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| Where is Bette Davis when you need her... |
As many know, I have been a huge Downton Abbey fan. So, of course, last night's episode was a disappointment. I fee like the writing since the first season has been uneven. There were many other ways to handle the "Matthew" situation:
-Matthew could have been kidnapped by aliens
-Sent to India
-Sent to the mad house
-Recast like Bewitched/Rosanne characters
-A Doctor Who solution... Cast David Tennant as Matthew!
Season Four Likely Scenarios:
-The grandkids, a little older, are given puppies and/or kittens as gifts from the Dowager. They are promptly killed off in a freak steamroller accident.
-Matthew will have an identical cousin; Edith will marry him. Mary will acquire more and more cats and live in a Grey Gardens situation.
-Hercule Poirot shows up and more main characters start to die in strangely unlikely ways. Who is the murderer?
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| Back off Tennant! |
So I was getting over the flu and then I got sick again, just a cold, I think? But wiping. Me. Out. Three weeks post-flu and I was still feeling draggy, and now I’m useless.
Or mostly useless. I just submitted my Downton recap (watched it earlier via DVD), which will go live at GeekMom tonight or tomorrow. I’d love it if you’d drop by tomorrow and join the conversation there. (Trying to keep Downton comments off this blog because Jane isn’t caught up yet.)
***
Yesterday, Rilla came to me (lolling in my bed, trying to read, mostly coughing) wanting to play a game. She had two small foam circles, each about the size of a silver dollar. It was a guessing game: what are they now? The child’s inventiveness was spectacular. She started me off easy: boy (one circle) with rainhat (the other circle folded into a tiny triangle). I mustered a ladybug. She countered with an eclipse. My efforts: a taco, some earrings. Child’s play compared to my six-year-old’s contributions.
Once, she rolled both circles into little tubes and held them side by side, bending them a bit with her fingers. I was stumped.
“They’re wavy smell lines!” she explained. “You know, like in comics? How they show you something’s giving off a smell?”
Safe to say I would not have guessed that, not it a million years.
At another point, she held both circles up to her face, pressing them haphazardly against her chin and a cheek.
Chicken pox.
***
We also spent a long time yesterday—Wonderboy, Rilla, and I—playing with Google Maps, visiting our favorite local park…Grandma’s house…the Eiffel Tower…Australia. The kids’ favorite part was “walking” up our street in street view, trying to figure out how long ago the Google car drove by. Daffodils in the neighbor’s yard and oranges on the tree across the street, which means it was about this time of year. Last year, because the new owner of the house over the way hadn’t taken down the little pomegranate tree yet. (Why’d she do it? We don’t know.) Sometime after Scott and I switched sides of the driveway, because the minivan’s on the right. There’s a smallish window of time there, and it’s a bit creepy to think of all this quiet surveillance. And yet fun to wonder what we were doing right then, just beyond the camera’s reach — reading a book? eating scones? messing around on Google Maps?
This reminded Scott of the day a few years back when he was on his way home from work and found himself driving behind the Google car for several blocks. We looked up the street, and sure enough, there he is—signing “I love you” to me.
Man, that guy knows how to play the long game.
Goodness me!
It pains me to have been forced to judge an affair as middle class as a first paragraph contest. Are we now to share our inner thoughts with one another in public? Are we all artists, running naked in the streets? How horrid.
Lord Bransford told me that the caliber of entries was the best he'd ever seen in any of his contests, but I found them all perfectly dreadful. If I had to choose a winner it would none of them. I would hate for people to be left with something as pointless as ambition.
However, Lord Bransford informed me that I must choose a selection of finalists, though why he didn't write a will with these instructions and leave them in the care of an unreliable heir I shall never know. All instructions of import should be argued over at great length over the course of many years. What else shall we aristocrats do with our time? Learn to cook?
There were many common threads in these entries, perhaps the most common of which is death in far too many forms. I am all-too-familiar with death having frequented the halls Downton Abbey, where one must check one's pulse at regular intervals lest you realize you've been afflicted with a mysterious disease and perished before they could even put away the silverware. Luckily I shall outlive you all because you cannot kill the witty.
