A fascinating post, via Maitresse, on blurbs on French books… or really, the lack thereof. (Original French text here, but Maitresse summarises in English.)
…in France, authors are identified as belonging to a particular publishing house, and for a Gallimard author to blurb an Albin Michel author would be unthinkable.
I had no idea. It’s such a common thing in North America, to have authors blurbing each other’s work.
Enjoying a sun puddle.
Here are a few of the great blog posts I’ve read in the past week. As you can tell, not all are writing related…
And some music: ‘Believe the Hype‘ by Bottled in England. (Link found on Allan Hyde’s twitter stream.)
L to R: Graham, Oksana, Carol-Anne & Andrew of Bellewether
Last Saturday night at the Quality Inn (Airport), I was fortunate to be treated to an evening of music by Calgary band Bellewether, a quartet of talented musicians celebrating the release of their album ‘Finding David’. (Their opening act was singer/songwriter Christina Helen Marie, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how good her music was too. I hope she’ll release an album soon.)
Bellewether’s live show was fantastic. Lots of banter between songs (perhaps Oksana and Carol-Anne are thinking about alternate gigs as comedians? Maybe?) and great music. Vocally the group is fronted by Oksana and Carol-Anne, and the two have great harmony.
Their album is just as good as their live show. Split into two Acts, with instrumental tracks, it is (in the words of Oksana, during one bantering moment) based upon a dream. The tracks flow into one another and create an excellent listening experience. I’ve listened to it while writing, and it’s just right. I’m already looking forward to the next album, and to the next live show.
Check out their website at bellewether.ca and listen to tracks at MySpace. Buy the album at iTunes.
Watching ‘Midnight in Paris’, written and directed by Woody Allen, is a bit like walking into a nostalgia shop, except the entirety of Paris is the shop. The film commences with a series of location shots of Paris, setting the tone and the scene for the rest of the film. For those familiar with the city, favourite haunts and landmarks trigger that nostalgic feeling. For those unfamiliar with the city, the montage might get a tad dull, though one would hope that an unfamiliarity of Paris would not preclude seeing this film.
Gil (Owen Wilson) is a Hollywood screenwriter visiting Paris with his fiancée (Rachel McAdams) and her parents. He’s obsessed with 1920s Paris, and one night after getting lost walking back to his hotel, at the very stroke of midnight, he’s picked up by revelers in an old Peugeot. He finds himself somehow transported to 1920s Paris, partying with F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, meeting Hemingway, Picasso, Gertrude Stein… it’s a veritable name dropping of ‘20s literary society. On his second visit, he is enchanted by a young woman dating Picasso. He falls in love with her, and returns to the 1920s via the car at the stroke of midnight to visit her, and to get Stein’s views on his unpublished novel. As their visit to Paris lengthens, his relationship with his fiancée is souring, and he has to decide what he should do with his life.
The film has an excellent ensemble cast: Kathy Bates as Stein, Marion Cotillard as Gil’s love interest Adriana, Adrien Brody as Salvador Dali, and Gad Elmaleh as the detective, among others. Corey Stoll especially was a delight as the very upfront and opinionated Ernest Hemingway. The film is an English student’s dream: my theatre companion squealed at the sight of T.S. Eliot, and then of Paul Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec. I wonder if Woody Allen’s nostalgic Paris is the 1920s?
I know what era of Paris I would like to visit, should a car come for me at midnight… the 1940s-1950s, visiting the cafés and rubbing shoulders with the existentialists. But of course, you knew that, right?
Julian Sands reads a poem by Harold Pinter, from the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. (WordPress won’t let me use the Telegraph’s code to embed the flash video, so you’ll have to check it out at the link above.) I’m not very familiar with Pinter’s poetry – does anyone have a recommendation for an anthology (if there is one)?
ETA: Apparently Sands read from a copy of “Various Voices” during the production.
Muffled Drum, by Erastes. (website)
I haven’t read much gay fiction, but what little I’ve read so far I’ve been incredibly impressed by, and I know it’ll be a new favoured genre. First, I’ll be working my way through Erastes’ backlist!
