Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:10 PM

One last excerpt before I close the computer for the evening.

From Dean, regarding Park Honan's biography:

Even where we do have evidence of Marlowe's acquaintanceships, Honan can say strange things. How on earth can he know that the room Marlowe shared with Kyd "was obviously a happy place"? It isn't obvious at all, far from it. Kyd's recollections were made, to be sure, under duress, but "That I should love or be familiar friend, with one so irreligious, were very rare", or "I cannot but with an aggrieved conscience think on him", do not indicate jolly bachelor chatter in the den. Indeed, and again with complete disregard for consistency, Honan starts another of his hares, about possible sexual advances by Marlowe to Kyd: "He seems to complain of more than words, that is: of gestures, hands, seductive effects, as if his partner would not sit still at a writing table, or kept inching his table closer to Kyd's." I have read through Kyd's statements to Puckering, which Honan reproduces, several times, and nowhere is there anything that could justify such a conjecture.

And another example of the circular logic Erne harps upon so critically, this time by Dean in relation to the Corpus Christi portrait:

[A]fter an elaborate review of the evidence he simply concludes that the portrait "matches our 'sense' of the playwright [. . .] the picture looks right". But "our sense of the playwright" is what prompted him to believe the sitter was Marlowe in the first place; mutually sustaining intuitions do not make a fact.

Why do I enjoy this so much?

Maybe because I have a low tolerance for sloppy logic -- even (or particularly) with regard to arguments with which I want to agree.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:48 PM

Over the holiday, I did manage to read all the articles I possessed in Tuesday's list.

Most of them are focused on pointing out how little we actually know about Marlowe's life and debunking the common myths -- with a healthy dose of snark, particularly towards some of the best-selling biographers.

Downie remains a favorite wet-blanket -- carefully explaining how the evidence fails to support the popular portrayals:

However, Lukas Erne also manages to serve up the snark, such as:

Good points.

Unfortunately, the following passage feels flawed to me, seemingly trying to draw a cause-and-effect relationship where it doesn't seem warranted:

Unsurprisingly, with regard to Marlowe's death, pseudobiographical investigations in which historical evidence happily mixes with fanciful invention have been supplemented by explicitly fictional treatments. [...] In one sense, these fictional treatments constitute the logical continuation of a biographical, or mythographical, tradition that has worried preciously little about which parts of the story seem historically warranted.

Is he suggesting that such overdramatized suppositions inspired fiction-writers? Or is he trying to use the existence of fiction on the subject to further discredit the historians?

As someone who's read both fiction and nonfictional portrayals of Marlowe's death, I take pains not to confuse them. And while I don't have much personal acquaintance with biographers, the novelists are certainly aware of the boundaries.

Quoth Elizabeth Bear in an open letter to Peter Ackroyd:

[M]any critics believe that the earring on the so-called Chandros portrait that may or may not be Shakespeare is a fanciful later addition.
     ...
And yes, I used the earring as a plot point in my book.

Because (all together now) I write fiction.

Fortunately, fiction is just an aside reference within the article, rather than a focal point.

Hopkins also takes a look at the "growing flurry of novelizations of [Marlowe's] life," although I find her list woefully incomplete. :)

However, it does give me a possible approach for an essay of my own about these works.

She provides a brief introductory summation of the characterizations:

In general, these modern retellings portray very much the Marlowe of legend, often with particular emphasis on fidelity to the picture of him offered by the Baines Note.

And then goes on to provide a description of each work in a few sentences to a few paragraphs.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:01 PM

I must be crazy; I am seriously thinking of submitting something to this call for papers.

The problem with writing a detailed analysis of recent Marlovian fiction is that I haven't actually read many of the "classics" of the genre that everyone mentions (specifically Burgess's Dead Man in Deptford). Nor do I have that much interest in doing so. [I'm almost to the point of taking pride in my ignorance of this seminal work, just as I enjoy shocking fellow fen with the fact I've never read Tolkien.]

Then I had the bright idea of narrowing the focus to Marlowe portrayals in genre fiction -- the SF, Fantasy, alternate history, mystery, espionage thrillers, and the like.

Alternate History: The Armor of light by Melissa Scott & Lisa A. Barnett Time and chance by Alan Brennert "Heart of Whitenesse" by Howard Waldrop "The Onely Shake-Scene in a Countrey" by Dave Hoing Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove Fantasy: The Armor of light by Melissa Scott & Lisa A. Barnett "Men of good fortune" (Sandman #13) by Neil Gaiman Strange devices of the sun and moon by Lisa Goldstein Ill met by moonlight by Sarah A. Hoyt All night awake by Sarah A. Hoyt Any man so daring by Sarah A. Hoyt Whiskey & water by Elizabeth Bear The Stratford man: Ink & steel by Elizabeth Bear The Stratford man: Hell & earth by Elizabeth Bear SF: Left to his own devices by Mary Gentle Doctor Who: The Empire of Glass by Andy Lane Doctor Who: "Apocrypha Bipedium" by Ian Potter "This Tragic glass" by Elizabeth Bear Doctor Who: "All Done With Mirrors" by Christopher Bav