A weakness in many entries was an excess of chattiness, which I simply cannot abide. Save it for the gallows, where you shall doubtless end up with such excitable loose lips.
Another common trope was that if only the narrator had known what was about to happen then everything would have been quite different. Why yes, I do suppose that if one were a fortuneteller quite a bit about life would be rather different. But we don't walk around gazing into crystal balls, do we? Life is interesting enough as it is, one needn't be so surprised by it all.
Sighing, gasping, waking up, and looking into mirrors were all abundantly accounted for in these paragraphs. I began to wonder if I were reading descriptions of a typical morning for my granddaughter Lady Mary.
And dare I say there is much about England that is changing these days but I'm quite certain the definition of a "paragraph" has not changed. There were far too many revolutionaries who chose to ignore the strictures of the English language. I cannot abide revolutions, everyone winds up disappointed in the end.
Now, these are the honorable mentions, who will be allowed henceforce to bring me tea in the library, provided they are properly attired and have not engaged in any previous desultory behavior.
Matt Borgardheatherkamins.comT AydelottLianeJDuncanKelly JohnsonCharlee ValeCrafty Green PoetBryan HilsonCathrine BockharryipantsJoannaChad SourbeerEva NatielloIliad fanIrene PozoukidisPamelaThe instructions for voting is as follows. I argued with Lord Bransford that no women should be involved in something as sinister as voting, but he insisted that it be open to all. These are vulgar times indeed.
In order to vote for the winner, please leave a vote in the comments section of this post. You will have until Sunday, 7pm Eastern time to vote. Kindly do not e-mail Lord Bransford your vote (gracious me, what is "e-mail," is it some sort of ghastly dance?).
There shall be no campaigning in private or public for yourself or your favorites, and suspicious voting may result in disqualification. Participating in this entire exercise should well be grounds for disqualification, but I suppose it's far too late for that.
Anonymous commenting will be closed for the duration of the voting to ensure transparency. The winner shall be announced on Monday.
The eight finalists are...
Sue Curnow:The Mazda hit ice. Carter cursed, fought for control, lost it in kaleidoscope swirls, and the vehicle hurtled down a steep bank, jamming Tori against seat and headrest. Terror strangled her heart, breath refused to come and let out her screams. Stillness as the car stopped, engine running, headlights shining on pristine snow. Relief caught laughter in Tori’s throat, until she realized where they’d ended up. The Coldwater River. Confirming her fears, ice cracked loud as a pistol shot. Carter undid his seatbelt. Tori depressed the button on hers. It refused to give despite her frantic efforts. Carter opened his door, got out the car, then bent to peer back in. “Goodbye, Tori,” he said.
Robert Wyatt:
One of the hoariest adages in booklore is that a tale should never commence with a description of the weather, but what is to be done if you wish to tell about a wraith found at your doorstep in the midst of an electrical snowstorm? Skip to the good, warm part in the middle? No. You must tell it as it was.
Crystal:
Peter had seen strangers in the road before, but there was something different about this man...something sinister. Most people passed on their way without a thought for what might lie on the opposite bank of the river that ran beside the road, but this man, in his tattered cloak that fluttered restlessly around him, stood bent and still. He seemed to be staring at a spot on the edge of the road, as if he knew that was where a bridge should begin.
Saille:
It was a good day until fire started falling out of the sky. The sun was just up, and the leading edge of the spring burn was behaving exactly as the kindlers had predicted, which was a relief, because this was Thus’s first year as an outrunner. Ahead, he could hear the high whistles of his herd of capas, and see their broad silver backs parting the grasses, leaving gleaming, vee-shaped wakes behind them. They moved toward the firebreak restively, but without panic. He supposed they must have grazed their way back across it in the night. It didn’t matter. This was the one day that Thus and the other stewards didn’t need to be responsible for their small allotments of the People’s larger herd. A capa could keep out of the way of fire more easily than the People, because capas weren’t responsible for putting it out. He still felt a wash of protectiveness, though. He’d delivered some of the young for the first time this year, turning their tapering heads and soft, wrinkled paws to lie correctly along the birth canal before drawing them, dark and shining, into the world, where the rhythm of their mothers’ hearts gave way to the susurration of the grasses.
