Carolina with the Cats

Only missing Squeak: in order, this is Hemi, Stinky, Spike and Cassidy.

BitchBuzz: The Whiteboard Meme

My latest column on this week's internet wildfire:

Why the "White Board Girl" Meme Was So Popular

By K.A. Laity

The link that launched a million laughs has, perhaps predictably, been exposed as a hoax. The Gawker gleefully "exposed" the pranksters and a lot of #HOPA tweets were predictably misogynist in their tone as they slapped down a woman who was presumably too ready to declare herself attractive (how dare she!).

This focus on the pranking and suckering misses the point: why it spread like wildfire across the world. It spread so fast that traditional social media trend watchers were way behind the dozens of women (repeated globally) who all sent it to each other...

Read the rest: http://news.bitchbuzz.com/why-the-white-board-girl-meme-was-so-popular.html#ixzz0wQKXyKNm

I'm off to North Carolina tomorrow morning for some r-n-r with Susan and Mildred -- and Ron and Birdie and all the kitties. Well, not quite all the kitties: Susan lost Chelsea this week. She was nearly nineteen. Her health had just became too frail. I think many of you know the pain of losing these little friends who are such a big part of our lives. I will miss her. My heart goes out to Susan.

Publication: Wild Desire

My essay on Johanna Sinisalo's Troll: A Love Story is up on the new magazine for the Mythic Imagination Institute. "Wild Desire" was originally a conference paper given at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts a few years back.




Here's a snippet:

Wild Desire: Gendering the Other in Sinisalo's Troll: A Love Story
by K. A. Laity

Trolls have long had a firm grip on the Finnish imagination. While written records do not reach far enough back to find its roots, no doubt the traditions of folk religion play a role. As Matti Salo has argued, it "recognized no sharp distinction between the natural and supernatural" and the world was seen to be peopled with a variety of gods, spirits and creatures. Things may not have changed as much in the twenty-first century as you might be tempted to believe. As Johanna Sinisalo writes in her introduction to the Dedalus Book of Finnish Fantasy, "To this day, Finns live in a very sparsely populated country, surrounded by lakes and large expanses of forest. Every Finn appears to have very close, personal ties to nature. In Finland culture and nature do not struggle against one another, they are not mutually exclusive, they merge and influence one another" (9). That unique creature, the troll, seems to spring from this melding of nature and culture, realism and fantasy. Perhaps the greatest flowering of troll love erupted in the mid-twentieth century, embracing Tove Jansson's Moomin family and their often melancholy young son Moomintroll. While the robust attendance at Moominworld in Naantali would seem to suggest that everyone loves trolls, the realities of that affection have remained entirely fantastical until recently...

Read the rest and explore the wonders of the Mythic Institute.

Thank You, Boojums!

It doesn't take much to make me smile. Just a thoughtful little thing like this:

Yep, it's a lovely congratulatory post card of a Polly Thayer painting from my pals and affixed to the back? A ticket stub from a performance of Good Evening with my idol, Peter Cook and (my almost idol) Dudley Moore. As you can see from the note, it was found in a library book (I love how so many of my friends work in libraries) about Russian icons (?!).

Little stub, big smile. Thank you, Boojums.

ADDENDUM per T'joey Zone:

Do mention Loree B found it...Cheryl said to post it...

i stuck it

Unikirja Book Trailer

Here's my new video, featuring the beautiful music of Ulla Suokko, whom I'll be celebrating this week over at The Women's League of Ale Drinkers, part of the month long festival of creative women. I'm trying to focus the rhetoric of these trailers on opening up the sometimes obscure titles of my books to give a sense of the flavor of the stories. You can tell me whether I'm succeeding.

I've kind of had the feeling lately of needing a dump truck to unload my head, so it's been good to work on a few things that use a different part of my brain. Some days just need to be without words.

