Review: Dotter of her Father's Eyes

I've talked about this book so much, I assumed I had already reviewed it somewhere, but no. Bloomsday seems the right day to do so at last. I considered spending Bloomsday in Dublin -- being in Ireland after all -- but when I thought about the six hours I'd have to spend traveling back and forth, I thought Galway's the perfect place to spend the day writing. I will go on my own wander about town later.

Mary and Bryan Talbot's Dotter of her Father's Eyes offers the very finest graphic storytelling: a compelling and complex narrative that relies on the magic interplay of words and pictures. It's a book full of visual delights: the design shows such attention to detail, from the end papers to the three intertwining narratives rendered in different but complementary styles. If you've read other works by Bryan, that's precisely what you've come to expect.

I was going to say I hadn't been familiar with Mary's writing before this, but of course it turns out I had, as she's written quite a lot on gender, language and consumer culture. I just hadn't connected the Talbot names! This is Mary's story of her childhood, of remembering her childhood and how she's sees it through the prism of Lucia Joyce's life because her father, James Atherton, was a prominent Joycean.

Lucia's life is a heartbreaking one; there are parallels between their lives -- headstrong daughters butting heads with their famous (and equally willful) fathers. But the contrasts are perhaps more important and show why Talbot achieves success and happiness while Lucia ends so tragically. Part of the difference is time: women's lives have improved despite the continuing madness of retrograde morons. Part too is due to finding a true partner: the book itself shows the beauty of that relationship, but the story brings it to life. Ultimately, the power of creation -- and the horrifying effects of having that human need crushed -- offers the most powerful beacon.

Exquisite art: there's such beauty here, but the most harrowing images seared my brain: Robin's birth and Lucia's "dance" in the sanatorium. It's an incredibly moving story with a lot of sorrow, but ultimately reaffirming. You'll treasure it.

Buy it by clicking the picture below. Visit Mary's site and Bryan's too.

HB MES and Publications

Back from a fantastic trip to P-Con. With luck I can get a con report up soon, but I have to give a talk to the digital humanities doctoral students at the Moore Institute tomorrow, so I better get that completed first. Many thanks to Pádraig, Catie, Deirdre and all the organisers as well as to Maura for taking me under her wing, the lovely Sarah for all the laughs, Suzanne and Juliet for great craic, the Talbots for my signed copy of Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, John Connolly for buying us all dinner, the tango dancers for giving us a cause -- oh, and so much more. Anon.

My publication: I have a piece "Before the Watchmen Palaver" in the latest issue of Drink Tank (309). The editors have turned the entire issue over to discussion of the proposed Watchmen prequels. There's a wonderful and terribly unsettling cover, too. Read the full issue in PDF form here: it includes Pádraig and Laura Sneddon, too. Thanks, James, for asking me to contribute. UPDATE: I don't think I remembered to post yet that the collection that includes my essay on reading Lost Girls as post-Sadeian text is also out:



Last but very much not least, fifty-five years ago in a dark corner of Manchester, the lighting flashed, the skies opened up and Mark E. Smith was born. All right, I'm only guessing about the lightning and rain, but it's bound to be likely. My muse, my role model (LOL) -- well, he has inspired me in several stories of late and what better example of sticking to your guns and succeeding on your own terms do you need? So while I might post perennial favourites like "Bill is Dead" or "Touch Sensitive" or "Tempo House" I'll share this instead for those not yet up to speed on The Fall or if you'd prefer a story, snuggle in for storytime with MES and Lovecraft.

P-Con Bound

Heading back to Dublin today for P-Con; looking forward to seeing friends and meeting new folks. Mary and Bryan Talbot will be signing Dotter of her Father's Eyes at Forbidden Planet and I believe Pádraig said there'd be drinks after. Looking forward to more plotting with Maura and I'm on some panels that ought to be interesting.