elizabethmarianaranjo.com:
She was a striking girl, all shadow and stillness. Judith watched her carefully. Twenty years teaching middle school had taught her the subtler ways to approach them, the ones who wore solitude like a shell. If you look away, they disappear. But if you look too close, they withdraw. You have to learn to look sideways.
Todd Zuniga:
Delia walks over to the couch where I’m sitting, asks me, “Seriously, why’d you manslaughter your baby?” I tell her she already knows I don’t know. “Huh,” she considers as she crosses her arms. Her hair a tangle of grey curls. Maybe, maybe-not Delia has room to judge: she manslaughtered her mother, who was eighty-three.
Cheryl W.:
Time is a funny thing. People often discover this quite young. You can be in time, on time, buy time, waste time, but you can never trust time. Even though some folks will claim time’s on their side, or their ally is time, or they have time, time doesn’t know them from any other of the trillion souls that live and breathe upon the earth. Time is oblivious to us and likes it that way, thank you very much. “Time,” as most people know it, is purely a manmade manifestation of numbers on a watch or shadows on a sundial, even radioactive isotopes oscillating rain or shine, but Time itself is as elusive as the future to a dying man. We desperately seek to control it, manipulate it and force trains to run to it, but as we never understand from whence the universe came or where it’s going, we’re lost in contemplation of Time’s vagaries. For instance: the past can be as alive to a person as the present, seeming to exist as one within the eye of the observer, just as Einstein posited. To those who insist upon it, time - the present and the past - can be experienced simultaneously. Bartholomew Lewis was just such a man.
Chris Bailey:
I would have given Mom a good-bye hug, but StepThad’s arm rested across her shoulder. Like the two of them were glued together. Double hug or nothing.
Congratulations to everyone. God help the winners of this affair.
Season 3, Episode 5 (U.S. reckoning) over at GeekMom.
…is up at GeekMom. Lots to talk about this week.
Over at GeekMom. Care to join us? I have many theories. ABOUT EVERYTHING.
In the last two posts I was talking about all the work I have / want to do with cat art and architectural renderings. And then what do I do? Draw cheese.
(please click this to see it full size)
These are Parmigiano Reggiano rinds. Aren't they lovely? The cheese itself is probably my favorite. I grew up on that powdery stuff in the green can that most Americans eat because they don't know any better. It wasn't until I moved to San Francisco and was exposed to all good things that I discovered this food of the gods.
You should have seen me at Whole Foods when I found these in a little tub. You can buy the cheese shaved, or grated, or in whole chunks of various weights and sizes. But this was the first time I'd ever seen rinds for sale. Most (normal) people use these to flavor stews or soups or sauces, but of course I immediately thought of a drawing! (And then I stood there and looked at all the little tubs, picking each one up and turning it around, trying to get a good look at exactly what was inside, to see which one had the best pieces. I do this with the produce too, and always wonder what the people on the security cameras are thinking as they watch me.)
This drawing is 8 x 10 inches (20.32 x 25.4 cm) on Stonehenge paper. I used Polychromo and Coloursoft colored pencils. Mostly Coloursofts, because the soft leads helped me build up the slightly grainy texture I was going for. A nice Caput Mortuum Polychromo did most of the work for the lettering. All in all I used a dozen different colored pencils to render this.
I'll have the original and prints available in my etsy shop soon.
* * * * * *
Downton Abbey is back!! (here in the US, anyway) I'm reading
The Real Life Downton Abbey right now, which is all about how people
really lived back in Downton times, both above and below stairs. It goes into detail about rules, duties, salaries and lots of other nitty gritty details. I'm loving it.