Cover Me

With stunning speed, here's the cover already for my as-yet-unedited novel The Mangrove Legacy, forthcoming from Tease Publishing in November or December:

Thanks to the fabulous Stella Price, who is not only the art director for Tease, but was also the person who encouraged me to try submitting something to them. I love the background photo of the Gothic folly and the woman on the sofa kind of picks up on the theme of dreams. I loved writing all the surreal dream sequences. It's hard to capture all the aspects of this odd little tome, so I'm glad the cover included the tag line as well in order to convey the humour [or humor, Todd]. Now to update the web page, although that might have to wait as I have a large pile of neglected work in my office on campus that I really must get to...

BitchBuzz: Hate Cute

My latest column:

Mainstream Media Realize RomComs Hate Women

Suddenly everyone in the media seems to have noticed what women have been talking about for years: how rom-coms seem to really hate on women.

 The high profile story is Maureen Dowd's back-and-froth with social historian Sam Wasson about "Why romantic comedies now reek." It's a fairly entertaining exchange with highlights like Wasson saying, "Every time I see Jennifer Aniston’s or Jennifer Garner’s face I wince. Basically, every time I see someone named Jennifer." But they also get a few good points across, such as Dowd's suggestion that more female-run studios ought to have resulted in more female-positive films. Wasson laughs:

“Even the studios that are run by women aren’t run by women. They’re run by corporations, which are run by franchises. Unfortunately for us, Jennifer Aniston is a franchise. So is Katherine Heigl and Gerard Whatever-His-Name-Is, and even when their movies bomb, their franchise potential isn’t compromised because overseas markets, DVD sales and cable earn all the studio’s money back...The worst part of it is, from Hollywood’s point of view, it ain’t broke."

Read more: http://culture.bitchbuzz.com/mainstream-media-realize-romcoms-hate-women.html#ixzz0vmT9ndaW

There's a reason people still love and adore films like His Girl Friday, Philadelphia Story, The Lady Eve and Holiday: they're fun and funny. I guess writing romcoms that don't insult women is going to have to go on my list of things to do. What's your fave?

Contracted: The Mangrove Legacy

Good news! I sent off the contract this morning: Tease Publishing will be releasing The Mangrove Legacy in November or December of this year. Initially, it will be an ebook, but if sales are brisk enough, it may see print in 2011. Now I can reveal that the "author" of the book will be Kit Marlowe. Thanks again to the fabulous Stephanie Johnson for designing Kit's portrait, based on a photo of me and a very cool hat I found trawling the internet. Very Georgette Heyer, eh?

One of the immediate things this means is that I will have to refrain from posting the final chapters of the serial online. For those dedicated readers who have been with me the whole long haul, I will be happy to send you those chapters: just email me.  Your support all this time has meant so much to me. It's hard to believe I started this as a kind of lark almost four years ago! I was so afraid that I would not find time for fiction writing while I was frantically trying to publish as much academic work as possible to get out of Texas; a foolish fear (as so many are).  Writing about 500 words a week was painless; the story was light and fun. I just wanted to be amusing, playing with the Gothic narratives I enjoy and throwing in as many obscure references as I could get away with. I adore the characters. And four years later -- without considerable effort -- it's a 100,000 word novel.

Wow.

That's why I emphasize those wonderful words of Octavia Butler in "Furor scribendi" where she says the key concept is "persist": she was so right. I am capable of marathon sessions where I churn out thousands of words in a day, but that's not necessary. Baby steps will get you there, too.

So why the nom de plume? In the last year I've been doing a lot of research into the romance genre, thanks to a bunch of friends who work in that area. While it is the most reviled of genres, there's a lot good in it -- like the money! Yes, there are conventions -- there are conventions in academic writing, too and very strong conventions in the literary genres (disaffected suburbanite agonizes over relationships, doubts self, then has minor epiphany which may or may not change anything) -- but there's also a wide range possibilities. Just take a quick glance at all the different categories Harlequin has; the 'paranormal romance' field is little different from 'urban fantasy' these days. The lines are getting blurred. The only constant for romance is that happily ever after (HEA) or, increasingly, the happy for now (HFN) ending. We're so cynical these days. We'll accept all kinds of fantasy elements -- werewolves, vampires, steampunk Victorians -- but not a happy resolution! Oh no, never that. Well, except for the millions and millions of romance readers (and no, they're not all women).

