Rather Predictable That

BitchBuzz: Mashing Jane

My latest column for BitchBuzz is actually a book review. I must say I had fun writing it. More fun than the book. Even better, BitchBuzz is now part of the Glam Media network, so there's hope this leads to bigger and better things for the whole BB crew:

There's something to be said for injecting new life into a mouldering corpse, as both Mary Shelley and Herbert West knew. However, it is usually best to wait until the body actually dies. While Jane Austen may not be dancing a hornpipe these days, her legacy is as sprightly as ever.

I know this book, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters -- and the one that preceded it and the ones that will inevitably follow it like mutant spawn or enchanted brooms -- is really at heart just a mash note of fondness for everyone's favourite Regency babe, but like the tentacled Colonel Brandon the Dashwoods first meet in its pages, it is difficult not to look away with a grimace.

Remember when mash-ups first hit? Wasn't it cool to hear "Paperback Believer" and "Smells Like Booty" or um, that one with Cher? Well, for about five minutes or so, it was cool. Video mash-ups, too -- they were popular for a while....

As always, peruse the rest over at BBHQ.

I should also mention my other publication this week, also a review, of Faust: My Soul Be Damned for the World by E. A. Bucchianeri in the Journal of Folklore Research. It's a two volume set all about Faust (for those of you who can't get enough of the mad necromancer).

I've got more guest bloggers coming up; hope you're enjoying the special Women's History Month celebration. It's wonderful to be able to celebrate the multi-talented women I know -- and the women they admire and find inspiring. Men like 'em, too!

Jane Quiet: Fashion Icon?

Ah, the randomness of the internet! This post on Polyvore showed up on my Google search for Jane Quiet. No idea who this user is or what prompted them to choose Jane, but it's kind of cool (especially the raven ring!), though Jane would never wear those shoes. You can't chase demons in those heels.

Jane Quiet : Occult Investigator by mangoweb featuring Yves Saint Laurent

Items in this set:
M. MARANI M17006 BLACK WOOL -, 255 GBP
Underwear - Boyshorts - New - Gift Guide - Cooler Than You - Elle..., $35
Tribute Suede Pumps, 485 GBP
Crocodile Scarf, Yves Saint Laurent, 450 GBP
Clay-Pot - PYRRHA- Truth Pendant, $125

BitchBuzz: Jane Austen Writes

My BB column this week revisits the Jane Austen exhibit at the Morgan which I enjoyed so much last week (and yes, the William Blake exhibit is still on for a few more weeks). It's such a delight to see Jane's own handwriting and little pieces of her life gathered together for this exhibit, which offers a good sense of the Regency period in which she lived:

Through March of next year, the Morgan Library & Museum in NYC features an excellent exhibit, "A Woman's Wit: Jane Austen's Life and Legacy" which contains her handwritten script of Lady Susan as well as many letters, mostly written to her beloved sister Cassandra, and other personal effects.

While it seems impossible that we don't know everything there is to know about Jane (which isn't as much as most fans would like), it's a revelation to see so much written in her own hand.

Sure, there's the fannish squee of being so close to something Jane herself touched (then again, I'm a medievalist who shed a tear upon seeing for the first time the one and only Beowulf manuscript), but it's also an intimate window on the world in which she lived: one where paper was so precious that she used up every bit of surface area in her letters by writing across her own lines with further perpendicular lines (known as "cross-hatching")...

As usual, you can read the rest at BB HQ. Please help spread the news be retweeting, sharing and linking here!

Happy Birthday, Jane

Get your Jane on: be devastatingly witty in a gentle tone so no one feels the knife's blade. Who but a genius could invent the delightful Henry Tilney and Elinor Dashwood?

From Austen's pen:

"I will not say that your mulberry-trees are dead, but I am afraid they are not alive."

"People always live forever when there is an annuity to be paid them."

"There are people who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves."

"A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."

Becoming Elinor Dashwood

We are moving again; at least this time, it's only about 10 miles. Nonetheless, it will be (as always) difficult. Even more so because we are moving into town and, necessarily, into a smaller place (that's city life). On the plus side, the apartment is three blocks from my office and includes heat and water. That means savings in gas as well as money. It's a lovely little apartment and very light. Four closets -- in contrast to the one we share at present. No attic and no shed, however, which will prove a challenge.

I have decided that I must approach this as Elinor Dashwood would. The heroine of Austen's Sense and Sensibility provides the perfect model (appearing above in the fabulous paper doll version by Legacy Pride). We must simply do without a lot. Part one: go to Connecticut and get everything out of storage later this month (probably the 17th). Be ruthless: we will need a storage place here, but we want to unload things we could not convince ourselves to abandon when we moved to Texas. We'll be able to get some of the books that we could not take with us then and swap out some that we do not need at present.

I have a feeling those stairs up to the third floor will make some choices easier.

To seal my fate, I took the requisite on-line quiz which persuades me that I am in fact inclined in that direction:

Take the Quiz here!

Not Becoming (to) Jane

Normally, I would be all excited about a new film touching on Jane Austen's life. She's one of the greatest writers who ever lived. If you haven't read her and you think you know anything about her books, you're mistaken. Read her. That's all I can say.

But Becoming Jane is a movie starring Brooklyn-born Anne Hathaway.

Yes -- another movie that suggests we can't quite believe Britons playing Britons (Zellweger-itis), as well as one that also suggests we can't imagine a writer writing anything but what they have lived, and of course, that no woman can actually do anything without a man to point the way, to give her the incentive and to provide a reason for living.

Bleh.

But don't take my word for it; head on over to the AustenBlog for an earful.

[Thanks to BlogHer for leading me to it.]