Thursday, February 25, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
People who died before 30: Joan of Arc
Famous people who died before 30
Joan of Arc, saint and military leader
In 1424, when she was 12 years old, Jean d’Arc, a peasant girl in what is now northern France, was in the fields when she heard voices calling to her. They were so beautiful she wept when they left. Later, these voices – of angels, she would later claim – convinced her she was destined to help the French military in their struggle to end the Lancastrian occupation of France during one of the conflicts summed up as the Hundred Years War.
When she was 16 years old, the voices convinced her to seek out the local commander of the French feudal army, and she gained his confidence by predicting an unlikely victory in a distant battle. From here, she was granted court with Duke Charles in besieged Orleans. Low on morale, broke, and desperate after countless defeats, Charles and the army took her as a sort of an mascot, and her talk of visions turned the civil war into a religious conflict. She wore a specially made suit of armor and rallied the men to raise morale. She inspired them to attend church and stop swearing, and drove the prostitutes from the camps. Amazingly, the French responded well to this infusion of strict Christian morality. Joan attended battles herself as a standard bearer, and the newly invigorated French won victory after unlikely victory. In 1429, at the siege of Orleans, the French rallied to the offensive, drove back the English invaders, and took enough land for Charles VII to be crowned King at Reims.
Unfortunately, in 1430 Joan was captured by the enemy Burgundians during an ill-advised raid. Her family had no money for ransom, and Charles VII refused to intervene. She was sold to the British, who wanted to use her trial for heresy as a ruse to undermine Charles VII’s claim to the throne, re-opening the door for English rule of Normandy. After a show trial, she was eventually convicted and burned at the stake, then her remains were burned twice more into ashes which were cast into the Seine to prevent relics of her body being used in sainthood. She was 19 years old.
Her legend, however, only grew. A posthumous retrial declared her innocent in 1456, when folk ballads were of her virtue and glory were already popular. She has been the subject of many authors from Shakespeare to Mark Twain to George Bernard Shaw. Since attaining sainthood in 1920, she has appeared in dozens of movies: In 1948 Ingrid Bergman won an Oscar for portraying her, in 1999 Milla Jovovich was a blip on the radar, while in 1989 Jane Wiedlin, better known as the guitarist for the pop band The Go-Go's, took her persona for a loopy spin in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. She has a line of canned beans named after her, for which the website offers no explanation. She has been satirized in the Simpsons, been the inspiration for trashy Halloween costumes, and in 2006 had an entire video game with her as the central character. Not a bad legacy for a moody teenager.
Joan of Arc, saint and military leader
When she was 16 years old, the voices convinced her to seek out the local commander of the French feudal army, and she gained his confidence by predicting an unlikely victory in a distant battle. From here, she was granted court with Duke Charles in besieged Orleans. Low on morale, broke, and desperate after countless defeats, Charles and the army took her as a sort of an mascot, and her talk of visions turned the civil war into a religious conflict. She wore a specially made suit of armor and rallied the men to raise morale. She inspired them to attend church and stop swearing, and drove the prostitutes from the camps. Amazingly, the French responded well to this infusion of strict Christian morality. Joan attended battles herself as a standard bearer, and the newly invigorated French won victory after unlikely victory. In 1429, at the siege of Orleans, the French rallied to the offensive, drove back the English invaders, and took enough land for Charles VII to be crowned King at Reims.
Unfortunately, in 1430 Joan was captured by the enemy Burgundians during an ill-advised raid. Her family had no money for ransom, and Charles VII refused to intervene. She was sold to the British, who wanted to use her trial for heresy as a ruse to undermine Charles VII’s claim to the throne, re-opening the door for English rule of Normandy. After a show trial, she was eventually convicted and burned at the stake, then her remains were burned twice more into ashes which were cast into the Seine to prevent relics of her body being used in sainthood. She was 19 years old.
Monday, February 22, 2010
More Conversations with our dog.
Me: Sir? I’ve been asked to have a word with you.
Him: [quizzical look]
Me: It’s about the cats, Sir.
Him: Grrr.
Me: Very good, Sir. They’ve asked me to inquire whether you’ve changed your position on harassing them.