The schedule here; my bits include:

SAT

12.00 -12.50: Myth and Folklore in a Modern World
KA Laity, Ruth F Long, Peadar Ó Guilín, Brian J Showers

17.00 -17.50: Who Really Needs an Editor? Quality Control in an Internet Age
KA Laity, Ian McDonald, and Peadar Ó Guilín ponder on what an editor brings to a book, and how to find something good to read in a jungle of misspellings and bad punctuation. 

SUN

11.00 – 11.50: Crowdsourcing and Other Alternative Funding Models
If you want to make money out of your writing, what other alternatives are open to you besides getting a publisher to take your book? With KA Laity, CE Murphy, and Brian J Showers.

16.00 - 16.50: Managing Social Media: Pros & Pitfalls
KA Laity, Alan Nolan, Sarah Pinborough, Brian J Showers

Hope it will go well. Doubtless I will write it up. In the meantime, here's some photos from last weekend's trip to Dublin with Robert.

Know-vember: Miss Wendy

You knew she would be here: the Patsy to my Edina, she of the big hair, former Elf-Queen (and survivor of many a medieval play), southern gal supreme, Mechademia Submissions editor, connoisseur of Jack Daniels and hostess of the Rosh Hashanah Ragin' Kegger and Toga Parties -- Miss Wendy! I am so happy to know that Miss Wendy will be in Ireland after Xmas and this island nation will never be the same again if we have anything to say about it. Wendy reminded me that we were together last New Year's Eve, too, when I visited her in the home of Faulkner. Ringing in another year -- where will we be in another year's time?! Who can say? :-)

1. What's the first thing you do upon waking in the morning?

Well, this morning I cursed out Pumpkin, my cat, who decided to howl, run laps around the house, and play with what I thought was not a noisy toy at 5:00 this morning (two hours before my alarm). Most mornings, I open a coffee can, savor the smell of the grinds, and make a very strong cup of coffee.

2. What's a song you might be persuaded to dance to?

I am not averse to dancing and have danced to many songs in my life -- some of which I am not proud. I can always be persuaded to dance to a Ramones song.

3. Where in the world do you live?


In my mind, in my house, in the city of Oxford, Mississippi, in the Southern United States, in North America, in the West, on Earth, third planet out.

4. What's a great night out for you?

Dinner at a restaurant in the Latin Quarter, Paris; off-Broadway play in New York; moonlight trip in a rowboat on the Vltava in Prague; and finally late night karaoke with my friends in Tokyo. (I've done three of four. Any one of them would be a wonderful night out).

5. What's a great night in?


Martinis and kung fu movie marathon.

6. If you were offered an all expenses paid trip anywhere in the world, where would you go?

A year in Tokyo; or birdwatching in Costa Rica.

7. What book do you wish everyone would read so you could talk about it?


Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World; or his short stories The Elephant Vanishes.


8. What movie makes you cry?

These are movies that I like to cry to. They are the ones that I believe have earned my tears. I cry at other movies but either the quality of the cry is not transcendent or the stupid movie has manipulated my tears. Here's a list of the good cries: Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru; Isao Takahata's Grave of the Fireflies; Mike Newell's Enchanted April (a happy, melancholy cry); James L. Brooks' Terms of Endearment (I know, a classic tear-jerker, but darnit, both Debra Winger and Shirley Maclaine are just too good); I'm sure there are classic Hollywood films I am missing here. Kate will send me a list, I'm sure -- yes, I know Dark Victory [Ed: "Did the sun go behind the clouds?".

9. What makes you laugh?

This sums up my sense of humor. It's a cartoon from the New Yorker. I can't find the link but I'll describe it. A clown is sitting at a table in an outdoor cafe. He's holding a balloon and a tear trickles down his cheek. A woman stands at the table, looking like she's about to walk away. She says "If you must know, he makes me laugh." It's the balloon that gets me. I never get tired of it.

10. Are there fairies at the bottom of your garden?


Nope. Cats ate them. 

 Be seeing you, Miss Wendy -- can't wait!