Espionage: The Scholars of night by John M. Ford The Intelligencer by Leslie Silbert Mystery: "Death of a noverint" by William Bankier Christoferus or Tom Kyd's Revenge by Robin Chapman The Slicing edge of death by Judith Cook A Plague of angels by P.F. Chisholm Blood on the Borders by Judith Cook A Mystery of errors by Simon Hawke Merchant of vengeance by Simon Hawke Tamburlaine must die by Louise Welsh An Eye of death by George Rees Romance: Mignon by Chris Hunt Walk in moonlight by Rosemary Laurey Rapture in moonlight by Rosemary Laurey Vampire: Vanitas by S.P. Somtow Walk in moonlight by Rosemary Laurey Rapture in moonlight by Rosemary Laurey

The good news is that greatly reduces the number of works I'd have to cover, and I've already read a much higher percentage of this subset.

The bad news is that some of these are truly dreadful. Just off the top of my head, I can think of two published works that have blatantly Mary Sue heroines, not to mention the protagonist I've dubbed Twink Starfucker.

In a general essay, I could slide past some of these works -- mention their existence without going into too much detail.
A tighter focus would mean I'd have to pay far more attention to each title, and some will get closer scrutiny than they deserve -- or could withstand.

And weirdly enough, the narrower topics interest me less than the broad overview.

None of my library networks have access to the editor's other work, Milton in popular culture, but those essays seem to have truly slender scopes. Essays on Pullman, C.S. Lewis, Steven Brust's To Reign in Hell, Animal House, The Lady Eve... and so forth.

I mean, someone could definitely get a paper out of "Kit, Kelly and Kuryakin: the influence of espionage in the works of Elizabeth Bear" -- but I'm not that someone.

And so I continue to ponder.

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:25 PM

We have just registered The 960th Airborne Dust Mites on Chore Wars.

Setup seems fun; I hope it works as well.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:25 PM

While detouring down to Davis Square to pick up a couple quarts of ice cream at J.P. Licks for lunch with my inlaws tomorrow (Manichewitz sorbet and noodle kugel flavors), we discover that McIntyre and Moore Booksellers is having a 50% off sale (thru Sunday).

Trying to keep my detour brief, I still walked out with four bargains:

• The Death of Christopher Marlowe by Leslie Hotson -- the original 1925 book with reproductions and translations of the documents he discovered,
• Constance Kuriyama's Christopher Marlowe: a Renaissance life, which I'd previously read on library loan,
• Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair, which I'd been intending to read, and
• Utter antiquity: perceptions of prehistory in Renaissance England, a new discovery which looked intriguing.

Yes, I know I'm a geek.

I did try to keep my shopping trip brief, though many other shinies caught my eye -- many of which I'm not interested in owning, but several I may return for. [One in the former group, a title I adore is The Baconian Heresy.]

BTW, I also spotted a copy of Nigel Saul's Richard II -- it looks relatively mainstream, but if any of the Ricardians reading this wants it, let me know today or tomorrow and I'll try to pick it up cheap for you. I think it's about six bucks.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:40 PM

One of these days, International Talk Like A Pirate Day (September 19) will fall on the Jewish High Holy Days.

And I wonder how that intersection will play out...

I suppose the Jonah story wouldn't require much tweaking.

Or maybe people will force their Tashlich off the plank.

I don't know, but it's an entertaining diversion.

Update: Checking the calendar, I see we'll achieve convergence in two years, when Rosh Hashanah 5770 will run from sundown September 18th through September 20th, 2009.

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:45 PM

No, I don't know why LiveJournal chose to repost several older entries.

However, in recompense, here is:

March of the Librarians:

And here's the teaser trailer for the sequel.

Plus a special bonus music video, "Librarian" by Haunted Love:

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:20 PM

Yontif is almost upon us, and I still haven't had time to finish my review of "The English Channel"

Much of the delay has been due to demands of my day-job, (though I'll admit to a bit of pique at the press liason who responded to my reasonable request to confirm a couple quotes by asking who I was, and though I included her earlier email in which she said she'd add me to the press list, she still hasn't replied with the information I requested).

Unfortunately, given the impending holiday, this means I won't have a chance to post my review before the show closes.

Ian has reviewed the production, so I don't

And I suppose I'll write up a more detailed critique that will come out after-the-fact. [Since I usually encounter Marlowe stories in print, my responses were more focused on plot and characterization, than performance.]

And now, I'm going offline for the next 48-72 hours...

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:24 PM

I seem to be compiling a bibliography for the academic essay I was adamantly not going to write about Marlowe portrayals in modern fiction -- and in the process, a few names keep coming up whom I might trust to such an article in my stead.

