some pre-trip notes

[jfb]

1. The other day I bought a copy of M. Ward's End of Amnesia to replace the one I'd lost. I think Ward's latest album is his best yet, and it's certainly his most accessible, but in its absence I'd forgotten how much I love this one. I once described it as "drifting in and out, like a dream about music," and it's still like that. I'm a little worried about listening to it on long drives.

2. I am reading Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, a retelling of the Scottish ballad, set at a near-contemporary midwestern college. The characters argue a lot about poetry and philosophy, and go out to see Shakespeare and Stoppard plays. Having forgotten the awkwardness and tension that were constants in my actual college life, I can now comfortably wax nostalgic about the heady, intense, partly fictionalized parts I do remember.

3. As I understand it, before journeying to the land of Faerie, you should obtain some talisman of your home, lest you never return. Or maybe that's Hell. In either case, before I set out across America, I have the feeling I should be fortifying myself with fresh memories: Crowds and fountains on the Plaza de Cesar Chavez, music at the Freight and Salvage or the Bottom of the Hill, the ideal suburb of Campbell, and above all the ocean. But I don't have time to go collect these things, so I've had to settle for a pleasant hour of afternoon sun and reading on the patio of the world's best burrito shop.

4. I'm close enough to departure now that I can get, and can use, weather forecasts for the other side of the country.

Comments

near-contemporary

[rutemple.livejournal.com]

that said same midwestern college described so well by pameladean is Carleton College, where pals of mine, and yea even my very mother went to school.
It was very true to contemporary life when she wrote it. bagpipe geeks and all...

thank you for reminding me of how much I liked that book. I might just have to dig it out and read it all over again, and see what's different in reading it another ten or twelve years since the last time...

Re: near-contemporary

[jfb.livejournal.com]

Wow, you never know who you'll run into on LiveJournal.

There's a note in the book describing the fictional college as Carleton-but-not-Carleton. (I was going to say "contemporary" but I ran across something on Amazon that said "70's" and I'm always bad at recognizing period details so I left it vague.)

I was a faculty kid and later a student at another small-town Minnesota liberal arts college (http://www.gustavus.edu/index.cfm), so I can dig that whole scene.

Re: near-contemporary

[rutemple.livejournal.com]

yep - (d'y ken Jon Singer?)
I'm wishing for more Liavek stories out of Pamela and friends, and it looks like that might be happening.

neighbor!
I grew up in the Twin Cities and went to that multiversity of unisota, back & back when

Re: near-contemporary

[jfb.livejournal.com]

Don't know Jon Singer. I was a Scribblies fan when I was younger--they were like proof that something cool could come out of Minnesota. So I read the Liavek books that were out at the time, I read Brust and Dean and... uh... well, some others. It's been a while. These days I only occasionlly follow what they're doing.

[emmacrew.livejournal.com]

Now I need to dig out my copy of Tam Lin for another reading. I've read it at least three times, it's probably in my top 10 favorites.

I keep thinking of piling up all of the Tam Lin retellings/reshapings I have and reading them all together. I seem to have a lot. But then I have a lot of fairy tale re-dos generally. Even Amazon has figured out that I like them.

[jfb.livejournal.com]

I tend to like them too. Jane Yolen's Briar Rose and Steven Brust's The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, from the same series as Tam Lin were at one point among my favorite books. I'm not sure why I never got around to Tam Lin until now.