Readers around the globe have unwrapped new tablets and eReaders this holiday season. Below, we’ve included a long, long, long list of free and legal eBooks you can download right now for any device.
Explore our Project Gutenberg lists and click “read this eBook online” to sample the book without downloading anything.
If you have an iPad, iPad Mini, iPhone or iPod Touch, you can download the ePub edition. If you have a Kindle or a Kindle Fire, you need to download the Kindle edition. If you have a Nook, Sony eReader or a Kobo, you should download the ePub edition.
continued…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
My wife, a friend and I have been watching Downton Abbey. Aside from all of the annoying pompous characters it's a uh.... um...
Here are some sketches I do while watching the show (it's terribly hard for me to sit still for more than fifteen minutes without drawing).
At GeekMom again. Going to be a looooonnnng wait until Season 3…
At least there’s always Mad Men.
An aside: Last night on Twitter, Amy Kraft joked that she’d like to see early readers based on Downton. I spent the rest of the night entertaining myself (if no one else) with Downton Abbey: The Nursery Years.
We hid in the garden from the nasty governess.
Carson found us in the shrubbery.
Granny was quite put out.
Hee.
What’s funny is that in its first incarnation, way back in 2006, my book that is now called The Prairie Thief was going to be set in an Upstairs/Downstairs-esque Edwardian household. We’d been watching U/D and I was captivated by the dynamics, especially the downstairs crowd; the main character was going to be the daughter of a servant. But about two chapters in, the whole story up and transplanted itself to a landscape I knew inside and out: the Colorado prairie. Eventually the story itself transformed into an entirely different tale. So I guess that original story is still lurking in my brain somewhere, awaiting its turn. 
Won’t be soon, though; I’m neck-deep in a Whole Nother Book.
Tomorrow night is the season two finale of Downton Abbey, the PBS Masterpiece Classic series that has women (and many men) swooning over Edwardian dresses and upstairs/downstairs intrigue.
The basic story is that the titular grand house belongs to Lord Grantham, who has the misfortune to have three daughters instead of a son who can inherit Downton Abbey (see Pride and Prejudice for a further
Welcome to Melanie and Sarah's Downton Abbey recaps! I can't believe the season is almost over! Here's what happened in episode 6:
(No, No, No!!)
The soldiers have left Downton and life is returning to the way it was before the war-as much as it can. Many of the household are feeling restless and useless. Lord Grantham is feeling as though he has no purpose and is feeling a bit lost. He runs into Jane, the new maid, and they chat about her son. Later on, he sees her again and kisses her. He invites her into his room later on, but then both decide this is not what they need and Jane decides to resign from the house and look for work elsewhere.
Sarah: I was SOOO mad at Lord Grantham and his thing with Jane. I knew there had to be more to her story! I feel bad for Jane, but both are feeling a bit lost and confused right now. Also, Cora's being a bit mean, telling Lord Grantham that Matthew should leave the house and I started to dislike her a bit in this episode. Actually, she's been bugging me a bit the last few episodes-she's been so snotty lately! I am glad that Jane decided to leave-I think she made a hard decision but it was the right one and I like her a bit more for that.Melanie: Watching Lord Grantham, a character I've always admired be a villain, first against his wife then later on, Sybil, was incredibly painful. Personally, I don't think Cora was being mean. She was getting on with her life as normal as she could, but Grantham couldn't seem to find his footing and seemed to want their daily activities to go on as they were before the war- an impossibility. While I agree that her wanting Matthew to move out may seem harsh, I think she was doing it in the interest of Mary. Frankly, I think she knew what she was talking about. (Ethel trying to tell the truth to the Bryants)
Cora has heard from the Bryant's who want to visit Downton because it was the last place there son was before he died in the war. Mrs. Hughes arranges for Ethel to arrive with the baby and hopes to sneak Mrs. Bryant away for a bit so she can meet her grandson. Ethel bursts in on lunch and announces that Charlie is their grandson. Mrs. Bryant believes her but Mr. Bryant wants nothing to do with the child. Later on, the Bryants write that they have had a change of heart and want to speak to Ethel again. They offer her the chance to have Charlie live with them and raise him as a gentleman and cutting her out. Ethel begs to be a nursemaid, but Mr. Bryant won't hear of it. In the end, Ethel decides she must keep her child, even if it will be difficult for them both.
