You May Have Seen This Already...

but I don't care because it is beautiful. Also, now I'm going to talk more about it.

This is the 1886 copy of Tennyson's poems that I purchased last Thursday at Dawn Treader Book Shop, which is basically a book nerd's dream come true for finding secondhand (or thirdhand or whatever) books. Seriously, the first time I stepped in there I was afraid I was going to get lost. The shop is actually a bit bigger on the inside. Well, longer than it looks, and so it's deceptively smaller on the outside. Books everywhere, filling the shelves, lining the floor, that sort of thing. Sort of how I imagine Flourish and Blotts to look like.

Anyway, it was my second time in the shop, and this book spoke to me. Almost literally. It said, "Ashlee, if you do not buy me, I will disappear forever. I only cost $9.50 and I am gorgeous." And it is. The cover's a bit dirty and the edges a bit worn, but it was probably fantastic when it was first published. Inside there's pictures of Tennyson and the characters from his poems, and it has everything except what was published in the last six years of Tennyson's life because this was published six years before he died.

This book used to be in a library somewhere (specifically, the "Mt. Hope Library"), because it's still got its pocket and card attached to the backflap. Also, the title of the library neatly written in impeccable cursive above said pocket. Doesn't look like anyone ever checked the book out, though. (Boy, I know how that feels.)

Still, now it's got a new home with me, where, since my shelves aren't the best at present, I'm storing it on its spine because that's better than storing it on its fore-edge. My books deserve the best, especially now that I feel all guilty due to the preservation classes I've been taking.

P.S. I also purchased a copy of the Faerie Queene, which is exciting, but it's a more recently published paperback copy, which isn't as exciting as an 1886 copy of Tennyson. It just isn't.

Christmas on the Promenade

12-1-11

Christmas on the Promenade is my favorite event at Southern. At least, I'm pretty sure it is. Most everyone gathers out at Taylor Circle, listens to the academy band, watches the Thanksgiving tree be lit, and then walks up and down the Promenade listening to musical groups perform, looking at the decorations, and eating doughnuts and drinking hot chocolate or hot cider.

I found a couple different groups of friends to walk with, especially after I lost the one group when trying to make it through the hordes of people (students, staff, faculty, community) in front of Lynn Wood and the food tables. (I found them again by the library, where we listened to the Jazz Band and discussed Harry Potter.) It feels like it's the holiday season now--and that last year wasn't the same when it was canceled due to rain. Christmas on the Promenade is my favorite school event, but I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe it's because of the feeling I get from milling around, seeing people I haven't seen for weeks, and listening to music.

It's like most everyone can pretend that it's not the week before the week before finals, that there's not major projects and/or papers to finish and turn in, that all there is to do in the world is strolling down the Promenade, seeing friends, smiling, shivering in the cold and not regarding the cold.

The stars are brilliant tonight--and I saw them as I came back to the village, the sounds of jazzy Christmas music fading behind me. The smell of wood smoke and snow was in the air, though I wouldn't know why either smell was there. But my heart was warm and my feet were light. Even if my feet were a bit cold after the two and a half hours I spent at Christmas on the Promenade.

More later.

Contemporary

11-6-11

I've been wondering why I don't write anything that's particularly contemporary. I usually write far in the future or in some indeterminate time that could be both alternate reality or the far future. Depends on the story. I've read some great contemporary novels (and even beta'ed one that I hope gets published), but it's not something I'm drawn to write.

I think part of my problem is that I feel that I've just never fit any of the particular stereotypes while growing up, and so it's hard to depict something that I've never experienced. Oh, the emotions would be there, perhaps, but the experience wouldn't be. For example (and forgive me, it's a rather shallow example), I was not the teen girl who was all into boys and make-up or whatever else the shelf and screen depict teen girls to be. I was the gifted bookworm who was neither outcast nor popular, concerned with my grades and scribbling away at stories when I was finished with my homework. I had issues, but I was largely unaware of them until after high school. 

The other part, I suppose, is that I have no desire to relive high school. I mostly enjoyed it while I was there, but I don't miss it (especially the not-so-great parts). I don't feel as if I could add anything to the table when it comes to depicting real life.

Besides, the stories that I identified with in middle and high school weren't contemporary. I read the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings in sixth grade (although I did skip all the poetry in that first reading and have only come to appreciate the depth of LOTR as I've gotten older), and I started reading the books my mom had been assigned in high school (like The Great Gatsby and 1984).

But the characters I identified with I can point to with relative ease: Ender and Harry. I met Harry first, in sixth grade (or should I say second year?). I actually read Chamber of Secrets first and had to backtrack to find Sorcerer's Stone. I never waited in a line for new books or new movies, but I did read it because I could see my experience echoed in the story of the bespectacled boy who lived in a cupboard under the stairs--not the experience of being a wizard, but of feeling alone and outnumbered and isolated due to events not under one's control.

And Ender? I met him my sophomore year of high school, right around the time that things socially started unexpectedly falling apart for me. I borrowed the book from one of my classmates, my principal's son, and I finished the book within two days (definitely on the flashlight list). To be set apart because of one's intelligence--I had known that since second grade, and so I bought a copy of my very own during Ringfest when we visited the mall after practice. I take great care of my books, but my copy of Ender's Game is so read that its spine is creased and I have to take care when re-reading it to ensure that the pages don't come out.

And neither setting is contemporary. Well, sure, Harry lives on Earth, and it's technically taking place in the early 90s, but that's never directly stated and besides, wizards live in a reality alongside the "real" world. The setting is fantastical, and it's not what I consider contemporary. And Ender's Earth is far in the future. Even if its origins are our present time, Ender's society is not the society of today.

And I guess what I'm trying to say is, as long as the characters and the emotions and the feelings are real, the setting (for me, at least) doesn't have to be. And since that's what I read, that's what I write. (Plus, then I'm not constrained by how things are now. But that's another matter for another post.)

More later.