procrastinating again

[thanate]

Which is to say that I have much to do, and am somehow managing not to do much of it. Possibly if the house were not so hot and icky (and infested with ants and a now-deceased mosquito) I would be better-focused, but I wouldn't swear to that. At any rate, whether we have finished anything or not, we plan to attend pennsic from friday-when-we-get-there until some time on Wednesday. grauwulf will be fighting; I have yet to decide whether I wish to or not, but odds are I'll wander about, shop (as if I had expendable an income...) and the usual other things. At present, I mainly want to sit and read a book, but so it goes.

And in the mean time, a quote from Liz Williams, via Caitlin Kiernan/graygirlbeast:

I am occasionally asked to do a talk on the Gothic, and one of my pet peeves is the continual process of making the other safe. Once, unicorns were savage destroyers that slew anything that wasn't a virgin. Vampires were a horde of rats, or smoke. Angels eviscerated those who did not believe the word of God with flaming swords.

And now they're our imaginary friends, who have nothing better to do than schlep around being our 'totems.' I do, sometimes, feel that pagans have debased the great powers far more effectively than any Christian fundamentalist ever has. I work, on occasion, with Sekhmet, who is not to me a symbol of modern women's empowerment, but something huge and distant and remote. Like Aslan, not a tame lion. I think we need to get the 'awwww' out of 'awe', and pretty damn quick, too.

(and despite the very-other vampires as a useful segment of society proto-novel lurking at the back of my writing folder with all the other stuff, and Scheherazade's panther, I do quite agree. Particularly about the pagans.)

Comments

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

I've spent years reading fairy tales. So many people think 'tinkerbelle' when they hear fairies (Victorian flower fairies and other such twee creatures), but I think it's probably one of the few that has been going the other way in recent times; fantasy novels definitely prefer the older, darker visions of the Sidhe, especially in Urban Fantasy novels, where they are nasty and grungy. So it's not all taming down and shining up.

(Although even the darkest of grim fairy tales -ha!- can't counteract vampires that sparkle in the sunshine. Bleah.)

[stanci.livejournal.com]

Whoo-hoo, see you both there (and well, at least I'll know where to find Mel - the same place as I can find Dominyk and Dante during daylight, right?) Yay :)

[thanate.livejournal.com]

I'll be around. Will you be at champions on Sat? I think that's our first definite bit of scheduling.

[stanci.livejournal.com]

I'll try and remember to make Champions, whenever that is - schedule doesn't have it on Saturday. See you there!

[thanate.livejournal.com]

Sunday, sorry. I think it's around 2 or 3.