So my nom de plume signals "this book is a romance": to a genre reader, it means "everything will turn out okay in the end." For my regular readers it still means it's the quirky stuff I write and if everything turns out all right in the end, it will nonetheless be a fun trip getting there. I'm still working on adapting my style to the genre; so far, I'm still erring too far on the side of quirky to get my foot in the very lucrative Harlequin/Mills & Boon door, but I will endeavour. Why? Because I would like the freedom of living off my writing and I am exploring many avenues to achieve that end.

And why this particular pseudonym? The original Kit Marlowe was of course the playwright who would have outshone Shakespeare had he lived (being far more daring and audacious). Less well known is Bette Davis' character from the movie Old Acquaintance -- a big fave of mine, based on the play by John Van Druten (of Bell, Book and Candle fame). Of course, Kit Marlowe is the "arty" writer while Miriam Hopkins' Millie Drake is the popular romance writer. What can I say? I'm perverse that way. One of the gratifying things is that the friendship between Kit and Millie outlasts rivalry and men. In fact, you can easily read the film as a coded lesbian narrative, with a lot of elements coming across as far campier to a modern audience than they would have done to most contemporary viewers, I suspect. Just look at the masculine way they dress Davis at the start in contrast to Hopkins' flounces and frills. The film was remade as Rich and Famous in 1981. It was George Cukor's last film and starred Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen. I also have a fondness for that film, though it's not as good. I do love the way Bergen, upon having her work called "trash" by her increasingly estranged husband, snarls to correct him that it's "successful trash!" Here's to success, however trashy.

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 Journal!

I'm really pleased to announce that the Women's League of Ale Drinkers has decided to start a journal to share with the world the fabulous women who support the League.  You can see the details over at the League's site, but here's a precis:

And that is the mandate of the new journal for the Women's League of Ale Drinkers, for which Vicky will serve as editor. We seek only work that meets these criteria, the output of creative women who may feel that their vision and passion has been overlooked elsewhere, that their daring has brought only disapproving stares, that their humour has met with stony silence. We delight in work that crosses traditional genres.

We do not ask for your credentials, awards or publications. We ask for your heartfelt work -- writing in RTF files, art in JPGs, music and video via links. We ask that you tell us why the piece embodies your reason to live, to breathe -- what the work means to you, even why you think it may not have received an audience before...


 Read the rest over at the League, where you can also enjoy a celebration of the fabulous Stephanie Johnson, featuring her fabulous designs for Smoking Ants Records.

I have some good news to pass along but I will wait until I have signed the contract. Of course, I was already celebrating because I got the Fulbright application done (whew!). Of course it will be months before I know anything, but it's in and I gave it my best shot. That's all you can do, eh?

Advertisements for Myself

I'm beginning to doubt their usefulness and they seem to cause nothing but headaches in the making, yet here I go again: a general book trailer using my new "branding" concept, as developed in conversation on this blog: hard to spell, easy to read!








The music is courtesy of my friend Gerry Luoma Henkel, who built my first kantele, Louhi. Gerry makes amazing instruments and beautiful music; not surprisingly, he tells me some of his music is going to be be featured in a play as well as in a movie being made in Australia. I'm lucky to have so many talented people around me. When I ordered my kantele from Gerry, he even included a videotape that he had made to show me the basics and how to tune it. It was a big help! Kanteles are easy to play and have a gorgeous and soothing sound. Everyone should have one!

Today I will be heading off to MassMOCA for the Bang on Can marathon. After having my head down over work all week, it will be a nice change to empty my head of words and just listen to the music. And not thinking about things I wish I had done...

