can certainly use close psychological inquiry, the West seems to suffer deep anxieties about the precariousness of its civilization and to have a need for constant reassurance by comparing it with Africa.”

By using Non-Europeans as the bearers of ‘bad’, ‘backwards’ characteristics, the European characters look much smarter and better than their “Eastern” counterparts.

Back to the show -- al-Malik is trying to broker peace between the English and the Muslims, and Saladin has sent assassins, (not THE Assassins, unfortunately) to kill him in order to stop this from happening, something I think the real Saladin would not have done as the real Saladin did, at one point, try to broker peace using al-Malik. (The plan was to marry his nephew to Richard's sister Johanna, but that fell through when they both refused to convert to the other's religion. Go figure.)

But wait, it gets better -- the assassins are all women. Women wearing turbans and green bodysuits, who undress in the presence of men and then do a cool slightly ninja-esque thing with their swords to totally own Robin Hood and his men. Now I know that modern Muslim women are a lot more enfranchised than their 12th century counterparts, and I know that there are several examples of women who held tremendous power in the Arab world in the 12th century (Thank you, Fatima Mernissi), but the bodysuits and the unveiling and the being assassins bit strikes me as a little odd. There's also a point where these women look to be doing something like tai-chi and using throwing stars, which, as all men of learning know, are both CHINESE. al-Malik is also going to present the peace delegation with something that looks suspiciously like an acupuncture dummy, another Chinese innovation.

My point is, whoever cast this show or wrote it was thinking as Said implies all Westerners think -- as Us and Them. There's no real distinction between the inventions and culture of the Chinese and the inventions and culture of the Arab world, two great cultural traditions that should be given their own due. They’re both not European, and that means they can be lumped together.

In the show’s defense, there are a few bright spots. When Much tells Djac she could escape slavery by renouncing her god and saying that she’s a Christian (the sale of Christian slaves is forbidden, but any non-Christians, apparently, are open game on the slave market), Djac tells him to try it first if it’s so easy. Much, after a lot of trepidation about the Hand of God coming down to smite him, realizes he can’t do it, and Djac, smirking, makes him come to terms with the fact that it’s no easier to denounce Allah than it is to denounce the Christian God. Robin, at one point, quotes the Qu’ran, calling it the “Saracen Bible” when the rest of the Merry Men ask if he’s quoting the Christian Bible instead. It’s a nice interfaith dialogue moment, even if it’s a mislabeled one. At the end of the episode, al-Malik and Robin have a chat about peace, and he is allowed to continue on home with a shell-shocked crusades veteran who is going to try some Arabic medicine to see if he can’t get better that way.

My Post Colonial Lit professor stressed at the beginning of the semester that the point of Post Colonial literature is something along the lines of making the world understand the validity of all experiences, colonized as well as colonizer, and that one of the first steps along this journey we’re taking this semester is evaluating how we read and perceive works of literature. Recognizing Orientalism is one step.

I think I’ve got that down, or at least, I hope so. Or is this entire post and my observations just another unenlightened westerner preaching about what the East is really like? I think I’ll need Professor Mitra’s opinion, just to be sure.

Progress on This Blessed Plot

Today I made the first update to my original story (We'll call it a co-authored original story, since it's not really my idea) in several months and made Simon (the co-author) very happy. You can make me happy by reading and reviewing it here, at fictionpress:

This Blessed Plot -- A MechKnight Story

To try and refocus my mind after so many months of non-work on this project, a few nights ago I started writing a little woodle to regain a sense of my characters. I wrote this into the future of The Lady's Guardian and This Blessed Plot, so it'll probably only make sense to me and Simon, but I'm curious what the rest of you will think of it. It's called Tea and Solace.

Jane loved Japan. There was always something serene about the place she had spent so much of her adolescence, the place that had been home when home had not wanted her. Years of riotous tumult and lost wars had taught the Japanese two things – how to cultivate patience and peace. Every imperial islander seemed to have both in spades.

It was an island outside the world. Across the sea, the People’s Socialist Republics of Asia created sprawling factories out of entire villages, employing faceless masses of people making everything from children’s toys to parts for cheap, readymade ‘mechs. The pieces were like their producers, stamped out of the same unchanging molds by the billions. In Japan they still valued the hands of the artificer and the artisan, taking years to craft the perfect blade. Jane had two such blades over her mantle at home, unused, gifts at her first leavetaking from Japan many years ago. They had never come out of their sheaths, reminders of a simpler time she wished she could have seen. She was not a knight as those knights were – she had different weapons and a different, equally deadly precision. But they valued the old ways in Japan, and she had learned to use blades like that. She had honed her body into a weapon, her teachers making her learn the limits of her fleshy shell before they would let her near a mech.

And all that training was nearly wasted when Father made me come home to fight in the Balkans, Jane mused. Because Harry and Vincent had the bad sense to die and leave me to pick up their part in the Balkans. And I didn’t understand it all, young as I was.

There were many wars she didn’t understand, even some of the ones she fought in now. This business with Vlad and Monica, the bad blood between the Pallavincini and the Hunyadi: that she understood, even if she didn’t want to. That was why she was leaving Japan so soon, even though she had only been there a matter of weeks. She had come back to her old teachers and her old school after Vlad and Byrghir had rescued her from Count Rudolf. She had needed time to rest, trying to run away from the world and her injuries. But now it was time to settle debts. She owed Vlad this.

In her luggage, stowed somewhere beneath the decks of the hulking transport ship, there was a plain wooden box, tucked lovingly inside one of her chests. Nesting inside that box like precious eggs were two identical celadon cups, glazed the traditional, translucent ephemeral blue. Jane had called them skyware when she had first seen them as a child, though she knew they had a different name. There were also seven canisters of finely powdered tea leaves, a whisk, ladle, kettle and siphon, as well as several bundles of charcoal.

It was more than just a tea set – it was tradition, it was grace beyond time. It was peace.

She was bringing it with her to share with Monica, during the long, cold days of Romanian winter when Vlad was away. The tea ceremony needed no words – and Jane knew (because she was in that place as well) that where Monica was, there were no words. Jane had been caught before falling down the well; Vlad’s message had indicated to her that Monica had drowned and would never swim again.

Jane’s body twinged at the thought of that kind of violation, so far removed from what she herself had suffered. It went beyond the physical into the emotional, the psychological – yes, even the religious. And it was partially her fault.

Who but God alone knows what our ends may be? Something inside her asked. He placed mountains in front of us to test our faith, and enemies behind us to test our courage. To turn aside is to turn away from him.

She could offer no words of consolation to her friend’s wife, but she could bring her own peace, and company. It was all God had given her, and it was all she could give. And they would share tea, and solace, and hopefully, the hurts would heal.

