A wicked fun thing about teaching a community ed course is that it's a version of getting to have my cake and eat it: everyone who shows up is there because they want to be, and I get to point them towards nifty resources and new ways of thinking about the books, the universe(s), and whatever else nudges our collective boats.

And, there's no grading. *dodges red pens hurled from certain corners of my readership*

FWIW, I've posted my exceedingly messy working notes to sessions 3 and 4 at the fandom journal (bronze_ribbons) (sessions 1 and 2 were ad-libbed more so than not). The posts are locked, but if you want a peek and you have an LJ account, comment below (or e-mail me) and I'll "friend" you so you can access 'em (they're tagged under "dls"). (No need to reciprocate, especially if you'd rather not cope with Whomping Willow smut showing up on your own friendslist. *g*)

For marymary, who was railing about The Taming of the Shrew a little over a year ago:

...the free will of a genuinely created character has a certain reality, which the writer will defy at his peril. It does sometimes happen that the plot requires from it characters certain behavior, which, when it comes to the point, no ingenuity on the author's part can force them into, except at the cost of destroying them. It may be that the Activity has chosen an unsuitable plot, or (this is perhaps more frequent) has imagined an unstable set of characters for working that particular plot out.

In such dilemmas, the simplest and worst thing the author can do is to behave like an autocratic deity and compel the characters to do his will whether or not. ... [W]restlings of natural truth abound in those romances where the heroine, after treating the hero for interminable chapters as though he were something the cat had brought in, is rescued by him under peculiarly humiliating circumstances and immediately falls into his arms in a passion of gratitude and affection. Knowledge of the very ephemeral nature of gratitude in proud and vain persons and of its irritating effect on the character, prompt the reader to wonder what the married life of the couple is likely to be, after thus starting from a false situation. It is a falsity of this kind that makes both actors and audience uncomfortable about The Taming of the Shrew; whether it is played as burlesque or softened into sentimental comedy, we are still left protesting that "'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so," and nothing will persuade us that characters like those would really subdue themselves to a plot like that.

- Dorothy L. Sayers, The Mind of the Maker (p. 69)

This is the sermon I delivered to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Cookeville this past Sunday. The assigned theme was "Unitarian Universalist Moral Responsibility in our Local Community." The worship chair read Raising the Roof as the "Story for All Ages," and before I spoke, I put on four long, gaudy strands of beads:

( Seven years ago, I celebrated Mardi Gras in New Orleans. )

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( ...from deep despair and perished things... )

Picture book rec #1: Maria's Comet - text by Deborah Hopkinson and illustrations by Deborah Lanino. About astronomer Maria Mitchell. Lyrical and nuanced story; richly colored acrylic paintings. The subject line of this post is from this book.

Picture book rec #2: Something from Nothing by Phoebe Gilman, adapted from a Jewish folktale. Recommended by Chinaberry, bless 'em - it shows the transformation of a boy's beloved star-and-moon-decorated blanket into a jacket, and then a vest, and then a tie, and then... and there are side-stories going on with the cobbler on the top floor of the tenement and a mouse family under the floorboards (the classroom of little school-mice learning Hebrew in the corner of page 10...!)...

Also of glee: during dinner with some friends (all over 30), I mentioned the Sayers-Rowling poster I'd presented earlier this summer. One of them instantly demanded, "Do you think Snape is good?" He was bursting to discuss the matter -- but three of our fellow guests hadn't read book 6 yet and didn't want to be spoiled, so they held their hands over their ears and la-la-la'd as best they could through the treacherous parts of the conversation. Later, once the topic shifted to "Peter Pan," the woman next to me said, "I always used to wonder what grown-ups talked about at their parties..."

[subject line = elisem's description of her current story-writing]

Several of you have asked for more about "Placetne, J.K. Rowling?", the Sayers-Rowling poster I presented at Lumos, and _lore suggested that I put it up on my website -- which is a fantastic idea, only I'm unlikely to get around to it before next year. But, for now:

a snapshot of the poster

the PDF of the text published in the conference proceedings

[If you attended Lumos, it's on the purple and white CD in the goodie bag; I believe it's file 026 or thereabouts if you're running a version of Acrobat in which the TOC links don't work.]

The portraits on the poster (of Harriet, Peter, and Severus) were rendered by karasu_hime. The text on the CD contains more schtuff than I presented on the actual poster, but the actual poster had some sections I hadn't included in the CD text.

Anyhow, I do need to reorganize and expand it all for a course I'm expecting to teach next spring, so a web-based version is definitely now on my list. In the meantime, it's back to the eels...

If you've ever wondered what I sound like, here's an under-rehearsed reading-aloud of some Donne. Sayersphiles may recognize certain lines from Busman's Honeymoon therein.

*wafts kisses toward all who want them*

I have insomnia, I have no shame, and I'd promised to send more details about my Thanksgiving sermon to the worship committee in question by this morning... so I'm stealing my own subtitle to placet for my sermon title, that's how shameless I am (and because I am fascinated by the concept of gratitude and how/if/whether people wrestle with what they anticipate/expect/believe vs. what actually transpires -- and because, driving home at midnight, I'd locked into how that fits in with yet another somewhich-or-other I need to outline, and because given how many other discussions are going on around the blogosphere at any given time on neediness and feedback and reciprocity and recognition and such, I'm inclined to believe I'm far from alone in pondering the slippery beast).

( And, speaking of 'Placet'.... )

( Yes, yes, I'm babbling... )

( service details )

Here's McTigue' s benediction:

May the light around us guide our footsteps,
and hold us fast to the best and most righteous that we seek.

May the darkness around us nurture our dreams,
and give us rest so that we may give ourselves to the work of our world.

Let us seek to remember the wholeness of our lives,
the weaving of light and shadow in this great and astonishing dance in which we move.

"Characters certainly develop as you go along, so much so that you find yourself looking in shop windows and choosing things for them." - Dianne Hofmeyr

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"Dorothy L. Sayers, who is queen of the genre said — and then broke her own rule, but said — that there is no place for romance in a  detective story except that it can be useful to camouflage other people's motives. That's true; it is a very useful trick. I've used that on Percy and I've used that to a degree on Tonks in this book, as a red herring." - J.K. Rowling, in answer to an interview question about the romances in Half-Blood Prince [emphasis mine]

(Yes, yes, there are many ways one could interpret this. Me, I want the more interesting theories to prevail.)

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. . .There are days
where I care for nothing but the dignity
of these birches, this solemn green water,
the wild geese in formation below cumulus clouds,
days beside the river when I have no desire
for anyone's trouble, not even my own
or an angry child's, the one who crawled
onto that precipice jutting over the river to scrawl
a name and a curse onto the limestone wall.

- Katherine Smith, "The Serpent," in Shenandoah (Spring/Summer 2005)

Buon compleanno, cara!

Title: Placet
Author: mechaieh
Summary: Ten years after the War, there is what is believed and what is received.
Pairings: Snape/Lupin and Sinistra/Granger; mention of Harry/Draco. Established relationships (backstories not included; HBP not referenced).
Rating: mild R
Disclaimer: I don't own these people; I just like eavesdropping on them. The Wimseys and Parkers originate from Dorothy L. Sayers.
Warnings: Light bondage. More fluff than plot. 2200 words.
Notes: Spawned by discussions here and there; the initial sketch contained just Peter, Harriet, Remus, and Severus at a Handel concert, but the damn bunny kept hopping sideways. Beta'd by the splendid swooop.

( Placet )

Inspired by jane_somebody's "Watchman"

( a TDIR/Wimsey drabble )

(The title's from chapter fourteen of Gaudy Night.)