BitchBuzz: Joan Rivers

My latest column:

Still making the rounds slowly is the documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. Do yourself a favour and check it out. Yeah, I know what you're thinking: argh, the red carpet embarrassments! Criminy, Celebrity Apprentice?! And yikes, the plastic surgery.

True enough; no argument here. But if you have any inkling of what a tough gig comedy is and triply so for a female, you will march yourself and all your friends to the theatre to see what that really means. You'll come away with a very different attitude.

You see, Rivers knows exactly what she's doing and she knows what you think, too. She just doesn't care. Her work is her focus, or rather "the career" which her daughter Melissa says, she one day recognized as her "sibling" in the family that they all took care of....

Read more the rest at BBHQ.

Sorry I've not been more voluble this week; some deadlines are killing me and a few other things hanging over my head that I need to deal with somehow. All shall be well (keep repeating that).

Theatre Round-Up

I've been lucky enough to have some great theatre outings in the last few weeks, but I've been short on time to talk about them. I slipped off to Massachusetts to visit Shakespeare & Co and catch both The Comedy of Errors and Richard III. The former was in the Bernstein Theatre with the troupe of interns. They had a circus theme which fit the wacky mix-ups well. I always find it fascinating to see the creative ways companies adjust to small spaces and small casts. They even employed a dressmaker's dummy for one of the characters because the actor had to play two parts in the climactic scene. Great fun.

Richard III was still in previews, so the director reminded us that things were still in flux. I had a seat up on the side hanging over the stage (yes, already a hot ticket in previews) and so I ended up having to move aside during the scene where Richard pretends to eschew the crown a few times before 'reluctantly' accepting it. He and his entourage leaned over the balcony to the crowd below.  They whipped up the audience response so we were all cheering for Richard, thus complicit in the events. A good technique.  John Douglas Thompson made for an energetic villain, but one of the things that really came out of this production was a clear image of the women who were ignored and pushed aside by these nakedly ambitious men. The first scene with Anne really makes or breaks the play -- we have to believe that this monster can charm -- and it came off beautifully. Terrific cast and much glorious mayhem.

One of the things that helps me miss London a little less is the wonderful NT Live broadcasts. This time around it was London Assurance, which I hadn't managed to see while I was there. The broadcasts give you the feeling of being in the theatre, but also the close interaction zooming cameras allow. I am soooo grateful The Spectrum is participating in the project. The play is a HOOT. I knew nothing about Dion Boucicault, the 19th century Irish playwright, but this was a terrifically funny farce. Stars Simon Russell Beale and Fiona Shaw were just loving every minute of their over-the-top roles; the entire cast was superb, even when the part wasn't enormous, like Nick Sampson as the gentleman's valet Cool. And what a delight to see Richard Briers! The performance was sold out, so they broadcast the play outside the NT on the "grass" (the astroturfed area where the giant furniture usually sits in the summer time) and the cast ran out to take a bow there at the end as well. Sheer delight.

Then the other day was a quick trip up to Saratoga Springs for Shakespeare in the Park. My theatre buddy Ron and I were looking forward to Hamlet, but I was also looking forward to some barbecue at PJ's as it had been ages since I'd had any -- yum! Oh, their ribs and all the sauces. Mmmmm. And the play was much fun, too. It took me a little while to warm up to the Hamlet (who sounded more like he was a lost Belushi brother than a Dane) but most of the rest of the cast was good and there were some interesting choices in staging, like having the ghost return at the end to help Claudius meet his end. Timing was good, too; the play finished just as the mosquitoes began to make themselves known. It was a slimmed down production, but the cuts didn't feel too drastic (unsurprisingly, no Fortinbras at the end).

I'm crazy busy with some expected and unexpected deadlines this week, but I'm already trying to figure out when I can make it back to Shakespeare & Co for The Winter's Tale. They're doing some Stoppard this fall, too, so hurrah.