Edith Wharton

Today, my Quote of the Day email informs me, is Edith Wharton's birthday. For those of you not familiar with the Pulitzer Prize winning authoress, Edith Newbold Wharton, nee Jones, was born on January 24th, 1862 and came into her life and her writing at the turn of the century. She saw the Old New York give way to the New, and the nineteenth century bow out to the twentieth as World War One came, and went, leaving a bloody swath and a irraprable impact on world politics. Wharton wrote several novels and short stories, including a manual on interior decoration that continued to guide American fashion for many years as well as Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence, and the House of Mirth.

The Age of Innocence holds a special place in my revered literary canon as one of the only books I've started reading after I saw the movie, and one of the only books I thoroughly enjoyed after watching the movie. Martin Scorsese is to be commended -- his film brilliantly realized what I think is some of the greatest prose writing ever, in some places even going so far as to narrate passages straight from the novel, as if he were afraid it would loose something in visual translation. I would give anything to be able to fully realize a place in prose the way Wharton does.

Mrs. Beaufort, then, had as usual appeared in her box just before the Jewel Song; and when, again as usual, she rose at the end of the third act, drew her opera cloak about her lovely shoulders, and disappeared, New York knew that meant that half an hour later the ball would begin.

The Beaufort house was one that New Yorkers were proud to show to foreigners, especially on the night of the annual ball. The Beauforts had been among the first people in New York to own their own red velvet carpet and have it rolled down the steps by their own footmen, under their own awning, instead of hiring it with the supper and the ball-room chairs. They had also inaugurated the custom of letting the ladies take their cloaks off in the hall, instead of shuffling up to the hostess's bedroom and recurling their hair with the aid of the gas-burner; Beaufort was understood to have said that he supposed all his wife's friends had maids who saw to it that they were properly coiffees when they left home.

Then the house had been boldly planned with a ball-room, so that, instead of squeezing through a narrow passage to get to it (as at the Chiverses') one marched solemnly down a vista of enfiladed drawing- rooms (the sea-green, the crimson and the bouton d'or), seeing from afar the many-candled lustres reflected in the polished parquetry, and beyond that the depths of a conservatory where camellias and tree-ferns arched their costly foliage over seats of black and gold bamboo.

Newland Archer, as became a young man of his position, strolled in somewhat late. He had left his overcoat with the silk-stockinged footmen (the stockings were one of Beaufort's few fatuities), had dawdled a while in the library hung with Spanish leather and furnished with Buhl and malachite, where a few men were chatting and putting on their dancing-gloves, and had finally joined the line of guests whom Mrs. Beaufort was receiving on the threshold of the crimson drawing-room...

Everything Old is New Again

In case you were wondering, the title of this post is the theme of this semester's reading material. Last semester I realized I was very into the 'women's studies' area of historical exploration, and I decided I needed a focused vein of inquiry in my free reading books. I wanted to re-read all of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey Maturin Series (armed with my two news books from paperbackswap, Men of War: Life in Nelson's Navy by P O'B himself, and Harbors and High Seas: An Atlas and Geographical Guide to the Complete Aubrey-Maturin Novels of Patrick O'Brian. (I'm waiting for a copy of this book to show up on my Wish List Request Filled queue any day now -- When I have that, my P O'B experience will be complete. Plus I'll be able to make a dish called The Last of the True French Short Bastards. I love historical cookbooks.)

So that's this semester's theme: Everything Old is New Again. I'm reading many books I've already read before, many books I haven't, but are on historical things -- I'm in the middle of Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Codebreaking Computers and Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, which as we speak is being made into a movie.





Yeah, I'm excited, too. Crime, Tommy guns, the 1930s, and Christian Bale. But I digress.

So I took this "What Kind of Reader are You?" Quiz (as seen and promoted on Jane Austen Today, which I subscribe to.) and this is what I got:

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Book Snob You like to think you're one of the literati, but actually you're just a snob who can read. You read mostly for the social credit you can get out of it.
Literate Good Citizen
Dedicated Reader
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

I have to say, I'm a little...leery of this result. I don't think I read for social credit (although, granted, being the person at parties who always has random things to say is a social function, albeit not a very loved one.) But I want to know now -- Who gets social credit for reading?

A very Shakespeare Themed day

Yesterday was a very Shakespeare themed day. Which isn't surprising, considering I started my Shakespeare class this semester and so far it rocks. We're reading Shakespeare's later plays, beginning with Twelfth Night (which is my favorite Shakespearean Comedy ever) and yesterday I decided I wanted to watch the movie. Not knowing if there was one, I looked on YouTube first...and found the whole version of the 1996 version with Toby Smith as Duke Orsino, Helen Bonham Carter as Countess Olivia, Imogen Stubbs as Viola/Cesario, ben Kingsley as Feste and Imelda Staunton as Maria. Let me tell you, Shakespeare is awesome on his own, but put together a bunch of actors who really know how to do what they do, set the play in this Victorian-esque background, and then let what you will happen, it becomes a beautiful, beautiful thing.

After I finished my movie, I went to dinner, then read a book on the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and how it could be considered a colonial extension of Europe (this was an interesting direction for me to read in because I have Post-Colonial Lit this semester too) and after that went to go find the posse and watch a movie. We ended up watching Shakespeare in Love (another excellent film) which, as many learned men know, has in it a lot of references to Twelfth Night and, again, a lot of actors who know very well what they are about.

After that we watched Twilight, which, after following so much Shakespeare, fell farther and flatter on its face than it probably would have done if we had watched something a little less awesome beforehand. We talked through the whole movie and related why it was terrible and what was wrong with the characters (We have a theory now that Edward should be called nothing but Eddy C for the sake of his mind-altering coolness, and all were agreed that Bella is a Mary Sue.) and it was fun.

But I was still thinking alot about Shakespeare when I went to bed, including one of the discussion questions our professor is having us ruminate on, the idea of whether Cesario is a real person or not. If you haven't read Twelfth Night, here's a little summary for you: A pair of twins, brother and sister, are separated during a storm. One of them, Viola, washes up on a beach in a foriegn country. She dresses like a man to keep her options open and her safety in check, goes to serve the local duke, and ends up trying to woo the woman he's in love with for him. She falls in love with Viola/Cesario instead. Meanwhile, her brother, Sebastian, has also come ashore, and is looking for the Duke to also go into service with him. Sebastian is confused for Viola, vice-versa, and then it all seems to work out at the end. (If you want a more detailed plot summary, try CliffNotes.)

