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Still more questions from Bertie the Beau

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Greetings, dear ones! Bertie the Beau here once again, popping in whenever I have an atom of free time.

Could someone please explain:

1) What is football? And why are the members of gang called the Stealers not in gaol?

2) What is half time? Is that a sort of time-travelling device?

3) What is the secret to the Tele-Vision story entitled “Lost”? If so many people actually watch these lost people, why cannot any of the watchers tell the lost people where they are?

4) Why are the modern Olympic Games called the Olympic Games when the competitors are obviously clothed?

5) Why would a beautiful woman become so desperate that she married a house?

(As you may guess, I have been studying the Tele-Vision device, which may explain why I only have an atom of free time.)

As ever, I remain exquisitely yours.

Bertram St James

Cathy Decker’s “The Regency Page” is back!

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The biggest message I have today is that…Cathy Decker’s Regency pages are back!

They have been down before and down for some time, but this last time I worried that they would not be back. But today I checked, and there they are. If you haven’t visited Cathy’s Regency pages before, do it now–and if you have seen them before (which may be most of us) it’s worth going again.

http://hal.ucr.edu/~cathy/reg.html

If you check out her home page, she has an explanation of what is happening with her site. It is a mammoth contribution, so I am not surprised that all the links do not work all of the time. I’m not bothered at all as long as she keeps the site going! Yes, there are
other Regency sites, but I believe that hers is the best, in sheer volume of information and in the detail that she is able to present. I say that primarily because she mentioned her journal pages where she has included written content when available (from such as “The Gallery of Fashion”). I don’t know of another site which has such a complete collection of fashion plates/journal pages from the Regency period.

Cathy’s Regency pages also contain some of her own articles, being a student of the period. I should mention that Cathy Decker is Dr. Cathy Decker with a PhD in 18th Century British Literature and the novel, and teaches in the Dept. of Psychology at the University of California at Riverside. I won’t try to explain how her degree and psychology are connected, only that she has worked with the Psycholinguistics and Computational Cognition Lab. If you are curious, go here:
http://hal.ucr.edu/~cathy/lab.html

I know that the lab site is the old location of her pages:
http://locutus.ucr.edu/index.html

Being me, I of course visited the lab cats page!
http://locutus.ucr.edu/catindex.html

The portrait image is from the Elisabeth Louise Le Brun Art page, which is one of the pages linked to Cathy’s site.
http://www.batguano.com/vigee.html

Well, that’s all for today…go check out Cathy’s Regency pages!

Laurie Bishop
LORD RYBURN’S APPRENTICE
Signet, January 2005

Miss Austen? Misses Bronte? Mr. Borges?

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Next week–February 9th from 12:30-2:00, to be exact–I’ll be signing books, along with
Eloisa James, at Waldenbooks in Rockefeller Center in New York City. It’s my first bookstore signing, and I’m pretty psyched (and yes, I will be wearing all black. I mean, did you expect taupe and teal?).

Which led me to think about meeting authors, and what you’d say to them, or if you even like meeting authors (or musicians, or artists, or actors), or if you prefer to keep your distance. And if you did meet someone whose work you admire–an author, specifically–what would you ask?


If I could ask Jane Austen a question, it would be: ‘Can I be you?’ No. Maybe not. How about ‘Do you like people, or do you just like making fun of them?’ Or ‘Were you trying to be so obvious in naming Mr. Knightley?’

If I met the Bronte sisters, I’d have to ask just what they felt about their brother, and were they really as nutty as their writing makes them seem.

If I met Jorge Luis Borges, I’d ask him–oh, I dunno. It wouldn’t be possible to ask him how his mind works, so I think I’d just gawk (I thought of Borges because in addition to Groundhog Day, yesterday was also the date of the founding of Buenos Aires, and Borges was Argentinean).

So–do you like getting to meet creators in person? Which authors would you most like to meet, and what would you ask them? Whom have you met already?

And, if you are in NYC next week, come say hi!

Megan
www.meganframpton.com

Oink oink

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What a sad reflection on everyday life, or at least everyday life with the Riskies…fairy princesses yesterday, pigs today. In my tradition of eloquently bringing down the tone, I thought we should take a look at farm animals of the regency or earlier, and I’m unapologetically concentrating on pigs. Like my hero Adam in Dedication, I’m quite fond of pigs. They do spend a lot of time squelching in mud and making disgusting noises, but they are very intelligent and can be quite friendly. Did you know that if you scratch a pig’s back, its hind legs will give way and it will collapse in a pleasured heap? They can also be extremely aggressive (in an earlier version of Dedication, the villain was attacked and eaten, all except for his watch, by Adam’s pigs). It’s remarkable that creatures bred for centuries to be eaten can have so much personality and smarts.