Imagining the Worst

Rather Predictable That

Friday's Forgotten Books: You Can't Do Both

I read this novel in England this summer; I've been on a bit of an Amis kick, filling in missing volumes while I mull over the overall effect of this pursuit. Projects tends to develop this way; I get obsessed about something, immerse myself in it, then when the time is right, chuck it all away and write. I'm also knee-deep in Angela Carter, so I can't really explain how they intertwine (could two people be less likely to intertwine?).

You Can't Do Both tells the story of Robin Davies, who lives in a south London suburb, winds up going to Oxford and then the Second World War and eventually into the adventure that is marriage, though not on purpose.  Davies' father is a weird amalgamation of strident atheism and puritanical control. His mother offers a sometime refuge against his father's rigidity, but without much substantial help. When at last he's freed of his stifling suburban home, he tries to live up to his fevered sexual dreams but encounters the realities of women who are likewise a bundle of eagerness, confusion and contradictions.

Amis plays this for some wonderful laughs, no surprise. But he also carefully details the way that the misogynist tendencies develop from these encounters. Women are denying him the one thing he must have. As Richard Bradford suggests in Lucky Him, this novel comes much closer to the truth of Amis' life than his memoirs, a highly fanciful selection of events and memories. There is a sensitive and moving depiction of a friend of Robin's who turns out to be gay which makes plain the costs and dangers of that identity in the not so distant past. You'll also find an evocation of what the Oxford days with Larkin might have been like and the awkward development of his first marriage, grown out of an uncertain alliance that quickly developed into habit because of the sexual connection, then threatened by pregnancy.

Davies never ends up being likeable exactly; by the end, he's distinctly unlikeable. But the dissection is fascinating and if not really an apology, it does seem to offer a bit of an explanation for how Amis became what he was. And at his best, that was a lot.

Now to get hold of a copy of Colonel Sun...

See the round-up of other neglected tomes over at Patti Abbott's blog.

eBooks: No longer the future

They're the PRESENT!

Yeah, Mashable has a story about how Kindle books are outselling hardcovers on Amazon and the L. A. Times has a long article on how ebooks are transforming the reading experience. Even most authors are prepared for the need to push the various electronic editions, but we're still figuring out the best ways to do that -- how do you promote without a physical object? That intangibility gives a lot of people discomfort.

I was supposed to be interviewed on the topic today, but the video interview became a telephone interview because of "breaking news" (I was relieved: haven't had a haircut since leaving for England) and now it seems to have been put off at least until tomorrow if not indefinitely. So I'll share my idea for a good quote:  I'm sure when Gutenberg printed his first bibles, there were doubtless people who said, "Well that's interesting, but I'm never going to give up my vellum.  It's painstakingly created by monks over months and sometimes year, with great attention to detail. Each one is individually written in the hand of the scribe and decorated with charming marginalia."

True enough, Gutenberg probably said. However, you can have this one right away. All of you. And for much less money.

Sure, there will continue to be printed books for a very long time. There will even continue to be handmade books for a long time. The digital revolution, though, has already happened. Jump on the wave to ride it or let it wash over you for now. But the wave is here. Like digital downloads of music, kids already born will consider it the norm. That's change.

UPDATE: I talked to the reporter today, although the story had already been recorded (which aired today; it's the second video that cycles up).  We chatted for a bit and she was intrigued by a number of things I brought up about my experiences teaching New Media and having both print and ebooks to promote. My BitchBuzz column this week is an expansion of this topic.

Necon is: Mini-Golf

I got my best ever score: 43! It was only one point off the winning score, although there were I think four people who all got 42, so I probably won't win a medal. But we sure had some fun! Phil and Anya were entertaining, as always.










Tonight, the traditional game show and the traditional talent show have been mashed together. No one's quite sure what will happen. Afterward, we'll have the roast. As usual, not a peep about who might be the victim -- erm, honoree.