So Olivia falls in love with Cesario. Orsino finds a bosom buddy in Cesario. Sir Andrew and Sir Toby have a bone to pick with Cesario. But Cesario isn't really a person -- he's a constructed identity. I realized after class on Thursday that Cesario sounds a lot like Caesarion (as in Caesarion birth or C-section) and his role in the play bears a lot on that. His birth or creation is forced, just like a c-section is, and it is done out of necessity, when all the other options are given up on.

And it occured to me (because I am self centered, and the chain of events lent itself to it) that Cesario and Audemande have something in common. Neither one of them becomes who they are, essentially, until they are removed to this far, foriegn place. Cesario offers himself to the duke as a performer because he doesn't have any other talents. Audemande culitvates her skill at telling stories so she becomes useful to Baldwin and Sybilla. If Viola had stayed in Messaline, she never would have married Orsino. If Aude had stayed in Poitou, she never would have met and befriended all the people that she does. Both women occupy traditionally male places, as public members of a ruling party's retinue, and both are very close to their soveriegns. Is Audemande a constructed identity, too, then? I say no, because she remains who she is throughout the story. She adapts her manners and her skills to her situation, but she doesn't usurp who she is for the sake of the people who control her life.

That's about where the comparisions end (Spoiler for the end of Song of a Peacebringer -- Aude and Baldwin do NOT get hitched.) but it was still really interesting to me. Here's a play I really enjoy watching and a story I really enjoy writing, and they're remarkably similiar.

So that was my very shakespeare themed day. I hope everyone else's Friday was just as fun and exciting.

Great Minds...

...Often think alike, as the saying goes. And I don't claim to be a great mind most of the time, but when the creator of a hit TV show and I have the same idea, I'll consider myself a great mind for the time being.

From TvGuide.com

Exclusive: Grey's Digs Dirt Star as McArmy's Old Flame

As teased weeks ago in a Mitovich Mega Minute, Grey's Anatomy is going to be shedding light on the shadowy Owen Hunt — by introducing viewers to someone from the Army vet's past.

Playing Owen's ex-lover, TVGuide.com has learned exclusively, will be Laura Allen, whom you either know from A) Dirt, B) The 4400 or C) All My Children. Allen will guest-star in this season's 15th episode, which is shooting this week (and also marks Melissa George's final appearance as Sadie).

Kevin McKidd himself gave me the heads up on this storyline development when I ran into him at Sunday's Golden Globes after-parties. McKidd also hinted that to further explore his character, Hunt's mother or father might be cast later this season.

Okay, I haven't shared much of my new addiction to Grey's with you all on this blog yet, but if you've been following my fanfiction posting, you'll notice that I have written two fics so far, one called The Small Matter of Teaching about Cristina's apparent lack of any teaching chops whatsoever with her interns, and another called All the Befores and Afters about -- guess what? -- Owen's old girlfriend showing up at Seattle Grace. With James Wilson, of all people. Because someone needed to write a Grey's/House crossover and I'm kind of like a crossover guru right now.

So I'm kind of interested to see how this turns out. And to see if my version of Cristina's perception of Owen's previous relationships is true -- "She didn’t look like the sort of woman Cristina imagined Owen dating, but maybe the hospital gown hid that. (In her mind’s eye, Cristina always saw before-Owen dating intense, strong women who climbed mountains and ran marathons for a living, not oncologists who were basically like her except that their line of work involved less stress.)" My Before!Owen girlfriend OC is an oncologist at the University of Chicago who's a pretty chill, awesome type of girl because I think that works with Owen's former adventuresome, adreniline junkie personality. I'm not liking this Laura Allen person in this former girlfriend role because she looks like she's a bit...spiky.

And, for the record, I came up with my idea all on my own. Before this press release, in fact. You can check the dating on my fanfiction if you don't believe me. Now I'm working on expanding the All the Befores and Afters compass to include Owen and Wilson's perspectives on the situation. But it really was my idea. I just hope Shonda Rhimes and the rest of the Grey's writing crew do a good job with their version.

So I was tagged...?

...by one of my followers, catroux, and now I'm filling this out. *shrug*

4 Things I Did Today:
* Watched "My Boy Jack" based on a poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name
* Made wallpaper based on said movie, avaliable on my deviantart
* Went to the dentist and the library
* Sent out three PaperbackSwap books

4 Things On My To Do List:
* Taxes.
* Study Abroad Application to Galway, Ireland.
* Buy Wellington Boots in traditional, unobtrusive color.
* Go to COD advising office tomorrow for advice on summer courses.


4 Guilty Pleasures:

* Maple Fudge
* Writing smut. *snicker*
* Watching an entire BBC miniseries in one day
* Pro-war poetry from World War One.



4 Random Facts About Me:

* I want to learn Welsh or Gaelic.
* I could probably be categorized as having an Electra complex, as many of the actors I admire are old enough to be my father.
* I enjoy grocery shopping more than I do shopping for clothes.
* If you gave me an old piece of art, I could explain the symbolism in it to you. It's a hobby of mine.

Happy Birthday!

...To Sherlock Holmes, that is. Apparently Sir Arthur Conan Doyle decreed that on this day in 1854, one of the world's most brilliant deductive minds was born. That would make him...154 years old today. And he's still going strong, with two new movies in the works and a world of fans following his every crime-solving move. Not bad for a sesquicentenarian.

So, we have today's quotes, all from the elusive detective himself with a little help from the Quote of the Day emails. I finished reading the first part of the Holmes canon over my stay at my Aunt's house (which was wonderful, thank you for asking) and am happy that it was not so overwhelming to read Doyle that I do not remember some of these quotes.

A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to need, and the rest he can put away in the lumber room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.
- Arthur Conan Doyle, 1858 - 1930

It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
- Arthur Conan Doyle, 1858 - 1930

You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day.
- Arthur Conan Doyle, 1858 - 1930

The most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859 - 1930, Character of Sherlock Holmes

Yes, I have a turn both for observation and for deduction. The theories which I have expressed there, and which appear to you to be so chimerical are really extremely practical - so practical that I depend upon them for my bread and cheese.
Today's quotes are from the character Sherlock Holmes,
created by Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859 - 1930

Sherlock Holmes is a fascinating and endearing character, but equally fascinating and endearing is his sidekick, Dr. John Watson, a man who at the beginning of the series has just come home from Afghanistan and has need of a roommate. He finds one in Sherlock Holmes, and after that, the two become nearly inseparable. Reading "Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories (Vol. One)" over break gave me a new appreciation for these characters and for the spin offs they've spawned.