Him: [cocked head]
Me: Yes, I told them you only meant to play. But they are not used to your, shall we say, exuberance.
Him: *Rising whimper*
Me: And there is the matter of your pretending to eat them, Sir.
Him: [Scratching ear]
Me: Agreed, Sir. A complaint scarcely worth addressing. However, to a cat, placing one's open mouth over their head can seem a bit… forward, Sir.
Him: [Licking self]
Me: Oh, agreed again, Sir. Well put indeed. They however do not seem to share in the spirit of the the thing. As though you were not pretending at all.
Him: [Sitting, head cocked.]
Me: You are pretending, Sir, when you lunge at them, are you not? All in jest, eh what?
Him: [Grabs his duck and shakes it.]
Me: Well stated, Sir. I suppose, cats being cats - one can hardly change that, can one? Or a dog being a dog. Philosophically, you make a fine point. Still, trying harder is the American way, is it not?
Him: Arf!
Me: Well. I shall relay the message, Sir.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Short Story Review: The Heifer, Melissa Hardy
Melissa Hardy has been writing for a long time - her first novel appeared in 1970 - and sets her stories in the far reaches of Ontario. One thinks, after reading her masterful story The Heifer, that she might be Canada's other, unknown Alice Munro, a talented spinner of tales working with quiet isolation, churning out wondrous stories that only rarely reach the US audience. But a Google search reveals little about her. She's published a few novels, a few collections of short stories, and her personal website contains a heartfelt plea that she has another novel in progress looking for a home. In other words, she's a good writer struggling to make a go of it.
That being said, this is a wonderful story. It's an account of Aina, a Finnish woman, and her disastrous emigration to northern Ontario during a 19th century gold rush. She's seduced by the idea of going to America to be with her new husband, and forging a life in the unknown. The heifer of the title is a wedding present from her husband. He's moody and shiftless, and too meek to collect the heifer from an unreliable neighbor, and it's up to Aina to demand collection and then, in the dead of winter, lead the heifer across a frozen river despite everyone's mirthful conviction that cows won't cross glaze ice. After that, she begins to hate everything about Ontario - its harsh winter, her shiftless husband, the infertile land, and begins to plot her escape. What follows is a rush of disaster and tragedy.
The Heifer can be found in Best American Short Stories, 2002.
That being said, this is a wonderful story. It's an account of Aina, a Finnish woman, and her disastrous emigration to northern Ontario during a 19th century gold rush. She's seduced by the idea of going to America to be with her new husband, and forging a life in the unknown. The heifer of the title is a wedding present from her husband. He's moody and shiftless, and too meek to collect the heifer from an unreliable neighbor, and it's up to Aina to demand collection and then, in the dead of winter, lead the heifer across a frozen river despite everyone's mirthful conviction that cows won't cross glaze ice. After that, she begins to hate everything about Ontario - its harsh winter, her shiftless husband, the infertile land, and begins to plot her escape. What follows is a rush of disaster and tragedy.
The Heifer can be found in Best American Short Stories, 2002.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
People who died before turning 30: Clifford Brown
In the early fifties, as bebop hardened up and the musicians turned from marijuana to heroin, there was Cliff Brown. Cliff was a wunderkind from Delaware, a kid so talented on trumpet he was sitting in with Max Roach and Fats Navarro while still studying math at the University of Maryland. Eventually, but quickly, he moved into music full-time, touring Europe with Lionel Hampton in 1951, where he made a name for himself by sitting in on numerous recording sessions with other artists.
In 1954 Cliff emerged as a leader in his own right, and two years later had released a couple of albums with Max Roach on drums. Stardom seemed inevitable. Along the way, he set a new standard for technical skill and improvisational virtuosity. Listening to him today is a mind-numbing experience, as his attack remains perfect while he machine-guns through scales and over chords that loop and turn and pinwheel, a technician slicing the riff into tiny perfect notes the way a chef might dice a carrot.
It couldn’t have been easy for him. Jazz at that time was full of heroin addicts and self-destructive personalities, and overdoses were claiming stars left and right. Charlie Parker, for instance, died in 1955 (aged 35). But Cliff was straight, never doing drugs, and claiming that even alcohol didn’t agree with him.
