Linky-loos
Still too toasted to post (although I’m seeing a nutritionist today! yay!) but this ought to be enough to keep you reading for a while:
Here is an entertaining article about what people ate at the theater in Shakespeare’s time. I’m always amused by these folks who write in to me complaining that someone dared to hum along to an opera aria, or, God forbid, be fat at them at a live performance. Because you know these same aesthetes with their delicate sensibilities, if you asked them what period in history they’d like to visit, will immediately get all misty-eyed and talk about the Athenian drama festival or Shakespeare’s original performances at the Globe. Yeah, good luck with that. You can’t handle a teenager texting during “The Blind Side” or an African-American woman wearing her church hat to a Sweet Honey in the Rock concert? Have fun with the groundlings munching oysters or the guy slaughtering chickens in the front row, then.
This article is absolutely fascinating: why there are so few Jewish writers of fantasy. (Yeah, I know, I immediately popped up the same names you’re thinking of — Singer, Ozick — the author addresses this.) As a Jew, a lover of genre fiction, and someone who did her dissertation on the psychology of narrative and genre, this absolutely floored me.
Some good old-fashioned straight-up ranting about a social annoyance: excess noise in U.S. airports. Amen, Patrick Smith. What a pity nothing will be done about it.
Good interview with the author of “Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith,” at the invaluable Muslimah Media Watch.
You want weird? I got weird. Or, more to the point, eBay does: an action figure of Elizabeth Bathory:
My favorite part is “Item condition: New.” It would have been funnier if they’d listed it as “Disturbingly well preserved.”
I got more weird, too. Check out this apparently real political advertisement. I mentioned in comments in my post on the “Demon Sheep” ad that my best friend, a theater professor, and I are thinking about doing some kind of project on the use of horror-movie imagery in political advertising. Here’s one for our archive.
Finally, as you may know, I have a thing for cardigans. I have a cardigan for every day of the week, and that’s only counting the grey ones. I mean, it’s close to being an obsession, like I’m the love child of Mr. Rogers and Michelle Obama or something. So imagine my delight that Academichic will be doing a whole week on cardigan fashion 101!
Chat tomorrow, and morel linky-loos on Thursday!
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Regarding the ubiquitous TV’s in airports: the only time I’ve seen the TV’s turned off at Logan was the morning of 9/11. It was frighteningly quiet.
Last time I went to a movie theater I’m afraid I did tap the shoulder of a texting teen. If she’d held her phone in her lap, I wouldn’t have noticed, but she was holding it up in front of her (and us). Her screen rivaled the movie screen in brightness, and she kept jiggling it around as she typed. “Thumbed”? What’s the word here?
More than once I’ve used my own phone to light my way when I couldn’t find a working light switch. They’re pretty damned bright nowadays.
I appreciate the bit of FA-ese. Somehow I continue to blatantly, brazenly be fat at everyone in my vicinity, no matter how many of them point out to me that I am. When oh when will I learn?
What I want to know is just exactly how did you find the Elizabeth Bathory Barbie? I mean, just what were you searching for on eBay, anyway?
I love cardigans, don’t own anywhere near enough. Where do you fall on the whole “belted cardigan” fashion choice?
Is it a middle-age thing? I am deeply loving the zip-up cardigan I got from L L Bean last fall–I didn’t know I would love it, having always worn pullover sweaters.
Dave’s Not Here–that sent chills up my spine. What a truly eerie experience, indeed. I was in the Las Vegas airport in 2005, and there was a power outage. I was terrified, thinking it was some kind of attack. (Do you know what was, after the fact, very funny, though? Despite the lights, climate control, PA system all being down–the slot machines kept running! For those, they had a backup generator!)
Jerry–I’m certainly not saying you shouldn’t have asked the person to turn off their phone. I’ve shushed people, too. I only find it amusing that some folks seem to believe there was once a time when attending live performances was a genteel experience. This might be true for classical music, but I’ve taken theater history and it’s NEVER been true for the performing arts.
Oh, and if you’re still going around being fat at people, it’s obviously because you haven’t been shamed enough. Because we all know that shaming fat people and refusing to design attractive clothing for them is the MOST effective way to get them to lose that weight. (rolls eyes)
MJ–a friend of mine sent me the link, and I didn’t want to ask.
Katherine–I like the belted cardigan look on everyone but me. I can’t do it right, for some reason. On other women it makes them look more professional and accentuates their waists. On me it creates weird pockets and lumps and wrinkles. Don’t know if I’m belting too high, too low, too tight, too loose, or if I just don’t have the figure for it.
Carolyn–I think cardigan design has improved in the past few years. Cardigans used to be boring, now they come in all kinds of interesting shapes and textures. Also, I think they’ve become more acceptable as professional wear for women. Let’s face it, blazers just don’t do you any favors if you have a bust.
I am so suprised no one has commected yet on the article about Jewish fantasy writers! It was so fascinating that it drew me out of lurker mode to comment. That was a really great read, and gave me a lot of food for thought on an otherwise boring workday.
Me too! I was expecting Shulamuth to be all over that like white on rice (or brown on rice, in my fiber-rich household). A lot of times I get writer-jealousy thinking “Hey, I could have written that and gotten money and a byline,” but this is the first article in a long time I sincerely wish I’d written because I wish I’d had those ideas myself.
Oh, classical music has by no means always been genteel…one went to the opera to See and Be Seen, not to see the opera. One hushed up when certain arias were being sung, but otherwise there was eating and drinking and card-playing going on aplenty.
And classical music had its claques just like theatre.
And let’s not forget the riot started by the premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. No really, a literal riot. Not an auspicious debut.
People used to applaud in the middle of classical music, like they do now for jazz. The New Yorker’s music critic Alex Ross has a really interesting post on his old blog about the history of applause:
http://www.therestisnoise.com/2005/02/applause_a_rest.html
He quotes Mozart writing to his dad about the reception of one of his symphonies:
“Right in the middle of the First Allegro came a Passage I knew would please, and the entire audience was sent into raptures — there was a big applaudißement; — and as I knew, when I wrote the passage, what good effect it would make, I brought it once more at the end of the movement — and sure enough there they were: the shouts of Da capo.”
Ever since reading this I’ve been tempted to go to a classical concert and applaud in a historically appropriate manner, but I’m not quite brave enough to face the rest of the audience’s reactions.
Molly and Eager Ears–thanks for schooling me! I am fairly learned about theater and literature, at least in the Western tradition, but I know next to nothing about music and the visual arts.
Argh, I have a rep! Actually, I was just too agog at the Bathory Barby to go anywhere else.
Dark brown on rice — I’m doing wild-rice this week. What I think of the article is that the writer didn’t do his homework. He is not talking, for the most part, about fantasy per se, but about high fantasy (where entire alternative worlds are created). If you expand it to include all fantasy (and especially if you allow magical realism) Jews are represented at least, if not more, than our demographic numbers. And that’s not including all the Jews who write fantasy, but not necessarily “Jewish” fantasy. (For that matter,
FWIW, I think at least one of the larger reasons that there isn’t a lot of Jewish high fantasy is that Jews don’t (and haven’t for a bit under 2000 years) do the whole hierarchy-central government thing, and most people who build fantasy universes do it from the top down; it probably helps to have grown up in a culture that is organized that way.