Snapshots of Pop Culture

Here's a little taste of the trip to the Popular Culture Association Conference: we stayed at the Marriott Rivercenter which is a combination mall and canal, chock full of tourists and cheap Texas trash, er, souvenirs. I lived in that state for three years, eleven months, six days, five hours and fifteen minutes and I never understood the arrogant Texas chauvinism. I lost count of the number of Tejas tattoos I saw. I don't think I've ever seen anyone with Connecticut tattooed on their skin.

I had to take a picture of this because I couldn't decide if it was genius or the most horrible thing ever; I wish I'd taken a picture of the guy who was in it with his two tiny daughters. Scarred for life or prepared for the worst? In case you're wondering, it costs $2 for a "ride" in the machine.

We spent most of our time in panels seeing papers on all kinds of topics. Of course what everyone really looks forward to is chatting in the bar which is far more relaxed (though often just as thoughtful). Miss Wendy and Paul and I started things off on the right foot the first night.

It was my last year as chair of the Medieval Popular Culture area: we're combining with the Arthurian area (strength in numbers), so next year I have no responsibilities but writing my own paper. Naturally I've already come up with an idea for a special panel: anyone interested in a Romance & Comics, let me know. I attended the open forum on  Romance scholarship which was quite interesting: not surprisingly, there were only two men there. You gotta admire the chutzpah of a guy who'd bring this cup to that room full of women (or maybe it was just obliviousness):

PCA is a rather laid back conference, but there are still moments that people find stressful. Someone must have been trying to encourage a friend with this note that first appeared in one of the elevators, then on a painting in the hallway where I snapped it:

Saturday Miss Wendy wanted to wander around a little and see the sights after she gave her awesome presentation on Moto Hagio. Last time we were in San Antonio, the only touristy thing we did was the Ripley's Believe it or Not! "museum" which was amusing at least. So we headed over to the Alamo which is now classified as (no, I'm not kidding) "The Shrine to Texas Liberty."

I liked this shirt and the lotteria paintings in this store, but everything they had was unbelievably expensive, so I didn't feel too tempted to add to my belongings as I'm continuing to divest myself of things.

I'm always intrigued by weird stuff that other people don't seem to find interesting. I have odd tastes, I guess. But I loved the way electricity was anthropomorphised in this sign. It looks deliberately malevolent.

I was lucky on my flight out: after the unexpected overnight stay in Chicago a week ago, I was pleased to find that because my flight was overbooked, they bribed me to change flights with $400 in travel coupons -- and I didn't have to go to Chicago (Atlanta instead) and got there only an hour later than I would have anyway. On the way back, not so lucky, but that's okay. I had plenty of time to check out the new trends according to W:

What's more "punk" than an airbrushed model in a corset? Sigh. And I'm hoping the rumours that punk rocker Poly Styrene has died are just that, though she has been battling cancer for a while. I've been following her on Twitter and the new album is getting a lot of good press. I hope it's not true. [Sadly it is true: requiescat in pace, Marianne].

Jane Quiet in Egypt

Wow, Elena is really drawing some lovely panels. The digital colors look so vivid and striking! And hey, what do you think all those cats are doing around the temple...? ;-)

See all the new panels in Jane's Egyptian adventure at the webjam.

Jane Quiet 2.0

Welcome to the relaunch of Jane Quiet, the continuing adventures of the occult investigator Elena Steier and I created. We're happy to be relaunching the comic after some delays. We have all kinds of exciting things in store for you, beginning with a wild trip to Egypt that will include a certain cat-headed goddess as well as some wild demonic mayhem.

We're starting out with a blast from the past for Jane: one of her friends from grad school in Edinburgh has phoned her up, reminding her of one of their adventures there (see the prologue!) before asking for Jane's help with some strange phenomena that are happening in her hometown. A clash between the past and the present, mysterious murders, and ancient Egyptian gods will all come together in this arc.

We'll be making use of our trip to the John Hay Library and its occult collection in the near future, and we hope to have the adventures up on a comics distribution site soon (details to follow). We hope you're as excited about this as we are -- it's been a lot of fun getting up to speed once more. It certainly looks like webcomics are the way to go, so we hope Jane finds a lot of readers.