But wet roads ended up doing what drugs couldn't. In 1956, on his way to a show in Chicago, with his wife at the wheel, his car skidded off a wet Pennsylvania turnpike. Cliff, his wife, and a third passenger, also a musician, died on the scene. Clifford Brown was 25 years old.
--
This is part of a planned series of short biographies of people who made a significant impact on their worlds, then died before turning 30.
In 1954 Cliff emerged as a leader in his own right, and two years later had released a couple of albums with Max Roach on drums. Stardom seemed inevitable. Along the way, he set a new standard for technical skill and improvisational virtuosity. Listening to him today is a mind-numbing experience, as his attack remains perfect while he machine-guns through scales and over chords that loop and turn and pinwheel, a technician slicing the riff into tiny perfect notes the way a chef might dice a carrot.
It couldn’t have been easy for him. Jazz at that time was full of heroin addicts and self-destructive personalities, and overdoses were claiming stars left and right. Charlie Parker, for instance, died in 1955 (aged 35). But Cliff was straight, never doing drugs, and claiming that even alcohol didn’t agree with him.
But wet roads ended up doing what drugs couldn't. In 1956, on his way to a show in Chicago, with his wife at the wheel, his car skidded off a wet Pennsylvania turnpike. Cliff, his wife, and a third passenger, also a musician, died on the scene. Clifford Brown was 25 years old.
--
This is part of a planned series of short biographies of people who made a significant impact on their worlds, then died before turning 30.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Our Dog: an introduction
Me: You barked, Sir?
Him: [Quizzical look]
Me: Perhaps some food is in order, Sir?
Him: *Whimper* [cocked head]
Me: Some kibble, perhaps?
Him: Arf!
Me: Very good, sir.
Later:
Him: *Whimper*
Me: Yes, Sir?
Him: [Adorable look.]
Me: Perhaps a walk, then?
Him: [Cocked ears.]
Me: Shall I bring the leash around, Sir?
Him: [sound of scampering nails destroying hardwood floor]
Me: Very good, Sir.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Submitting again
Last weekend I got the whim to send my novel, HempAmerika.com, out to agents again. I'd found one who seemed nice enough, was listed as accepting submissions, and had a clean, tasteful website. She wanted a cover letter and a sample chapter. So I pulled up the novel and took a look at the opening paragraph and said to myself, "Is this the best I can do? Really?" It was sluggish and torpid, and I could see why no one wanted to represent me. It was really kind of depressing, but you can't just be depressed and give up, because then where would you be?
So I thought I'd polish it up and send it back out. I'd gather all the skills and life experience I'd gained in the eighteen months since I'd last worked on my novel. Shouldn't take long. I'd just concentrate for a few minutes, come up with a few genius phrases, and make a sparkling jewel of that opening, something to rival The Great Gatsby, or, heck, Moby Dick, for opening paragraphs. Something that would be quoted for decades to come...
Three days later, I'd gotten something acceptable together. I'd added sentences and taken them out. I'd paged through thesauruses, had a few stiff drinks, neglected the dog. Then, finally, with something different anyway, I gave up again. Is it better? Oh, sure, why not.
I repeated this process with the cover letter. I took the two cover letters I'd used before. I decided to take the strongest parts of each and fuse them together, like you do with two bars of soap. I melded and sculpted, made verbs agree with subject, and parallelized dependent clauses. I split hairs over word meanings, and compared adjectives and if it was a close call, I flipped a mental quarter. If I was a genius, then the two choices were equally brilliant. If I were an idiot, same deal, so no need to stress. Finally, when all I was doing was fiddling with commas, I figured I was done.
I composed the email Tuesday morning, made a pdf of the opening chapter, and sent it off to the agent, then remembered I have a day job. So I fed the dog, boxed my lunch, put on a coat and headed out to the bus stop. I checked my Blackberry, and there it was: a rejection from the agent. Four days of work, and fifteen minutes to reject. I do not take it personally. I have since sent it to two other agents, who will most likely not even have the courtesy to send a rejection. Again, nothing personal.