Bohemia, 1866
They met in a port-side tavern, their lust-filled moments stolen from days of marching and madness. After eighteen months, Captain Rudolph von Ratzlaff and First Lieutenant Mathias Hofmann have decided to run away from everything they hold dear. Resigning their commissions is social suicide, but there’s no other choice. Someone will eventually see Rudolph’s partiality toward Mathias.
Now their plans have gone horribly awry… When Mathias goes to Rudolph’s tent after their last battle, his lover looks at him without a hint of recognition. Mathias can hardly believe the man he knew is gone. He wants to fill in so many of Rudolph’s missing memories, but the doctor says a shock could result in permanent damage. The pain of seeing Rudolph on a daily basis, when Rudolph doesn’t remember their love, is excruciating. Now Mathias must decide whether he wants to fight for the man he loves or forget him completely…
This 43K novella was a quick read for me, but that’s not due to length. I couldn’t put it down. It’s a romance, but hardly typical. Mathias is struggling with one of the worst emotional situations I could imagine: 2 years of love with Rudolph completely wiped away, with the added difficulty of homosexuality being very hush-hush, even dangerous. To make things worse, Rudolph takes up with a former lover once he’s back in Berlin.
All throughout the novella I wondered what the final outcome would be, an incredibly good sign, since a lot of romances are fairly predictable. Would Mathias and Rudolph come to terms? Would Rudolph regain his memory? (and no, I’m not going to answer these questions for you. You’ll have to read it for yourself.)
What I really loved about this novella was the setting and the time period. It’s historical, but it’s not England, it’s not Regency, and it’s set during a war. I’m heartened to see the increasing variety in historical romance. (I was reminded of Carrie Lofty’s Portrait of Seduction, set in Salzburg.) The historical detail is sufficient to give a strong picture of Bohemia at the time, without being overly fussy and distracting from the story. It’s the perfect balance.
Muffled Drum is published by Carina Press and is available wherever ebooks are sold.
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/justaslice/3477561971/ (Creative Commons)
Well, not quite my backyard, exactly, but very close.
The Lamp House, where the miners picked up their lamps every day. A missing lamp at the end of the day meant a missing miner, and a search party would be sent out.
In Banff National Park, right near Lake Minnewanka, the ruins of an old coal-mining town are now a picturesque and short hiking trail.
The town of Bankhead existed for a mere 17 years, closing in 1922 when the CPR shut down their coal mine. (The price of coal had dropped, the miners were on strike, and the federal government had begun to consider a more conservation-based ideal in the national parks, as well as dealing with the reduction in royalties… the writing was on the wall.) At its peak in 1911, the mining operation processed 500K tons of coal. When the town closed, the mine entrances were sealed by blasting.
The parts of the town that could be moved were – houses went to Banff or Canmore, the church went to Calgary, and all useful parts of the mining operation taken away. The remaining concrete foundations are now overgrown with vegetation. The area itself is under monitoring due to environmental degradation from the coal. After all, in the early 1900s, no one had any concern (or much idea) of the ruin such operations would bring to the local environment.
A hardy rhubarb plant grows in the slag heap.
Plant life has survived and even flourished, but there are numerous signs warning visitors not to eat anything. The signs are necessary: rhubarb plants grow in many places, huge and flowering. If not for the signs, I would have been tempted to take a cutting; I love rhubarb. Planted by Chinese immigrant mining families that lived in shanties behind the operation, they are some of the hardiest plants around. The meadows are full of wildflowers and grasses; the forest has begun to overtake other buildings.
The Briquette building, where coal briquettes were made for use in home heating and locomotive engines.
The path is dotted with plaques and information, detailing the origins and functions of the various buildings. The transformer building includes photographs of some of the town residents and of their daily lives. The managers of the mine were British mostly and the workers were mainly immigrants (Polish, Irish, Italian, Chinese, etc.) They had a soccer team, kids played hockey, much like many towns today. They also had electricity, a modern sewage system. Their drinking water was supplied by a reservoir filled from the Cascade River. The town’s population was as high as 900 residents, so that’s quite a bit of water and sewage to deal with. The town was incredibly modern, even though it didn’t exist for very long.
And why did I come here?
My current novella features a town very much like Bankhead, and I wanted to get a feel for the area and its history before I started writing my second draft. There are bits of information that will make my story that much richer.
I’ll post some more photos of the hike this week; there were just so many to choose from.