In 1807, Mr. Richard and Mr. Edward Toomer trained a pig as a retriever in the New Forest (honestly, this is true). She was named Slut for her fondness for wallowing in mud, and excelled at her vocation: When called to go out shooting she would come home off the forest at full stretch, and be as elevated as a dog upone being shown the gun. (By the way, I do not recommend doing a Google seach for “pig hunt slut.” The results are not for the faint of heart.)

There’s a lot of interest in England in saving old breeds and here are some pics of some of these porcine beauties: from left to right, the Old Black, the Gloucester Old Spotted, and the British Saddleback. Most original British breeds are actually not that ancient–they derive from the great interest in agriculture of the eighteenth century, when pigs from the near east were imported to improve native species. Despite their limited gene pool, these “heirloom” pigs are resistant to modern pig diseases and also have better maternal instincts (which probably translates as being less likely to eat, or squash, their offspring) than their factory-farmed cousins.

In my pig research, I also discovered that the wild boar, sus scrofa, extinct for three centuries, is making a comeback in England. I don’t know how specifically British the species is, since they are imported boars who escaped and are now surprising picnickers and annoying farmers. Both James I and Charles I were among those who attempted to re-introduce boars, for hunting purposes, with mixed success: not only will boars root where they please, but they taste good. Here’s a close up of the tusks of a two-year-old male.


Despite the aggressive mouth furniture of the adults, though, you have to admit the babies are adorable. Aaaaw!

Any other good Regency pig tales? The only example I can think of is Mr. Knightley giving Miss Bates a joint of pork in good neighborly fashion.

Happily ever after…

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A while back my CPs and I realized we were all tapping into elements of popular fairy tales: Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty and (mine) Cinderella. We didn’t see it as a Bad Thing. These stories have something called “enduring appeal”. Nothing wrong with that!

I’ve been thinking about Cinderella again (must be one of my favorites) and here are some of the reasons for her popularity:

  • The idea of a magical night where one meets (and instantly recognizes) one’s soul-mate. Glass slipper optional.
  • The whole rags-to-riches, ugliness-to-beauty transformation.
  • The desire to be rescued from one’s humdrum existence, the whole “Calgon, take me away!” fantasy.

But the rescue fantasy can also be the downside of a Cinderella story. I enjoyed the classic Disney animated version, but have to admit the mice carried the story. As a child, I wondered if you got a Prince just for putting up with annoying relatives. Knowing I couldn’t have put up with that evil stepmother and mean stepsisters made me feel a bit . . . guilty.

That was before we writers were told it was Bad to have a Passive Heroine who puts up with a toxic situation rather than leave or change it.

More recent retellings make an effort to reverse this. One of my favorite is the movie “Ever After” with Drew Barrymore. A plucky Cinderella, who has good reasons for staying with her family and does NOT meekly accept her fate (she punches out one evil stepsister, and rescues the hero from a band of brigands.)

A more self-conscious effort came in Disney’s remake of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella (the version with Brandy and Whitney Houston). Some people dissed this movie for its interracial cast (but it’s a fairy tale, right, folks?) I enjoyed it for the most part, and thought Pablo Montalban was particularly charming as the prince though Jason Alexander was equally annoying as the palace gofer. Back to the subject, though, in this remake they have Cinderella run away from her toxic family near the end. Of course, on the way out she meets up with the Prince.

One Cinderella retelling I thoroughly enjoyed was Gail Carson Levine’s ELLA ENCHANTED. The movie version was cute, but totally deviated from the book except for the main premise, that Ella struggled against an enchantment that forced her to obey any command from anyone. The book is a fun read, with an important message.

On to some Regency-set romances with Cinderella elements.

ARABELLA, by Georgette Heyer, is perhaps the classic, quintessential London Season story, where a heroine from a modest country family becomes the most sought-after belle in society. It’s great fun, but I have to say too that it’s been imitated far too many times. The other Cinderella element that’s become rather tired is the poor, unappreciated heroine whose mother (or stepmother) unfairly favors her supposedly more beautiful sister.

One story that flipped over the Cinderella concept is AN UNLIKELY HERO, by Gail Eastwood. The hero, Gilbey, is a soft-spoken, scholarly NICE guy who comes into his strength while aiding the heroine and her sister. Loved this one!

A more obviously Cinderella-inspired story is ONE NIGHT OF PASSION, by Elizabeth Boyle. The story starts with the heroine seducing the hero at a Cyprian’s Ball. Though it doesn’t tap much deeper into the fairy tale, it’s a fun, quick read.

So what do you like best/worst about the Cinderella fantasy? When does a Cinderella cross the line from being worthy to being a doormat? Is it going too far to have a kickbutt Cinderella instead?

What are your best/least favorite interpretations of Cinderella?

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, RT Reviewers’ Choice Award nominee
www.elenagreene.com