Just for fun, here are the paragraphs:
Paragraph A:
It was in 1998, six months after I moved back to Minneapolis, that Great Uncle Nick passed away. His memorial service was held at a funeral parlor not far from my Uptown apartment, in a section of city encased in a fast-melting shell of ice, the glittering aftermath of a late-season storm. My parents insisted on driving me home, and then on coming up for a visit. They sat silently on their own discarded furniture as I handed them herbal tea from a supply they’d brought over themselves a few weeks earlier, and when I leaned against the kitchen door the silence continued.
Paragraph 1:
In the Spring of 1998, six months after I moved back to Minneapolis, Great Uncle Nick passed away. The night before his memorial service, a late-season storm encased the city in a shell of ice that by morning had transformed my neighborhood into a glimmering imitation of itself. Great gnarled oaks had been smoothed into enlarged approximations of oak trees, and entire buildings wore facades of ice that shimmered in the morning sun, blinding me as I slipped over the frozen sidewalks of Uptown to the funeral parlor where Nick was to be sent off to his final rest. Conditions were still treacherous when the service ended, so my parents insisted on driving me home, and then on coming up for a visit. They sat silently on my sofa, which had been in their basement a few months earlier, as I boiled up and handed out some herbal tea from a supply they’d brought over themselves as a housewarming gift, and when I leaned against the kitchen door the silence continued.
So I thought I'd polish it up and send it back out. I'd gather all the skills and life experience I'd gained in the eighteen months since I'd last worked on my novel. Shouldn't take long. I'd just concentrate for a few minutes, come up with a few genius phrases, and make a sparkling jewel of that opening, something to rival The Great Gatsby, or, heck, Moby Dick, for opening paragraphs. Something that would be quoted for decades to come...
Three days later, I'd gotten something acceptable together. I'd added sentences and taken them out. I'd paged through thesauruses, had a few stiff drinks, neglected the dog. Then, finally, with something different anyway, I gave up again. Is it better? Oh, sure, why not.
I repeated this process with the cover letter. I took the two cover letters I'd used before. I decided to take the strongest parts of each and fuse them together, like you do with two bars of soap. I melded and sculpted, made verbs agree with subject, and parallelized dependent clauses. I split hairs over word meanings, and compared adjectives and if it was a close call, I flipped a mental quarter. If I was a genius, then the two choices were equally brilliant. If I were an idiot, same deal, so no need to stress. Finally, when all I was doing was fiddling with commas, I figured I was done.
I composed the email Tuesday morning, made a pdf of the opening chapter, and sent it off to the agent, then remembered I have a day job. So I fed the dog, boxed my lunch, put on a coat and headed out to the bus stop. I checked my Blackberry, and there it was: a rejection from the agent. Four days of work, and fifteen minutes to reject. I do not take it personally. I have since sent it to two other agents, who will most likely not even have the courtesy to send a rejection. Again, nothing personal.
Just for fun, here are the paragraphs:
Paragraph A:
It was in 1998, six months after I moved back to Minneapolis, that Great Uncle Nick passed away. His memorial service was held at a funeral parlor not far from my Uptown apartment, in a section of city encased in a fast-melting shell of ice, the glittering aftermath of a late-season storm. My parents insisted on driving me home, and then on coming up for a visit. They sat silently on their own discarded furniture as I handed them herbal tea from a supply they’d brought over themselves a few weeks earlier, and when I leaned against the kitchen door the silence continued.
Paragraph 1:
In the Spring of 1998, six months after I moved back to Minneapolis, Great Uncle Nick passed away. The night before his memorial service, a late-season storm encased the city in a shell of ice that by morning had transformed my neighborhood into a glimmering imitation of itself. Great gnarled oaks had been smoothed into enlarged approximations of oak trees, and entire buildings wore facades of ice that shimmered in the morning sun, blinding me as I slipped over the frozen sidewalks of Uptown to the funeral parlor where Nick was to be sent off to his final rest. Conditions were still treacherous when the service ended, so my parents insisted on driving me home, and then on coming up for a visit. They sat silently on my sofa, which had been in their basement a few months earlier, as I boiled up and handed out some herbal tea from a supply they’d brought over themselves as a housewarming gift, and when I leaned against the kitchen door the silence continued.
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