Sarah: Poor Ethel-she can't get a break. I do wish Mr. Bryant wouldn't have been so stuffy, but Mrs. Bryant has a heart. I wonder if we'll see her again and if she'll try to help Ethel out.Melanie: I predict Mrs. Bryant will sneak away to see Charlie. It's obvious she wants to be a part of Charlie's life.Sarah: Agreed. I think s
Hello! I am back, after what I realized was my first extended blog break in five years. Five years! My how the time flies. I haven't been idle this past month as I have been hard at work finishing Wonderbar #3, but it still feels a bit strange to be getting back to the blog game.
To that end, I thought I'd tackle one of the most dangerous moments for any writer: The long break.
I've known writers who hit their stride, were interrupted for one reason or another, and then days turned into weeks turned into months and they were never able to get back in the saddle. All that work was squandered. Breaks = kryptonite achilles heel termite ridden ankle breaking weakening things. Don't let long breaks destroy you!
So. Once you break your writing rhythm, how do you get it back?
Here's how I do it:
1) Know that your first day back will not be productiveYou must know that your first day back after a long absence will not be as productive as a normal day. This is okay. Knowing is the first stage of not panicking and not getting down on yourself. Don't set page goals, don't be hard on yourself. Just focus on getting your rhythm back. That's all you need to accomplish.
2) Don't head straight for the novelInstead of going right back to my novel and feeling the crushing weight of the blinking cursor, I start off by writing something, anything other than fiction. E-mails, blog posts, forum posts, you name it. Chances are you have stuff that has piled up, and it's easier to write an e-mail than figuring out what is going to happen next in your novel.
Don't procrastinate endlessly, but get the words flowing for an easier reentry. Then it's time to...
3) Badger yourself into opening up your novel and getting started again even if it feels like you are peeling off your own skin. It can feel so incredibly intimidating to start again. You might not remember where you left off. You had gotten used to filling your time with episodes of Downton Abbey.
Writing is hard. Getting back into writing is really, really hard.
Do whatever you have to do to get that file open. Cursing and threats of bodily harm against yourself are perfectly acceptable. So are rewards. Just get the dang file or notepad open.
4) Start somewhere easyWhen you do crack open the old novel, start somewhere that will get things flowing and keep your confidence high. Know a scene you want to write but aren't there yet in the plot? Write it anyway. Need to do some revising to get back into the rhythm? Awesome, start there.
Writing a novel is full of tasks large and small, everything from figuring out the whole freaking plot to making sure the chapters are numbered properly. Tackling one of those smaller tasks still gets you closer to the finish line, and sometimes they can help you get back in rhythm.
5) Don't get down on yourselfRemember, the first day back is just about getting back into it. It's not going to be your best day. It might not be fun. But you did it. You're back in the saddle, which is why it's so crucially important to...
6) Follow up with a good day of writingYou slogged your way back into writing. Don't waste it! Chase it as quickly as possible with a good, solid, uninterrupted, productive chunk of time. Now you'll have momentum. So keep it up!
Also: Shouting, "I'm back, baby!!" is strongly encouraged.
What about you? What's your favorite te
Judith Newman talks about three books that explore the real-life inspirations for the hit TV series "Downton Abbey."
Melanie and I are such big fans of Downton Abbey and we're having a blast recaping the episodes each week and discussing what happens. Be sure to check out our Downton Abbey Episode Four Recap over at Melanie's blog this week!
And if you haven't watched Downton Abbey yet-what are you waiting for?
By: Alice,
on 1/23/2012
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by John Welshman
Downton Abbey opens with the telegram announcing that the Earl of Grantham’s heir, James Crawley, and his son Patrick, have perished in the sinking of the Titanic. Since Lady Mary was supposed to marry Patrick, the succession plans go awry, and this sets off a chain of events.