If you're on Facebook, be sure to "like" our fan page! We'll be giving away a unique prize there.

I don't know if JQ qualifies as a "Forgotten Book" but if you're looking for other reading suggestions, you'll find the list at Evan Lewis' blog (Patti's off celebrating her anniversary: congratulations!).

BitchBuzz: Technology and Temperance + Jane Quiet

My column today springs from my annoyance with paternalistic colleagues who keep giving people the impression that academics are stuffy know-it-alls who pontificate from their position of privilege. I realise I can also be a bit unreasonable about it: on President's Day a colleague in the midst of his "technology: bad" talk (thank goodness there was also a "technology: good" talk by the fabulous Kim Middleton) made several references to The Matrix which made me want to break something.

The Matrix?! This is your idea of technology: a twelve year old film? Made when almost NONE of the tech things we're talking about existed as more than an idea? Academics who would never have the chutzpah to offer public opinions on other disciplines have no trouble at all pontificating about things in popular culture that they have at most heard of--they've certainly never participated. It irritates me. But enough bile--I have things to do:

Does Tech Actually Distract from Real Life?

By K.A. Laity

We could all use a little time away from technology, right?

Colleagues of mine forwarded a link on Facebook today to a piece by William Major at the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled "Thoreau's Cellphone Experiment." In it Major tells of offering an extra credit project to his students: giving up their cell phones to him for five whole days, the better to reach a more "real" experience of life, unencumbered by the "distractions" of their palm-sized technology.

Setting aside the privileged and paternalistic tone of the piece for a moment and setting aside the dubiousness of Thoreau's withdrawal to the "wilderness" of Walden Pond (which did not keep him from frequent, almost daily visits to the village of Concord, or from getting female family members to feed him and do his laundry), the whole aim of this article misunderstands the role of technology in our lives...

Read the rest at BBHQ: http://tech.bitchbuzz.com/does-social-media-actually-distract-from-real.html#ixzz1Bai2nins

In more pleasant news JANE QUIET! Have you been reading the prologue? Do you like Elena's new style? What amazing color, eh? Tomorrow the big re-launch: Jane Quiet 2.0 -- yes, there will be prizes!

Jane Quiet RETURNS!

Go to our web jam now for the news! Whoo hoo -- I can't tell you how happy this makes me :-)

Albacon 2010, Oct 8-10

Hey kids! Especially you locals -- we're only weeks away from Albacon, the capitol region's only spec fic con which runs from Friday October 8th until Sunday the 10th, with oodles of fun stuff for you to do and see.

Writer GoH: Allen Steele
Artist GoH: Ron Miller
Fan GoH: Lisa Ashton

Plus we just got news that fan fave Jackie Kessler will be able to attend (which means Jackie Morse Kessler will be there, too!). Check out my interview with Jackie where she reads from Hunger.

Check out our program! Highlights include the ALL DAY writers conference on Friday. Call in sick to attend if you need to do so, but we have pros from many different genres offering practical advice on how to get your writing into its best form and out there and published.

There's a fantasy ball Friday night and a masquerade on Saturday. All day long there are panels on books, comics (including manga),  films (including anime), television shows, science and fandom. Writers include a lot of pals of mine like Stella Price, C. Margery Kempe, Susan Hanniford Crowley, Inanna Arthen and Morven Westfield. Yeah, I will be there, too, and so will Kit Marlowe.

Three days of non-stop fun! Best of all, the discount rate of $50 for the whole shebang has been extended a little bit longer, so get your registration in as soon as possible by Oct 1st.

More Jane Quiet!

Drop by the Jane Quiet site to see the new developments -- gotta get back to work on that script! Elena's catching up to me.

New Jane Quiet

Elena's been drawing again!

