Entry tags:
My crown is of apple, bough and blossom
This is a fairly quick and lazy update, since although a fair amount has been going on, I don't have a lot of energy.
It's been a good weekend. Matthias and I spent most of the afternoon yesterday out and about — at the annual apple fair on the cathedral lawns, where we picked up our usual haul of mixed apples, plus some cheese from a stall run by a woman who is about to open a cheese and wine shop on the high street (a welcome addition to the small scattering of independent shops in this town), and a bottle of spiced rum. We ate lunch under an ominous sky, and churros under the sheltering leaves of a massive tree once the downpour arrived.
We then spent a couple of hours in our favourite local cafe/bar, then wandered over to another food and drinks venue for their Oktoberfest event. I'm always a bit disappointed by this venue. It should be good — it's run by the local coffee roasters, with a bunch of disused shipping containers serving hot drinks, alcholic drinks, baked goods, and savoury food around a courtyard area for seating — but they always seem to promise more than they deliver, frequently seem to run out of key items of food or drink (for example they'd already sold out of some of the special Oktoberfest beer by the time we got there at 5pm), and just in general aren't quite as good as I'd like them to be. Their coffee vans on the market square (and their coffee in general) are great though.
Today has been a lot lazier, mainly filled with reading. I finished off The Prize in the Game, Jo Walton's Táin Bó Cúailgne retelling set in the same alternate universe as her Arthurian duology, which I mentioned in a previous post. The emphasis here is on the damage caused by the weight of expectation — mainly parental expectation (all the parents in this book are in some way abusive), but also what it does to a person to be raised since birth viewed as a semi-divine figure, such that your every action and choice become imbued with weighty, supernatural meaning. This is probably the only version of Cú Chulainn who feels sympathetic to me.
I'm also reading the first of a bunch of Timothy Snyder books that I ordered from the library, The Road to Unfreedom. As this was published in 2018, it's somewhat out of date in terms of the political events it's analysing, although the trends (Russian repression at home and interference abroad, the global alliance of national far-right movements, and the rising strength of conspiratorial thinking which seeks to convince citizens of various countries not that one propaganda narrative is true, but that they are incapable of ascertaining the truth and should become disconnected, apathetic, and atomised) are of course still very much with us. I like reading Snyder because he makes me feel as if I'm not going mad — that these geopolitical trends really are pervasive and present — but I find him frustrating at the same time, since it's been demonstrated time and time again that merely stating these kinds of truths clearly and calmly is not enough to push back against lies that play on the emotions.
Finally, I've been reading a long fanfic which I highly recommend and will link below. It was recommended to me in the comments of my Friday open thread post about best and worst retellings, and is a retelling of the Hades and Persephone myth in a noirish Los Angeles setting.
Springtime Will Kill You (15379 words) by Luna
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Greek and Roman Mythology
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Demeter (Greek and Roman Mythology), Persephone (Greek and Roman Mythology), Hades (Greek and Roman Mythology), Zeus (Greek and Roman Mythology), Orpheus (Greek and Roman Mythology), Aphrodite (Greek and Roman Mythology), Ariadne (Greek and Roman Mythology), Nestor (Greek and Roman Mythology)
Additional Tags: Detective Noir, Minor Character Death, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1940s, Los Angeles, Retelling
Summary:
It's been a good weekend. Matthias and I spent most of the afternoon yesterday out and about — at the annual apple fair on the cathedral lawns, where we picked up our usual haul of mixed apples, plus some cheese from a stall run by a woman who is about to open a cheese and wine shop on the high street (a welcome addition to the small scattering of independent shops in this town), and a bottle of spiced rum. We ate lunch under an ominous sky, and churros under the sheltering leaves of a massive tree once the downpour arrived.
We then spent a couple of hours in our favourite local cafe/bar, then wandered over to another food and drinks venue for their Oktoberfest event. I'm always a bit disappointed by this venue. It should be good — it's run by the local coffee roasters, with a bunch of disused shipping containers serving hot drinks, alcholic drinks, baked goods, and savoury food around a courtyard area for seating — but they always seem to promise more than they deliver, frequently seem to run out of key items of food or drink (for example they'd already sold out of some of the special Oktoberfest beer by the time we got there at 5pm), and just in general aren't quite as good as I'd like them to be. Their coffee vans on the market square (and their coffee in general) are great though.
Today has been a lot lazier, mainly filled with reading. I finished off The Prize in the Game, Jo Walton's Táin Bó Cúailgne retelling set in the same alternate universe as her Arthurian duology, which I mentioned in a previous post. The emphasis here is on the damage caused by the weight of expectation — mainly parental expectation (all the parents in this book are in some way abusive), but also what it does to a person to be raised since birth viewed as a semi-divine figure, such that your every action and choice become imbued with weighty, supernatural meaning. This is probably the only version of Cú Chulainn who feels sympathetic to me.
I'm also reading the first of a bunch of Timothy Snyder books that I ordered from the library, The Road to Unfreedom. As this was published in 2018, it's somewhat out of date in terms of the political events it's analysing, although the trends (Russian repression at home and interference abroad, the global alliance of national far-right movements, and the rising strength of conspiratorial thinking which seeks to convince citizens of various countries not that one propaganda narrative is true, but that they are incapable of ascertaining the truth and should become disconnected, apathetic, and atomised) are of course still very much with us. I like reading Snyder because he makes me feel as if I'm not going mad — that these geopolitical trends really are pervasive and present — but I find him frustrating at the same time, since it's been demonstrated time and time again that merely stating these kinds of truths clearly and calmly is not enough to push back against lies that play on the emotions.
Finally, I've been reading a long fanfic which I highly recommend and will link below. It was recommended to me in the comments of my Friday open thread post about best and worst retellings, and is a retelling of the Hades and Persephone myth in a noirish Los Angeles setting.
Springtime Will Kill You (15379 words) by Luna
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Greek and Roman Mythology
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Demeter (Greek and Roman Mythology), Persephone (Greek and Roman Mythology), Hades (Greek and Roman Mythology), Zeus (Greek and Roman Mythology), Orpheus (Greek and Roman Mythology), Aphrodite (Greek and Roman Mythology), Ariadne (Greek and Roman Mythology), Nestor (Greek and Roman Mythology)
Additional Tags: Detective Noir, Minor Character Death, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1940s, Los Angeles, Retelling
Summary:
Orpheus doesn't think much about his life before he was a private detective. But when he's hired to search for a missing girl, he'll have to take on Hollywood royalty, hired killers, and maybe, finally, himself.