As I was reading the introduction to the particular compendium I'd chosen, one thing dawned on me -- "Watson is exactly like Wilson!" (James Wilson, Best Friend of Greg House on House MD) Then I remember that Watson is Wilson, and House is Holmes, the first bumbling, inexact, unlucky in love, several times married, and inept beside his brilliant partner while the second is brilliant, capable, removed from the world, elitist, and disdainful of the rest of the human population. But somehow we come to like Holmes and House, and as Loren D. Estleman posits in his introduction to my volume, it's because Watson's ineptitude humanizes Holmes. As his only constant friend (even Holmes' brother Mycroft doesn't get the same treatment or share the same bond) and the narrator to a great majority of his adventures, Holmes isn't quite as bad as all his characterizing adjectives would normally make him seem. (Also, having Watson narrate the chase of crime as it's happening is MUCH easier to read than Holmes recounting it afterwards, as Doyle writes in several stories. Watson's a much better story teller, anyway.)

And Watson has another function besides that of narrator and friend-- to make Holmes look better. By being there to observe a crime scene and make his own observations first, Watson makes Holmes' ridiculously detailed theories seem all the more amazing. If Watson notices that the carpet's been tred on, Holmes will note by how many men, what kind of tobacco they smoked and what size shoes they all wear. Oh, and that one of them recently suffered a wound overseas, probably in India.

I made several wallpapers over break, and one of them was of Doctor Wilson. When I had it as my background, my mother asked me, in an exasperated tone, why I liked Doctor Wilson so much. I replied, before she could give the rest of her customary argument on this one (it is an argument we have had several times -- the perils of letting your mother get hooked on the same TV show) that I liked Wilson because he is the more human of the pair, and easier to like, and becuase he is all of the things I have described him to be, bumbling, inept, specialized in only one thing while House can recite laundry lists of obscure diseases, and because, by his special influence, he makes House look better and helps House solve his cases by letting him talk the whole thing over and making some pithy remark that makes House realize something he didn't think of before. "And yes, Mom, I know that he's a terrible oncologist, but that doesn't take away from his being a fun and interesting character," I finished. My mother works with cancer statistics and patient records in Oncology, so she would know all about great oncologists, and she sort of gave me this fed-up little frown and dropped the subject.

It's a debate we've had several times, and a debate we'll probably have again, but it doesn't change my views on the subject -- Without Watson, there is no one to record Holmes' brilliant exploits and chat with him at the end of a long day chasing criminals. Without Wilson, House is just another crabby doctor pushing around his little gang of Baker Street Irregulars and bullying his patients into telling him what he needs to know. Sidekicks they may be, but important peices of the narrative quilt and necessary additions to the story.

(If you'd like to view one of my House wallpapers, you can do so at my DeviantArt Page, at the link to the side.)

The Shades of Pemberley want cleaning...

Oh, for the love of all things Austen!

Is nothing sacred any more? Are the Shades of Pemberley thus to be polluted? This is not to be BORNE!

New and Unknown

10 years after Darcy and Lizzy got married they had a son. He is about to turn 17, but then one december night a beautiful, pale skinned girl asks for a job. What will happen when he finds out she is not really human but a vampire. OOC. Twilight cross over.


I have looked at the story in question, and there are AUTHOR'S NOTES in the text! Jane Austen is in her grave weeping at the terrible disservice this thirteen year old is doing to her text! I'm sure this girl hasn't even READ Pride and Prejudice.

I want to raise an angry mob right now. Who's with me? Grab your torches and pitchforks! Or at the very least, your flaming reviews. I know when I am in a more harmonious mood I will give this girl a piece of my mind.

Taking Writing Seriously

Today I have to give a presentation of my linguistics research on fanfiction, and over the past twenty four hours when I've been composing my little speech I've presented it to several different people (My furniture got bits and pieces of it for several hours last night.) Reactions were varied, mainly because either my audience knew lots about fanfiction or nothing at all. In fact, one of the more knowledgable audiences, Mallory, said something I've never even considered before --

"Wow, you really take your fanfiction seriously, don't you?"

I realized then that writing fanfiction for me was never a question of taking it un-seriously. I've treated my work as worthy of research, worthy of investing in books I may never read and will probably not be able to use outside of my appropriative linguistic endeavors. (How many people do you know get excited over a book with a title like "What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew"? Exactly.)

So I have a bit of advice, not specifically about writing but about whatever your hobbies may be. Take them seriously. Even if you're not very good at them (and heaven knows there are better writers than me in the world) your being committed to your hobby says something about you to other people. Maybe you collect bottle caps or you make cut and paste collages from old calendars, but if you're committed to it, if you treat it seriously, then I think people have a little bit of respect for it.

And if they don't? Personally, I think that means they're jealous.

Conflict.

My paper on fanfiction vocabulary is COMPLETE! All ten pages in their fannish, appropriative glory are done.

...and then I found out this morning that someone is writing their PhD dissertation on slash, and I felt sad. But I'm not a doctoral candidate, and I had half a semester to come up with ten pages on something I only found four books on, so I think I'm in the clear here.

This news about the doctoral candidate reminds me of something else I'm working on right now -- our last unit in peace studies dealing with the topic of race. This evening I have to go over to SJU to watch a movie we started in class called "The Color Of Fear" in which eight men of varying ethnic backgrounds (two latinos, two blacks, two asians, and two whites) discuss their perceptions on race. When we stopped the movie last class, one of the black men (whose name escapes me at the moment) had just finished a rant, for lack of a better term, in response to several comments by the others on what it means to be American. In what I thought to be a brilliant peice of discourse for someone who was so angry, he outlined his displeasure in the idea that one has to "give up the hyphen" as it were to truly be American. He said that we can't all be the same, so why are we trying, and that being American is all about owning who you are, be it African American or Euro-American.

I won't hide the fact that by the time he was finished, I was crying. Reading my online blog will probably not have given you the sense that I am by nature a very emotional person, especially when it comes to problems I know I can't solve but want to anyway. My problem with this issue is this -- I have always felt either way I approach 'a minority issue' if we can call it that, if I connect with the issues presented to me I will be considered patronizing, and if I don't connect I will be considered racist. Either way, I lose.

This is not the first time Peace Studies has made me feel this way -- When we were reading "Beloved" earlier in the semester, I faced the same problem, addressed on this blog in "An All-Seeing Eye: The Big Other in The Bluest Eye". I had read Toni Morrison before and had run into the problem of not liking "Beloved." I had a hard time coming out and saying that because I could be seen as racist. On the other hand, I had a hard time coming out and saying that the power and emotion in "The Bluest Eye" struck me in ways that I have not been struck before because I might be seen as patronizing --

Pre-conditioned responses have already been embedded into my system, and apparently one of them is to step away any time a black author tries to involve me in the shared feeling of remorse and say "But I'm not on the same level as you."