A Dandy, Van and Rude Britannia

No time for anything but a quick recap in reverse time order: last night saw Dandy in the Underworld, the one man play at the Soho Theatre about Sebastian Horsley. It was quite good and alternately funny and sad, particularly with the fact of his death last week hanging over the production -- though Horsley was apparently delighted by the play based on his autobiography of the same name. With Soho likely to go the same way as Times Square as the forces of gentrification take hold, it's sad to think Horsley may be the last of the true eccentrics of the city. We stopped by his building which is just around the corner on Meard Street, still bearing its famous sign. Flowers, especially his beloved sunflowers, were gathered in remembrance, often with accompanying cards speaking to the fondness people had for his flamboyant life.

Saturday was the Rude Britannia exhibit at the Tate Britain, which was very fun, although as Brad said, it could have used a lot more cartoons. There was a lot of fun stuff along with the expected Gillrays and Hogarths, including GIANT versions of Viz pages, Roger Mellie offering the text for the art, an anvil hanging over a doorway and perhaps my fave, Eddie Adams' recreations of famous incendiary photojournalist shots with old age pensioners (think Ruby, napalm, the Viet Cong execution). Morbidly funny. I was surprised to see that the Ally Sloper offerings were courtesy of pal Roger Sabin. I texted him, "You're in the Tate!" Hee hee.

Friday night was the wonderful concert, another part of the Meltdown Festival curated by Richard Thompson. The opening band Clare and the Reasons were quite delightful. Headliner Van Dyke Parks came out to play the lovely Harry Nilsson song "He Needs Me" from the Popeye soundtrack, where Parks was musical arranger (and played the piano player on film). Thompson introduced Parks' solo set -- clearly they are old friends -- as being like "Mark Twain if he could sing". Lots of old friends apparently turned up for the show. Parks is a legend among musicians, but not well known to the general public. He has an unusual style and was quite jokey and relaxed. Hard to describe but wonderful to enjoy. Parks clearly felt gratified by the enthusiastic audience in the end, hopping out into the audience to shake hands and soak up the love. Wonderful!

Meanwhile the vuvuzelas fill London with their hum. Every pub is filled with flags -- mostly England flags, but considering the broad swath of people in this city, you'll find fans for every team cheering loudly. You can't help but be caught up in it enough to know who's doing well and what calls have been decried. Summer in England. Hope everyone had a great solstice yesterday and made the most of the longest day.

Magus: The Alan Moore Conference (Day One)

Here's a lovely photo of me and Marc Singer snapped by the wonderful Adele, who already has her write-up of the Magus conference up over at her book blog, UnBound, and has pictures up as well. I was looking forward to this conference despite not quite having my paper done before I headed off to the UK. So many weird things happened while I was working on the paper that I decided to make that journey part of the paper, too.  I think I'll put the Powerpoint presentation on line with the paper as narration, so I won't detail everything here, but I had a lot of interesting coincidences arise from listening to Moore's performance CDs while sauntering through various museums in London and while lunching with my friend Roger Sabin in Red Lion Square (the site of the original performance of Snakes and Ladders.

I ran into Paul Gravett on the train coming into Northampton: I hadn't seen him in a few years, so it was great to have a chance to catch up on the cab ride to the campus, because he was busy right away as the keynote speaker. Adele was in the lobby with everyone else, so we had a chance to chat and meet other folks. I was pleased to see someone else I knew, Marc Singer, who was giving a paper on the Pog issue of Swamp Thing. I was a bit surprised to find that I had been moved from a later afternoon slot to the one immediately following the keynote, but it's just as well to have the paper done, so I didn't mind.

Nathan Wiseman-Trowse welcomed us all to the conference and talked a little bit about its genesis from a half-joking proposal to a serious academic undertaking (but fun, how could it not be?). He then introduced Paul who gave a lively presentation, "Something from Nothing -- Small Killing, Big Numbers: Comics Beyond Referentiality and Reinvention" which tied together some wonderful art exhibits of Moore's work (I especially yearned to see the Belgian one) and these less well known stories by Moore. I was glad Paul introduced the theme of the magic of art, creating something out of nothing, because I was going to be running with that topic, too. In a rather amusing moment as Paul talked about the giant diagram Moore created for Big Numbers, Gary Lloyd ran down with a facsimile so we could all see just how insanely detailed it was (four large sheets of paper with miniscule writing in tiny boxes representing each character and their storyline in all the issues. Wonderful!

