aslant | the heat wave has broken

i woke up to a lovely cool breeze. after so many days of such heat, walking outside it seemed as if the world had come to a standstill. like the calm before the storm, all the breezes rippling in the alleys and the corners.

and the bandit queen is dead.

a woman on the radio lamented the she fought for their rights, she was their advocate, now who would fight for their rights?

and my heart broke.

more translations to come. i did another 10 pages last night. mm. it's a little early. got to stretch out the kinks. must go to the bank at lunch. must take advantage of such a beautiful cool cloudy day.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

aslant.livejournal.com

well, to be clear, the translation work is kind of in my spare time. i do the script editing work free-lance for a friend, i do the translations for my own happiness. my actual job is to answer this phone and staple these faxes and send off these letters. it's very boring. they need somebody to sit here all day, but it's not really a lot of work. i could think of worse jobs, though.

yes, i'd like to get 'giu la piazza' published, because i love it so much, but it might be more feasible to translate her shorter writings and publish them in academic journals. no one has published in any american journals about her yet, and very few have published in italian.

From:

booshtukka.livejournal.com

so - you're a receptionist, right? or is that an insult? I once did the washing up for an entire hospital, by myself. THAT was a miserable job. but then again, I was once a sound engineer for a travelling pantomime and that was excellent. you don't have pantomimes do you? do I have to explain what they are?

what are her shorter writings about?

From:

aslant.livejournal.com

yes, i'm a secretary to the project manager. but they call it an administrative assistant these days. it's a load of crap, i'm still a secretary. the world hasn't changed much even though they don't require us to wear skirts any more.

is a pantomime a children's theater show? i read a book that took place in te 20s in brixton and they talked about pantos, is that the same thing? we don't really have them here.

have you ever seen a punch and judy show?

an entire hospital? that's a crappy job. i was a maid in a hotel once and i hated it more than anything. i would try to get fired, but they never did it. i worked with a small group of annoying, older, complaining women who i wanted to kill constantly. i think their brains were mush from too many cleaning chemicals.

prato's shorter writings are about her later life, when she left Treja for boarding school (collegio) and then was working in rome. but they're more like short stories. you know, a beginning, a middle, and an end. the one i've read is very lyrical and beautiful, and still sad (of course). but she only wrote two or three of them. i've been unable to find the writing work she did in rome, which was for a magazine, i think. it's a little unclear.

From:

booshtukka.livejournal.com

administrative assistant sounds much better though.

yes, a panto - same thing. it's kind of a kids theatre - but very old and traditional rules are applied to them. so, they are all kind of the same.

yes - I've seen punch and judy shows :) lol
they're very violent!

it WAS a crappy job. I quit. why didn't you?

I wish I read better. I just like easy books - that don't tax me too much. I think that's because my work can really mentally exhaust me. it's a good excuse anyhow.

From:

aslant.livejournal.com

well, i didn't quit the maid job because it was only for a summer, and my mom would have killed me if i didn't have a job. i delayed for weeks before i got that one.

i've never seen a punch and judy show, but one of my favorite comic books of all time is dave mckean's "the tragical comedy or comical tragedy of mr punch". it's so beautiful. his artwork is amazing. and the story is scary and sad and very mysterious.

what sort of rules are there about the panto? like with stock characters? italy has a kind of theatre like that, the commedia dell'arte. i did a project on it once, and they think one of the characters was what led to the punch and judy shows.

easy books are good if you have a hard job. in my case it's the opposite, i find complicated books because i don't do much here. but in general i like complicated books better (well, to an extent) because they're intriguing. plus it's harder to make a good funny book. terry pratchett writes good stuff, but i can't read all of his discword books, because some of them aren't the best. but douglas adams is consistently great, that's for sure. sometimes i think it's easier to write tragedy. comedy is just difficult.

From:

booshtukka.livejournal.com

pantomime rules... like the lead guy is actually a girl. and there is always a comic female character that is actually a man. and they say "oh no it isn't" and everyone in the audience shouts "oh yes it is". and "it's behind you!" it's very difficult to explain. you should go to see one :)

in the comic book, is it a standard punch and judy story? or what?

terry pratchetts books ARE all good! he has some very insightful things to say, douglas adams is more into the clever scientific things - but terry pratchett makes fun of people. i haven't had one book by him I didn't like. some of them start slowly though. I read quite a lot of horror stuff too.

the book I was writing is an attempt at comedy. you'll see. i hope you laugh at it :P

From:

aslant.livejournal.com

hm. i read pratchett's 'small gods' and the one about rock and roll music. but there was another one i tried to read and i just couldn't get into it. i loved small gods, though.

that sounds like a lot of fun, shouting back at the actors. what a great tradition.

the comic book: well, it's a story about a small boy, in brighton i think, and his uncle owns a crappy indoor arcade, and a punch and judy man comes and sets up his show there. so the little boy sees it and then all the violence in the show is sort of paralleled to a bunch of different violence stuff in his life. it plays off a lot of the ideas about masks, and changing your identity, and puppets, etc. spooky stuff.

what kind of horror do you read? i haven't read much, although i used to read rice's vampire books...

From:

booshtukka.livejournal.com

"soul music" - that's really good. read "pyramids" that was my favourite, and good omens but you've read that one :)

the diggers series is very good too, even if it IS supposed to be for children.

there's a lot of audience participation. I haven't been for years though, maybe I'll go to one. I wonder if they do adult pantomimes...

comic sounds quite good. I always found the punch and judy quite disturbing. what with him beating a policeman around the head with a stick, and his wife too.

I like Stephen King, mainly because it fascinates me how every time they turn one of his books into a film, they change it to make the ending nicer. did you see the green mile?

Robert McCammon is very good too. "they thirst" is a good vampire book, and "blue world" is more short stories.

you should definitely read stuff by Robert Rankin though, he's my current favourite.

From:

aslant.livejournal.com

yes, i saw the green mile. good movie, altho a bit long.

in the book i read that was in brixton, they seemed talked about pantomimes becoming less popular and turning into burlesque theater. like early strippers.

what was the original ending to the green mile?

i'll have to look up the rankin when i go to the library. i might go tonight. i'm running out of books...

From:

booshtukka.livejournal.com

in the movie, did Mr.Jingles (the mouse) die at the end? he did in the book.

pantomimes are still popular, it's a way for old actors to still get work. probably not in Brixton though, that's a predominantly black area.

do do - I'd love for someone else to get my random rob rankin jokes.

From:

aslant.livejournal.com

yes, the mouse died. i hated that guy who killed him. jerk. sigh...

brixton used to be where all the lower-class theater were, according to this book.

i heard a thing on the radio last night about south brixton clubs, and basement jaxx. a review of their new album.

From:

booshtukka.livejournal.com

I didnt think the mouse died. oh. that means it had the same ending as the book then.

basement jaxx are excellent. they are so diverse. every one of their songs is so different, like daft punk. and todd edwards is good too.

brixton probably was like that at one point, but it's not now. they do have the brixton academy though, where all the bands play.