This is troublesome indeed, and I'm not entirely sure I know how to solve that. On the one hand, it is true -- not being picked for the kickball team is by no means the same as being rejected from the social network of your classroom by your peers because you are black and do not look like the beauty ideal of Shirley Temple in any way, as Pecola is in The Bluest Eye.

I feel the same way about Toni Morrison's writing as I do about slash fanfiction. While I've been doing my research, I kept coming across information that told me that female fanfiction writers write slash to break away from the hetrosexual-centric culture and reclaim agency and writing space for themselves. It sounds epic and exciting and revolutionary...and I'm not part of it. I'm a female fanfiction writer. I've never written a piece of slash fanfic in my life. I'm part of the group of writers reaffirming the social norm in their writing. And for some reason, that makes me feel bad. Why can't I be part of the majority and enjoy it? It's not that I look down on the minority, that I consider their expieriences less valid and important than my own, it's that I like it where I am. I'm being guilt-tripped into thinking that just because I enjoy Jane Eyre, whose main character is allowed to exist and prosper because her colonial sister Bertha is repressed by the system of British Imperialism, I am a bad person.

Why?

And perhaps more importantly, what do I do now?

All I want for Christmas...

...is a Templar plushie!

Is that or is that not one of the cutest things ever? Completely pointless, and not what I really want for Christmas (Wellington boots, for those of you family members who occasionally check this blog, MOM) but worth mentioning.

If you actually want to buy one, and this woman's work is amazing (Plushie Viking, anyone?) you should check out her blog here --

http://herzensart.blogspot.com/

And while we're in the business of discussing Templars, I should at some point this weekend update Song of a Peacebringer. It's finals week in two weeks and my schoolwork is slowly determined to crush the life out of me, one ten page paper at a time.

Vindication

I have just heard Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey Maturin novels described as "The Novels Jane Austen would have written if she had written about her brothers in the Navy rather than her sisters."

This completely legitimizes my crossover of the two. I feel vindicated.

And in the mood to read my copy of M&C, which is currently at home. Curses.

Holmes behind the Hat -- Halloween and buying into Stereotypes

As many of you know, I was Sherlock Holmes for Halloween, which was a fun and exciting time, especially since everyone recognized me in my distinctive (and wonderfully inexpensive) costume. See? Don't I look wonderful?

But before I went out with my wonderful halloween crew of freinds, who had equally amazing and non-commercially produced costumes, I couldn't help thinking about the nature of the character I was playing. Holmes enthusiasts will probably be quick to tell you that my costume isn' t a thing like what Holmes was portrayed as in the books.

For starters, there's the pipe and the hat. The hat, the infamous Deerstalker that one cannot picture without putting Holmes' famous noggin underneath it, is never mentioned in the short stories -- reference is made to some type hunting cap, but not necessarily the deer stalker.

The pipe, also, is a mistake -- Holmes' drug of choice was opium, although he did smoke a little, and the distinctive calabash pipe, which I did not have, was introduced by one of the many actors to play Holmes because he wanted something that wouldn't interfere with his diction. My pipe (which I do not actually smoke) was borrowed from my grandfather, a relic of his father-in-law. Over the course of the night, I discovered that the pipe is a wonderfully expressive prop, and one that I will certainly use again if the owner does not ask for its return. Perhaps next Halloween I'll use it for JRR Tolkien or a Dead Poets Society Member or something. That would be fun.

The coat he probably would have worn, although mine is sans the capelet that characterized men's outwear of the period (the historical details I give up when I shop at thrift stores) and the shoes and pants, of course, were straight of my closet, and not a Saville row haberdashery.

It's interesting to see how images of popular culture figures evolve. IMDb tells me that no less than 40 actors have played Holmes, including Christopher Lee and Christoper Plummer, the latest of whom will be Robert Downey, Jr, with Jude Law standing in for the estimable Dr. John Watson --

(As a fangirly aside, I would let that duo investigate me any day of the week. Ditto to James D'Arcy's Holmes from the 2002 "Sherlock" regardless of how plotless the actual movie was...)

But 40 actors and 200 movies point to some kind of allure in Holmes' character. (I am going to fervantly deny the existence of whatever ridiculous hack job Will Farrell and Sasha Baron Cohen are going to make of everyone's favorite dective stories.) And certainly I cannot forget that my own favorite TV duo, House and Wilson, take no small influence from Conan-Doyle's works. What is it about Holmes that makes him so endearing? Is it the brilliant, aloof way he solves crime? The rapier sharp wit that is so quick to belittle anyone who doesn't understand him? Or is it just that misattributed hat and calabash pipe that has fixed him in our literary conciousness?

I think that's a question only Holmes himself could find the answer to. I'll stick to exploring the depths of unanswered questions in my fanfiction. And knowing me, that will probably involve Watson and some class of damsel in distress as soon as that movie comes out...

Jingo-Lingo: Doublespeak, Fanfiction Vocabulary, and the limits of language

Noam Chomsky is trying to take over my life.

No, I am completely serious! He has shown up in every single one of my classes this semester, and that is an accomplishment, considering every single class I'm taking is from a different department. He's a linguist, which meant we read his thoughts for Linguistics (duh) on how languages are structured, in my Human Development class on how children acquire language, and in my Communications class on how we use language in advertising. Today he came up in Peace Studies because he is a political activist and theorist as well and we were reading an article of his on terrorism.

But today in Peace Studies we discussed something else that Mr. Chomsky would probably have a few thoughts about-- doublespeak, or the particular brand of language used by the government and by other various bureaucracies to make whatever they intend to say unintelligible to the average joe. And of course, I thought back to linguistics and my research project, which is on another type of lingo -- the vocabulary of fanfiction.

Just like doublespeak or the less confusing academic language of, say, chemistry, fanfiction vocabulary is an attempt to make what we do as authors seem like legitimate discourse as well as create the same barrier as doublespeak does, veiling us in our own elite little world of Mary sues and crossovers and canon 'shipping. By using these terms, we establish our experience level and our authority within our discipline the same way a chemist uses terms like valence electrons, hydrogen bonds and heterogenous solutions to show that he, too, knows what he is talking about rather than referring vaguely to the structures of atoms or mixtures of liquids that have differing properties. And chemists and goverment officials aren't the only ones using confusing langauge -- English speakers employ euphemisms, those phrases that drive translators wild with annoyance, every day of the week.