I was on a panel with Rikke Cortsen from the University of Copenhagen. Antonio Venezia was supposed to be on the panel, too, but wasn't able to make it to our re-scheduled time and presented later in the day. Rikke's presentation, "Building Fictional Worlds: On the Construction of Place in Alan Moore's Top 10", examined how the variety of chronotopes employed helped map the complexity of not only the interwoven stories, but also the distinctly different time lines that overlaid the story lines.

My paper was a bit less formal and really became a performance about Moore's performances and the weird coincidences that dogged me as I wrote it. Most of you know that I enjoy a little theatricality in my performances and it seemed to go well. There didn't seem to be enough audible laughs at the right places (EL Wisty! Did people not recognize EL Wisty?), but afterward many people complimented me, so I was satisfied that it went well enough. The panel finished with a lively discussion, which soon proved to be the norm. So many people all interested in Moore's work gathering together, it was inevitable that people were bursting to discuss their ideas with folks who knew the score.

Lunch included a screening of Don't Let Me Die in Black and White, but most folks were too busy talking and eating to really take it in. After lunch, I headed to the panel "Chaotic Criminality: The Villains of Alan Moore".  First up was Geoff Klock, who appeared via Skype, which has a great potential for interconnectivity, but I can't help thinking he might have had a better presentation had he actually traveled to Northampton, for it was a bit rambling and had a few factual errors that irked. Mervi Miettinen from the University of Tempere presented "Past as Multiple Choice? Textual Anarchy in The Killing Joke" which explored the carefully controlled 'anarchy' of a dogged structuralist like Moore. Laura Hilton from the University of Birmingham presented "Reincarnating Mina Murray: Subverting the Gothic Heroine?" which compared the very different approaches between the film and the comics versions of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to the traditional passive Gothic heroine and both Moore's and Stoker's use of Mina as the powerful prototype of the New Woman. Yes, the excrementally bad film version destroys everything subversive about her.

The final panel of the day had Tony Venezia (Birbeck College) giving his presentation, "'A Sense of History's Patterns...': Mapping Northampton in Voice of the Fire and Big Numbers" which once again returned us to Moore's obsession with his hometown and its geography (and chorography). Our co-host Nathan gave us "Marvel or Miracle: (Re)Placing the Original in Alan Moore's Marvelman" which traced patterns within the history of that much troubled superhero. Deneb Kozikoski Valereto (Leiden University) offered a thoughtful study "Philosophy in the Fairground: The Killing Joke and Thoughts on Madness" which again focused on the deliberate interplay between insanity and Moore's careful and complex organisation.

We had a brief stop at the reception, but then Adele and I went to a pub toward the rail station so she could interview me :-D I'll let you know when it's up. I headed back to London and got ready to do it all again the next day.

Jane Quiet Returns!

Elena's got a new comic up at our Jane Quiet web jam page. Whoo hoo!

This is the start of the second issue or arc, I suppose we ought to say as it's on-line. Where did this start? I believe it was me combining Elena's love of drawing dancing babes, my fondness for Johnny Vegas, and a peculiar haunting.

And um, a little John Donne -- but you don't need to know that.

Check it out and leave a comment at the site.

Reviewed (Two Years Later)

Okay, so the Google search doesn't necessarily catch everything. In looking for something else, I ran across a reference to a review in The Lion and the Unicorn 32.3 by David Russell of Tove Jansson Rediscovered, for which I wrote the essay, "Roses, Beads and Bones: Gender, Borders and Slippage in Tove Jansson's Moomin Comic-Strips":

K. A. Laity’s exploration of Jansson’s cartoon series executed for the London Evening News in 1957 is likewise fairly narrowly focused, but Laity offers insightful commentary on the way Jansson’s personal life affected her art. Specifically, Laity points to Jansson’s lesbianism and how her personal feelings seem to be manifested through the portrayal of the Moomin characters in the comic strip—-her use of unstable borders and the use of sexual ambiguity in her portraitures, for example. Laity’s essay helps lay the groundwork for the theme of the final essays of the collection, which explore Jansson’s writings for adults—-particularly focusing on the impact of Jansson’s lesbianism on her work.