Setting aside the actual list of fiction, reasonably relevant articles include:

Plus possibly the biographies by Nicholl, Kuriyama, Riggs and Honan (of which I own three out of four).

[Of course, in writing this, I find other texts not directly relevant, but still look interesting, such as:

• Christopher Marlowe and Richard Baines: journeys through the Elizabethan underground by Roy Kendall (2004), and
• Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson: new directions in biography edited by Takashi Kozuka and J.R. Mulryne (2006) -- particularly the essays:
  • Charles Nicholl: 'By my onely meanes sett downe': The Texts of Marlowe's Atheism
  • Lisa Hopkins: Was Marlowe Going to Scotland when He Died, and Does it Matter?
  • Patrick Cheney: Biographical Representations: Marlowe's Life of the Author

I am such a geek.]

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:01 PM

Discuss:

What is the difference among:

• Magic,
• Psionics, and
• Superpowers?

When Ian posed this question in conversation, it stumped me. I've a gut feeling that they should be different, but it's difficult to explain how.

Anybody have some better answers?

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:15 PM

Many recent works of fiction and film have recontextualized comic book tropes -- putting superheroes into more realistic contemporary settings or into other genre conventions.

So far, I've come up with the following (chronologically by format):

Movies: Mystery Men The Specials The Incredibles Sky High Sidekick My Super Ex-Girlfriend	Television: The Tick (live-action) Heroes
	Books: Karma girl Soon I will be invincible

Can anyone suggest further examples?

And is this a recent trend, as this list makes it appear, or am I just experiencing selective memory?

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:10 AM

Adam Gopnik on Philip K. Dick:

“He seems to have been a man of intellectual passion and compulsive appetite (he was married five times), the kind of guy who can't drink one cup of coffee without drinking six, and then stays up all night to tell you what Schopenhauer really said and how it affects your understanding of Hitchcock and what that had to do with Christopher Marlowe.”

So, what did Schopenhauer really say? Anyone care to speculate?

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:00 PM

Several books I heard about this weekend which sound intriguing enough to list for later:

• Air, or, Have not have by Geoff Ryman
• A Fistful of sky by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
• The Iron dragon's daughter by Michael Swanwick
• Karma girl by Jennifer Estep
• Magic lessons by Justine Larbalestier
• Newton's wake by Ken MacLeod
• Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
• Shelter by Susan Palwick
• Soon I will be invincible by Austin Grossman

Also, a few forthcoming books I've been anticipating, mostly sequels, with their official release dates:

• Out now: Undertow by Elizabeth Bear
• Sept. 25: Empire of ivory by Naomi Novik
• Oct. 2: Ha'penny by Jo Walton
• Oct. 16: A Companion to wolves by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear
• Dec. 26: Dust by Elizabeth Bear
• Oct. 28, 2008: Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:55 PM

That was the title of a panel at Farthing Party, which was described thus:

SF has a plethora of weird novel awards. It would be theoretically possible for one book to sweep them all. The panel attempts to brainstorm a plot that could fulfil all the requirements.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden helpfully compiled a list of requirements, which the crowd then ran with.

At the conclusion of the panel, I had another idea which manages to hit most of the bases.

Setting aside awards based on attributes of the author or publication status, such a book must:

“satisfy the genre expectations of hard SF, mythopoeic fantasy, horror, alternate history, and romance, have positive gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgendered characters, and include examinations of gender, gender identity, racial identity, class, and libertarianism, while not being unsuitable for younger readers. Also, it has to have poetry in it. And a vampire.”

And here's the plot I came up with:

In an alternate-history Nigeria, a recently-widowed woman of color hopes to use her newfound freedom to explore her gender identity and alternate sexualities. In short, she is looking for romance.

Unfortunately, with the loss of her husband, Miriam Abacha has lost her social status and faces a dramatic struggle to regain personal liberty and her property rights against the bloodsucking usurpers keeping her captive.

Her only recourse is to invoke a mythopoeic ritual dating back to the Spanish Armada, which she will innovatively update with new verse translations and perform upon a worldwide collection interconnected computer networks (to be described in lovingly-accurate technical detail).

What do you think?

Any aspects I missed?

Mind you, I have no intentions of actually writing this -- even though it could be my first novel, thus qualifying me for several other awards on that bases. But it's certainly a fun exercise.

More about the panel on Making Light.

Inspiration and further variations on the story at Yo, Wocky Jivvy, Wergle Flomp

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:35 PM

Remember the call for papers that I blogged about on Thursday?

The one seeking essays on:

Marlowe [portrayals] by popular and mass cultural media.

While I was offline over the weekend, I wrote up a query letter...

*Sigh*

I fear the ruin of my hopeless soul...

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:30 PM

Ian has posted his review of The English Channel, a new play we saw Thursday night.

My writeup remains unfinished and forthcoming, so you should read his in the meantime.