This is from my introduction so far:

The scene is a familiar one to anyone who reads on a regular basis – it is the last page of the novel you’ve been dying for months to read since you heard your favorite author was publishing again, and as you finish the final words, you can’t help feeling a sense of disappointment. That wasn’t the way you wanted the book to end at all! The hero was flat, the love interest was transparent, and there were entire scenes that needed to be explained! If you were writing the book, you would have definitely included more, like a chapter explaining how all the characters met each other. Most people never follow up on these notions of re-writing or filling in their favorite novels, but for a small community of writers, that idea forms the basis of their entire creative output. It’s called fanfiction, and it’s been around for hundreds of years, almost since the printing press created a mass market for books. These authors use texts ranging from Jane Austen to the latest comic book series as their source material, and their aim is simple – to write stories based on characters people already connect with for the purpose of improving their own writing and filling in gaps in the original stories. Since the advent of the Internet and sites that allow readers and writers around the globe to establish communities, fanfiction has grown dramatically, and as this style has grown in popularity, it has developed its own unique language, a codified and agreed-upon set of terms and vocabulary to help connect within the community and establish legitimacy among its members. Fanfiction is written with the aim of creating agency, space, and identity for its writers, and these three motives help explain why the vocabulary of fanfiction exists as well as why it is structured the way it is.

As you can see, it's going to be a riveting paper. But one of the other things the movie we watched in Peace Studies today discussed was how language, as well as how people use language, significantly impacts how we view the world. Jacques Derrida discusses this in one of his writings, talking about how using our language to discuss the way we use language is by the very nature of the proposition a play doomed to failure. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis posits that different languages formulate different trains of thought, that if a language has more than one word for snow the people speaking the language will, of course, be more aware of snow.

Certainly this could be true with doublespeak. By using a disconnected doublespeak, we in turn disconnect ourselves from war, rearrange our thought process and make war more palatable -- an enemy solidier is easier to kill if he remains nameless and becomes Jerry, Gook, or Victor Charlie, a manufactured propaganda face with a leering grin and beady little eyes set on destroying the American way of life. We're not fighting a war, we're peacekeeping, and don't even think about calling them casulties. Talk about the body count instead, or the butcher's bill, if you're fighting in the South Pacific on a 19th century ship of the line. Using doublespeak can hinder our ability to look objectively at war.

But fanfiction vocabulary does the opposite of doublespeak-- it seeks to open up and delve further into an artistic endeavor by making new words (or rearranging old ones) to better explain the unique animal of fanfiction writing. Mainstream writing doesn't need a word for the advocacy of a relationship between these two people or those two people, but fanfiction does, so we have shipping, a clipping of 'relationship' that's been turned into a verb, an appropriative vocab word for an appropriative art. My thought process is shaped by those words, but the very fact that they are new and that I have allowed them into my vocabulary speaks to my ability to influence by own thought process. It's not that we're more aware of snow becuase we have more words for it -- it's because we needed to be more aware that we came up with more words.

Fascinating world we live in, isn't it?

Rocking the Regency

I have discovered a treasure.

Regency Dress Up Doll by *savivi on deviantART

This woman is AMAZING-- I have had far too much fun designing Fanny and Charlotte Aubrey--

And Georgiana, who is so much fun. I am by no means an Austen purist, and I am not ashamed to admit that I really liked Tamzin Merchant in Joe Wright's 2005 Version. She was very...impish, which is a quality that suited her, I thought.Those of you familiar with Thackeray will recognize Georgiana's title -- in my fanfic she's married to Marquess of Steyne, his second marriage and her first. I've also now only just realized that she should be a Marchioness. *shrug* The vagaries of rank and style.

I had fun doing myself, too...


But the fun didn't stop there-- she has one for our favorite heroes, too!

Regency Hero Dress Up Doll by *savivi on deviantART

Which meant, of course, that I had to do Richard Hornblower, George Darcy and Phil Norrington as well....Aren't they dashing? I gave George a dog, though he doesn't have one in my story... Perhaps he should get one now.

And you should all go read Husbands and Lovers now. It has so few reviews. Please, even unhappy reviews would be appreciated, too...

Husbands and Lovers, a Napoleonic Wars Crossover of Epic Proportions

Updates!

And, after a nightmarish two weeks of school work piled on top of school work, piled on top of the Minnesota weather beginning to act like the minnesota weather and making it really hard for me to type some days, we have LE UPDATE.

We have, in no particular order,

New chapter from Mercury Gray,

Category: Kingdom of Heaven
Title: Song of a Peacebringer
Chapter: 13
Chapter Title: Chapter 13
Genre: Drama/Adventure
Rating: Fiction Rated: T
Summary: Trying to escape a life with no prospects, a young woman sets sail for the Holy Land not knowing what she will find there. Armed with her brother Gregory's advice and a modicum of courage, Audemande of Vinceaux tries to make the most of Jerusalem.

URL: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4400318/13/

and a new story! I've been working on this one for a while, and I finally finished it this weekend.

New story from Mercury Gray,

Category: Kingdom of Heaven
Title: Gardens of Paradise
Genre: Drama/Spiritual
Rating: Fiction Rated: K+
Summary: While in Jerusalem, Nasir Imad Al Din meets a fellow poet in the gardens of the Citadel of David, and has a lengthy discussion about gardening, poetry, and God.

URL: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4656923/1/

and another new story, too -- this one is a Grey's Anatomy fanfic -- new territory for me! check it out and see what you think!

New story from Mercury Gray,

Category: Grey's Anatomy
Title: The Small Matter of Teaching
Genre: Drama/Humor
Rating: Fiction Rated: K+
Summary: After Chief Webber notices Christina's non-existent teaching skills, everyone's favorite perfectionist gets a wake-up call from a patient of hers on how exactly to deal with the small matter of teaching.
URL: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4656438/1/

Now, after that massive outpouring of creative energy, I have to go work and attempt to write a four to five double spaced page essay on the impact the Bible and the Printing press have had on the evolution of English. Ah, Linguistics class, I love you so.

But really? Really?

The Long, Long Trail -- Thoughts on the Evolution of the Identity of Armistice Day

Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen cold
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head....
You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.

-The Dugout, by Siegfreid Sassoon, from The War Poems, 1919

First off, Happy Armistice Day, everyone! I know most Americans are probably thinking, "Merc, where has your head gone? It's Veteran's Day, you ninny!"

And you'd be right. Today is, technically, Veteran's Day. Has been since 1954. But in 1919, per an order from then-president Woodrow Wilson, today was Armistice Day, because on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, peace was declared between the allied powers of England, Russia, France, and Italy and the Central Powers of Germany, Austria, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. On the eleventh day of the eleventh month at the eleventh hour, people around the country would gather to celebrate the end of the war that was supposed to end all wars, the last gasp of a dying style of warfare and the first breath of the beginning of another.