If you have access to Project Muse, you can read the entire review or if you're interested in children's books, check out The Lion and the Unicorn.

Trying to find a cover image to use for this post, I found this other review, that didn't turn up on my standard search for obvious reasons:

Several of the essays address gender issues, homosexuality in particular. Drawing on Judith Butler's and Eve Kosofsky's gender theories, E.A. Laity examines the panel borders in Jansson's Moomin comic strips. In this unique study, Laity shows how Jansson's comic-art narrative technique illustrates that the borders between genders and social status are highly porous, and that Jansson, albeit in a subtle way, questions the very existence of the binary system.

You can read the rest of Virpi Zuck's review at the Free Library. Well, it was a nice surprise to come across some positive reviews that I don't think I'd seen before. Even better yesterday an editor forwarded to me some kind words from an author on the essay I'd written about his book. Yay!

In less interesting 'news' I've been updating my Amazon page and my page at Goodreads as well. Both are set up to get this blog feed, but I have to manually add a lot of the books and now events, too. Promotion is an endless slog.

Jane Quiet Moves!

Yes, obvious parallels to "Garbo talks!" will strike a handful of film buffs (and likely no one else), but here's the latest Jane Quiet fun stuff, courtesy of Elena's playful skills and her son Doozie's music:



Half snow day today; yeah, that's going to be effective. Surely my afternoon students will come in for the end of The Lion in Winter. Oh, irony of that name, eh?

My Symptoms

All right, the latter is not a symptom so much as what I heard as I woke up about every half hour through the night unable to breathe. There are at least two squirrels in the attic who show not the slightest interest in the trap.

I would be in bed, but I need toilet paper, tissues, cold medicine and to mail a bunch of comic books (yay!). The piece at Coilhouse has brought us some new interest, as perhaps has the latest wardrobe for Jane :-)

When I return, more British comedy and weepy films. Why don't I have more Garbo?

Jane Quiet at Coilhouse

Drop over to Coilhouse.net to see Elizabeth S.'s write up on Jane Quiet; I love the serendipity of the internet! It's what brought this about. Please, leave a comment to let Elizabeth and Coilhouse know you stopped by; this is how we measure success on the 'net.

Back from my travels: Friday I went down to Connecticut for Miss Wendy's birthday and had fun with the whole gang. How gorgeous that giant wolf moon looked hanging over the harbour! If only it hadn't been subzero temps, we could have enjoyed the veranda of the Alumni House a bit more. Fabulous food and lots of laughs: only Perilous Cheryl could have made a remark like that about the centerpieces ;-) It was a distinct pleasure to blast Lady Gaga at the Coast Guard Academy.

All right, yes -- it's true: I accidentally stuck my fingers in the birthday cake while moving it. I was a spaz all night (yes, to beat you to the punch, why should that night be any different than any other?).

Stayed up late watching bad movies, woke up far too early with a sore throat. Just too cold and dry. After a relaxing start to the day -- leftover cheese and cake! -- I headed out because I had another birthday party last night. Didn't Angela look fabulous with her spanking new haircut? Much merriment and fabulous food -- mmm, BBQ. I was feeling a bit poorly though, so I came home for tea and the last episode of North and South. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend the miniseries; you can't go far wrong with Elizabeth Gaskell as your source (though Wives and Daughters remains my fave).

I've got a two volume Faustus book to review, so I better get cracking. I slept until nearly eleven, but I'm still feeling poorly. Sinuses and chest -- no fun. Considering the speed with which this cold has moved, maybe it'll be gone by tomorrow. I can hope.

WLoADed: Elena Steier

Drop on by the Women's League of Ale Drinkers to see our latest featured artist, friend of the blog Elena Steier. My Jane Quiet co-conspirator talks a bit about her influences and working habits. Above see some of the art that she's been experimenting with for the newly re-tooled Jane.