But how likely is it that an English aristocrat would have perished in the disaster? The British Inquiry (1912) found that those saved represented 203 out of 325 passengers in First Class (62.46%); 118 of 285 in Second (41.40%); 499 of 1,316 in Third (37.94%); and 212 of 885 members of the crew (23.95%). Overall, 711 passengers and crew were saved of the 2,201 on board (32.30%).
Not surprisingly, with the emphasis on ‘women and children first’, the proportion of women passengers saved in First Class (140 out of 144, or 97.22%) was higher than that for men. But 57 of the 175 men were saved, or 32.57%. In fact if you were a male passenger in Second Class your chances of survival were very slim indeed – only 14 of 168 were saved, or 8.33%. And in Third Class your chances were only slightly better – 75 of the 462 were saved, or 16.23%. It was these figures which reduced the overall odds for men, since for men overall – both passengers and crew – only 338 of a total of 1,667 were saved, or 20.27%.
The opening of Downton Abbey suggests that the Titanic was a potent symbol of luxury and privilege. To be sure, there were English aristocrats in First Class, figures such as Lucy Noel Martha Dyer-Edwards, born Kensington on 25 December 1878, who had married Norman Evelyn Leslie, the 19th Earl of Rothes in April 1900. The Eton-educated Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon, fifth baron, was travelling with his wife Lucy, the well-known fashion designer. He was a talented fencer, and had represented Great Britain at the 1908 Olympics. This was a world where wealth was derived from land, and where deference was the norm. But their fellow travellers in First Class were more likely to be American or Canadian. Among them were the property developer John Jacob Astor; the businessman Benjamin Guggenheim; John Borland Thayer, Second Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad; George Widener, son of P. A. B. Widener, a member of the board of the Fidelity Trust Company of Philadelphia; Charles Hays, General Manager of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway; and Isidor Straus, co-owner of Macy’s Department Store in New York.
Much of the fascination of the Titanic is that the personal narratives of individual passengers and crew provide insights into the worlds they came from. In First Class, we can find businessmen, their families, and the maids and governesses who travelled with them, privileged certainly, but predominantly men whose wealth was based on the new commercial opportunities offered in the United States and elsewhere. In Second Class, there were the teachers, clerks, minor businessmen, clergymen, small time inventors and others who represented the trades and the growing middle class that relied on them. In Third Class, we see the poor and under-privileged, the ironworkers, bricklayers, farmers, labourers, bakers, gardeners, fitters, butchers, carpenters, grocers, butlers, shop assistants, toolmakers, valets, and blacksmiths. Many of them were migrants, not only from Britain, and especially Ireland, but from Belgium, Finland, Sweden, the Lebanon, and a host of other countries, leaving poverty or oppression for a better life in the United States. And among the crew, the Captain, ship’s officers, surgeons, stewards, stewardesses, waiters, engineers, lookouts, firemen, cooks, and plate washers. This then, is the real world of 1912: one of class conflict, religious sectarianism, mistrust and suspicion, leisure for some but grinding poverty for others, racism and prejudice, faith in technology tempered with scepticism, and optimism mixed with anxiety about the future.
In fact,
By: Kirsty,
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By Lucy Delap
Downton Abbey specialises in dramatic twists and love affairs at all social levels. The world of domestic service provides an ideal backdrop for thwarted passions and sexual machinations of all sorts.
I forgot to post this after we watched Episode 2. New ep tomorrow night!
Bound to be spoilers in the comments below. Episode 2 certainly gave us lots to talk about…
Are any of you watching this? We’re only a few minutes into Episode 2, so no spoilers please—but I would love to hear your thoughts on Episode 1 in the comments!
Downton Abbey on Masterpiece Theater
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It's always a bit of a let down when you can see the machinery of the plot working. Killing off a main character at the end of the season is such a cheap and obvious soap opera tactic. Oh well.
It is getting very soapy... Maggie Smith keeps me watching...