Never again would the enemy be a man you could forget your differences with and play a game of soccer in no-man's land with, as with the Christmas Truce of 1914. Weapons could shoot further, more accurately, and with increased effect. You were removed from the man you were killing with shells and gas and later, napalm and missiles, weapons that would be fired from far off so that the effect was never seen by the man doing the firing. It became a common tactic to make your enemy into something less than human -- Jerry, gook, Victor Charlie -- so it was even easier to kill him.

Armistice Day used to be a day to celebrate peace -- that's what the original act to make it a national holiday stated. "A day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as 'Armistice Day'."

In 1953, someone decided we needed a day to celebrate veterans, and another act of Congress changed Armistice Day into Veterans Day. I agree that veterans have a right to be celebrated, for the sacrifices they make are great and worthy of remembrance, but did they have to take the one day out of the year that was designated to remembering the cause of peace?

You're probably wondering why I'm writing about this on a blog dedicated to writing. World War One was the Great War -- it inspired a generation of writers, Fitzgerald, Remarque and Hemingway among them, and dozens of poets who brought to life in words that remain with us today the horrors of what war could do. Sassoon, Owen, Brooke, and other less famous names wrote about what they saw daily in the trenches, and told thier families it shouldn't happen again.

"If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin...
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
the old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori," Wilfred Owen wrote bitterly in one of the most famous war poems of that era, "Dulce Et Decorum Est," or "It is Sweet and Right." Owen could find nothing sweet and right about war, and neither could many of his comrades. World War One was supposed to end all wars because it was brutal and too many good, young man died uselessly, trying to move lines yards at a time instead of miles.

So today, while you are celebrating the men and women who gave their lives, their fortunes, and thier sacred honor, to paraphrase the Declaration of Independence, to the cause of America, please take a moment to remember the Armistice, and remember that the goal of all wars should ultimately be peace, and the removal of the need for more conflict.

I'm going to end this post with one of my favorite poems by my favorite hometown poet, Carl Sandberg. I think it deals very well with the cause of peace, and the necessity of it. It is entitled simply "Grass."

PILE the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass;
I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

Tinged with Thought of Suicide -- National Novel Writing Month

"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." - William Somerset Maugham



Ah, W.S. Maugham. How witty you were. Are. Continue to be. It's always a funny thing to try and refer to an author or an author's work, becuase while they may be dead, as is the case with the author of "The Painted Veil" and "Of Human Bondage," their works are still very much living, attaining a new life every time thier covers are cracked open. In that way, writers seem to be immortal, continuously in the present tense.



And that immortality is what many participents are probably striving for as NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, begins. I applaud the intrepid souls who are starting out on this suicidally tinged quest for greatness -- I once tried in the 9th grade, got 8 thousand words in and decided it was hopeless. Now I have my heart set on being a teacher, a much more marketable use for an English Degree. If that falls through, I plan on becoming a librarian, in the hopes that I may someday help a handsome ex-pat break out of jail, go gallivanting through the desert in search of buried treasure, and be able to explain, while in a somewhat inebriated state, "Mr. O'Connell, I may not be an adventurer, or...or an explorer...but I am proud of what I am! I...am a Librarian."

Additonal props to anyone who knows what movie that's from.



For those of you not familiar with NaNo, let me elaborate -- NaNoWriMo is a contest, of sorts, in which aspiring novelists across the country commit themselves to writing 50,000 words in one month. 30 days.



As I mentioned before, tinged with thoughts of suicide. Especially if you're a full time student like me. Which is why I am staying far, far away from it and contenting myself with one small, insignificant fanfic at a time.



Props to all of you crazy people, though. I hope W.S. Maugham's three rules occur to you some time in the midst of your word churning. Who knows -- perhaps this time someone may actually write them down.

On a Stack of Bibles

I've just returned from my Linguistics class field trip, and I am nothing short of flabbergasted. You who sit in front of your computer screens reading this post are probably wondering a) what was so exciting about linguistics or b) why a college class was going on a field trip.

Allow me to elaborate. My professor, who is an august and amazing man, takes our class for little excursions around Saint Ben's and Saint John's to show off what an amazing school we go to and introduce us to cool and nifty people around our campuses. Our field trip today was to the Hill Museum and Manuscript library, which I've talked about before on this blog ("Paperback Swap Status, September 10th")

Specfically, we were going to the HMML to hear a presentation about the Saint John's Bible Project, the nearly 13 year project to script, illustrate, and illuminate a bible, in English, using midieval techniques. I'm telling you people, it is a thing awesome to behold. The books (there are going to be seven volumes to this behemoth when it's completed) are going to be about 14 inches wide by two and a half feet tall, a size appropriate to our Abbey Church, which is huge inside --

That honeycomb you see behind what we call the Banner -- that's also the largest stained glass window in Minnesota, possibly the world, I don't remember. The structure is also entirely poured concrete, which is just amazing when you think about how big it is. You can't see this by looking at the picture, but the Abbey church is right on the top of a hill, and it's one of the first things you see when you get off the highway and start approaching Saint John's. It's really cool -- and the guy who designed the church, Marcel Bruer, he's world famous.

But back to the Bible and the HMML. Donald Jackson (who is apparently a BIG DEAL in the world of calligraphy) expressed an interest in writing a 20th century bible and asked the monks of Saint John's if they would like to be associated with the project. They said yes, and the Saint John's Bible was born.

If you are ever in Collegeville, Minnesota, or if you hear that it will be touring near you, go see it. It's beautiful. In fact, it's so amazing the Pope has a copy. That's right. The Pope. Brother Dietrich, the President of Saint John's, traveled to Rome in April of this year and presented it to him. This book is so important the Vatican Library gets a copy. I think that's all seven kinds of awesome, right there.

But I also learned something else today. I learned that the HMML, which resides right underneath the library where I do my homework on Tuesday afternoons, across the lawn from that Abbey Church, is one of the largest collections of medieval manuscripts from across the world, some THREE MILLION pages on microfilm, comprising about one-hundred thousand volumes, most of them from the Middle East.

Are you all jealous yet? Because you should be.

I go to school at two colleges comprised of some four thousand students, in the middle of nowhere in Minnesota, and we have a collection of old books that is so unique scholars from all over the world come to study them. I wrote about one of them in that previous blog post I mentioned earlier.

I think that's something to be proud of. My school is famous the world over for preserving books, books that now, in addition to microfilm, can also be accessed online through the Vivarium, here. For the one hundred and fifty years that Saint John's Abbey and the Monastery of Saint Benedict have been in Minnesota, we've been focused on teaching, learning, and preserving heritage, things that are all still alive in our traditions today.

And I am. I am very, very proud of that.