Review of UNIKIRJA

I don't think I remembered to post this before. My review from the Finnish North American Literature Association (FinNALA) by Beth Virtanen:

K. A. Laity’s Unikirja, Dream Book, is written in a pastiche of genres on a single theme, Finnishness and daily life. Laity uses poetry, prose and drama to capture Finnishness in mythic and modern contexts. In doing so, she draws on folklore, the Kalevala, the Kanteletar, and even traveling in Finland as inspiration for these wonderful stories. 

In the section focusing on the Mythic, Laity draws on Runos 3 to 5 of the Kalevala for a short story titled “Aino” in which she draws on the epic tale to focus on “women’s experiences of the world—an aspect so often missing from the original Kalevala stories’, she says. From the theme of incoming Christianity, Laity reimagines the killing of Bishop Henry as committed by Lalli and not his wife. She retells the story from the wife’s perspective as she has “to live with her husband’s crime and her own silence about the truth.” In this retelling, Laity broaches a subject central to issues of women, that of silence. In this section she also “indulges,” as she says, the Gothic as well.

The mythic is as present in the Modern tales as it is in those of the previous section, but here the settings are modern, thus allowing for a different emphasis and turn of events. In the modern section, she deals with the myth of werewolves in “Vironsusi,” asking what it would be like to be one. She explores themes of magic from the Kalevala as she creates a modern’ hiker’s response to Vipunen, the giant turned to a mountain, in the story of the same name. The invigoration of women’s allure and sensuality through a sauna ritual  is the focal point of “Raising Lempi,” and Vainämöinen’s bad luck with women the theme addressed in “Kantele.”  This section closes with a play, “Lumottu,” which means Enchanted, that places an immigrant family in the heart of myth and magic.

In this book, K. A. Laity’s efforts make Finnish mythology and folklore relevant today in ways that resonate with the modern reader. She mates myth and womanhood exquisitely. In short, her work is fabulous. The text is by Aino Press of New York. Find it at www.aino-press.com. Buy it.  

Nice, eh? Be sure to stop by and see all the wonders they have at FinNALA and their literary magazine KIPPIS! (yes, I'm in one issue). I'm off at Necon, which I hope means I'm having fun.

BitchBuzz: Old Spice

[yes, I am up this early -- again]

Doing Online the Right Way: Old Spice

By K.A. Laity

We're so accustomed to ill-conceived ad campaigns that make us wince, it's a genuine pleasure to find one that not only proves successful, but give plenty of laughs as well.

I'm sure many of you remember the Old Spice commercials featuring the hunky Isaiah Mustafa. The initial commercial caused as much controversy as delight, striking many viewers as a little too over the top, and subsequent adverts employed more subtle attempts to pitch Mustafa's glistening torso as both appealing to women and more gently raising the bar for the men.
Old Spice has its own YouTube channel, but more importantly, it's got its own Twitter feed as well. In recent days their inventive use of the two social media streams has exploded across the net.

Old Spice's tweets vary from encouragement to those who fail to live up to the ideal ("Mr. @caseyayers, do not get discouraged. You're swan dive will come with time.") and friendly banter ("Hello @Rushton2. Your tweet reminded me of the summer I spent off the stormy coast of Tibet."), but by far the most effective tweets have been those that led to videos made for other tweeters
("Are you a baby with muscle-structure of a man @MrBabyMan?")...

Read more: http://tech.bitchbuzz.com/doing-online-the-right-way-old-spice.html#ixzz0tkJjYKG6 and see all the videos I've linked to, including (sob!) his farewell. Silver fish hand catch!

I'm off to Necon this afternoon; it's the 30th anniversary year, so not sure who might show up. Looking forward to seeing a few friends I only see there. And as usual, I'm using the trip to stop by and see folks in Connecticut: lunching with the fabulous QoE and stopping by the Steier homestead. Don't know if there's wifi. If there is, doubtless I'll use it. If not, see you Monday.