Thoughts on NBC’s Crusoe

(An alternative title considered for this post was "Let's Po-Mo the Mo-Fo!" but I didn't think many readers would approve. I, on the other hand, found it hilarious, and felt like sharing it anyway.)

So NBC debuted their new fall series Crusoe, and I, like many period piece aficionados, was very excited. I had the premiere date written on my calendar since I found out about the show, because I, like many other women in my age bracket, find most of the male cast of this show undeniably hot.

Now who DOESN'T want a piece of that?

But unlike most of the other women who tuned in on Friday night, I took the time to read the source material first, because I am an English Major, and I can do things like that. I wrote a killer, kick-butt blog post when I finished reading Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe back in September, and then Blogger deleted it in a series of unfortunate and regrettable events, so I’m starting over from scratch.

First off, I’d like to point out that the copy of Robinson Crusoe I was reading was last checked out of our library in 1970, so it’s not as though this book is making the rounds. Daniel Defoe is not Stephanie Meyer, if you know what I mean. In fact, he’s not even Samuel Jonson, whose book is just about as boring and still gets use. (That’s Samuel Jonson’s DICTIONARY, for you bibliophiles in the crowd) Defoe’s tale is full of self-righteousness and morality, and his protagonist is a Puritanical merchant who, despite the fact that he’s trapped on an island, decides he’s going to institute a rigorous work ethic, tame the wilderness, and never drink the rum he’s been left with unless it’s an emergency.

(I considered writing a fanfic where Jack Sparrow gets marooned on this same island and he and Crusoe have a terrible arguement, but then I realized no one aside from me would find that funny, and I demurred.)

Basically, he’s a stick in the mud who doesn’t remember how to live a little. And you wonder, after reading this story with Crusoe’s religious conversion of sorts and his detailed descriptions of what went on every day (“Today I caught a goat and plan to find another to make a herd…”), how on earth is NBC going to make this into a TV show that people are actually going to want to watch?

I’ve answered that question already – make Crusoe undeniably hot even after he’s been marooned on this island for years, scrap the idea that he’s going around in a weird hat made out of goatskin (a la the illustration here) and make his house the most awesome place on the planet. (Did you see his juicer? It was the BOMB! I want to get myself stranded on his island just to make him OJ in the morning!)

But after you’ve solved the problem of making the protagonist sexy, there’s still that nagging issue of plot. That one’s also simple – Add pirates! Make no never mind that the pirates in Defoe don’t come in until the last hundred pages.

In short, it was a post-modern extravaganza of updating and tweaking. No longer does Crusoe merely eek out his living on the island, waiting for a ship to one day enter his little world – he’s actively campaigning to get off and return to his lovely wife, Susannah. Friday’s been updated, too – he’s not just a savage who doesn’t know how to speak in complete sentences, but a great friend and companion for Crusoe, to the point of brotherhood, and a linguistic genius who ‘took six months’ to learn English and ‘can make himself understood’ in 12 different tongues. This Friday really is the embodiment of that great and lasting friendship that scholars seem to think exists between Crusoe and Friday, and he really is Crusoe’s equal, on occasion even his superior, saving his life and pointing out, in his witty, endearing way, that sometimes Crusoe does some pretty stupid stuff. (Did I mention Friday’s pretty hot as well? NBC did a good job casting this thing – Even Crusoe’s dad, the indomitable Sean Bean --one of my first celebrity crushes-- is looking pretty fine.)

It’s interesting to observe what needs to be changed to make the story resonate with today’s modern viewers. Morals don’t play a role in this tale as much as they do in Defoe’s version, and the work ethic that he so carefully outlines with the daily toils of his narrator never seemed to enter the picture in NBC’s version. Crusoe needs a reason to get off the island, so he’s married off to the daughter of a prosperous cooper. Friday can be the post-colonial black guy and be smart for a change, and of course, because Crusoe is on an island must mean he’s having adventures instead of wrangling sheep or talking to his volleyball friend named Wilson.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m glad they changed it. Crusoe is much more enjoyable without that silly hat and the ridiculous beard. The pirates are funny, and add interesting dimension to the narrative. Reading the original Friday was painful to my 21^st century sensibilities, and Tongai Chirisa’s rendering is much cooler to listen to and watch. (And did I mention he's good looking? Becuase the thought did cross my mind once or twice.)

So after a few episodes, you’ll probably see a little notice on this blog saying that I have post modernized the post modern Crusoe and have begun writing a fanfic of some kind. It’ll probably make Defoe turn over in his grave, but somehow, I’m okay with that.

At least I’m not writing fanfic on Jonson’s Dictonary.

Not for Want of Connection

It's amazing how small the world becomes as I sit in front of my computer. I sit here and find out that a girl in Manchester whose writing I adore has read the same book as I have and had the same revelations and I don't even know her name. And she wants to know what I write on this blog. I think that's pretty awesome. (That's Petit Parapluie, for those wondering -- she owns me at writing. Seriously. No joke. I don't joke about talent.)

I sit here and look for books on my research project on Irish Rebel Music and find out that there are maybe five books in the whole world written on that particular subject and that the resources I need won't even come from the state of Minnesota. Some of them only reside in universities in Canada and Ireland. One of the texts I'd like only lives in the library at Cambridge University.

THE Cambridge University. In England. The famous one.

My other research project for this semester is going to be on fanfiction vocabulary, and that's such a new topic there are also maybe three books in the world on it, (three published books, that is) and that amazes me. I'm going to write a paper on something that few people in the world have considered worthy of scholarly study.

I'm blazing a trail here. My librarian assures me that this is the stuff of masters theses.

And this boggles my mind. I've got friends in places I haven't even seen, freinds I've never met and probably never will. I'm doing something that other people haven't done. My world is becoming so much wider, and all I've done is sat here, in front of my computer.

Imagine what will happen when I leave my room, my campus, my homeland -- what possibilities await me there!

Updates!

Okay, haven't done one of these in a while. An update post!

A new chapter of "Song of a Peacebringer" has been posted on FF.net -- you can read it here.

I've also, in the spirit of non- eurocentric thinking, posted a new story about Saladin, The Final Checkmate:

New story from Mercury Gray,

Category: Kingdom of Heaven

Title: The Final Checkmate

Genre: Drama/General

Rating: Fiction Rated: K+

Summary: After Salahuddin's battle against Reynald de Chatillion at Kerak is stopped and both armies have gone home, Salahuddin plays chess with Nasir and explains his strategy.

URL: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4574746/1/

I've also begun a ROME fanfic, based on the HBO series. Unfortunately, because of the nature of ROME, the story is an MA rating (mature audiences) and I can't archive it on ff.net, so we're probably looking at putting that on hms_mercury under a cut with an explicit content rating.