Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Michaela--No, no, rest assured you missed nothing--you gained
something, more like. ;)  And the cream tea was by far a better deal.

I think your English is flawless and fluid, which is why it even gave
me a little start when you mentioned in your second-to-last post about
forgetting some of it when you met Neil.  How long have you studied it?

About the pull/mystique of Europe thing, you can definitely see the
effects in, say, advertising, where they use Europe--anything about
Europe--to add allure/sophistication to a product/service.  Especially
beauty products, I've noticed.  French rednecks, if there are such
things, could use a product, and it would be marketed here to us as
high culture.
  

    
Michaela: On Americans... <flashback> "We are the world.  We are the
people..."  (We can be ridiculously egocentric as a nation.)  

We're a young country.  And many of our cultural images come out of
Los Angeles, which is even younger.  An _old_ house in L.A. was built
in 1940.  Cars and movies from the same era are called classics.  (This
was put abruptly into perspective for me when walking through 800-year
old castles in Ireland.)  Maybe some of it has to do with our history
being both short (200 years) and based primarily on immigration. 
Everybody but the Native Americans got here within the past few
centuries.  Who we are as a nation is changing all the time.  So maybe
some people are looking for the answer to the basic human question: Who
am I?  (Who are we?)

There is definitely a fascination for some Americans with the "old
countries."  There are associations and clubs all over the country for
people descended from this country or that country.  I just went to a
huge Irish Fair in L.A. a few weeks ago.  And you wouldn't believe how
huge the Oktoberfest in Milwaukee is.

I know that my trips to Scandinavia and Ireland helped me understand a
lot of family history better.  It was the missing "big picture," or
the societal "frame" for the portrait of my family.  (For instance, the
intense issues regarding land ownership that came with my Irish
family.)

It seems to me there's a similar parallel with the "nouveau riche" in
America in the past century.  Many people seemed to think that looking,
living and talking as much as possible like the "old money" made them
more valid, somehow.  As though they weren't quite sure that just being
_rich_ was good enough.

Maybe America has a similar need to "belong" to the global family.  

Or maybe we're just looking for something with more depth than Mickey
Mouse. 

Or maybe Hugin and Munin have been whispering in our ears...

At any rate, Neil's perspective as a European living in America is
definitely one of the interesting aspects of _AG_ for me.  It felt...
like a slightly different America from mine, but I can't quite tell you
why.  I don't know if that's because I'm American, or just because
we're two different people.
  

    
Hey!!
Don't you be talking smack on my pal Mickey.
  

    
Pamela- I agree to a point, I think.  Eddie Izzard says he's from
Europe, which is where the history comes from.  I want to get over to
Scotland, and Wales, but I think it's more... well, a sense of kindred,
I think.  I believe in past lives, and some of that more new-agey kind
of stuff, and I was there at one point, so I'd like to go back. 
Japan, too.
You're right about L.A., but not necessarily about the rest of the
country.  New York City can date back pretty far, but if you go down
near Philly, and much of New Jersey, it dates back further.  The oldest
log cabin in the entire western hemisphere is in my hometown (only
dates back six hundred years, provided, but still...), and the oldest
Lenni Lenapi artifacts were found in my backyard.

Rebecca- that would be the opposite of most of the men's magazines I
read, in which they take every opportunity to taunt the French.  Why? 
Well, cuz they're... French.

I was recently, briefly engaged to a girl from Poland, and, to be
honest, had no desire to ever visit that place.  I don't know;
something about the culture itself, and the language (hey, I'm a
writer.  Sue me).  And I could die happy never, ever seeing blood
pudding again.
  

    
Pamela -- I don't think that song was meant to be exclusively
American.  There were plenty of Brits singing on it, for one.
  

    
E-mail from Michaela:

Rebecca - thanks for the compliment :) It's not that I feel I am making a
lot of obvious mistakes. But I know that I am not perfect. I get reminded
every time I start to actually speak English. I like to think that I have
the kind of accent that doesn't shout "I am German" but only whispers it, if
very loudly at times. I didn't get that much practice lately. There are ups
(the guy from the tourist information only starting to speak German to me
(he was from Belgium and happy to take his German out for a walk) after
reading my address) and downs (the otherwise really nice Malaysian guy we
met at the signing earnestly looking at me whenever I spent more than one
second hunting for the perfect word to express what I wanted to say and
helpfully supplying whatever word he thought I was looking for). I had 9
years of English at school. That's where you learn the grammar and the basic
vocabulary, you tend to forget a lot if you don't use it. At university I
chose English literature, since I had become a dedicated Anglophile. I guess
I really learned most of my English simply by reading books. I have always
loved reading, and one day about ten years ago I decided to read the
original version rather than a German translation if it was by an English or
American author. These days I hardly read German books at all.

Will - Poland is actually a very beautiful country. I spent two weeks on
horseback in Poland, it had some of the most amazing landscape I have seen
so far. On the other hand, it is depressing as soon as you get to the
villages and small towns. People don't have money there, you see so many
dilapidated houses, grey is the predominant colour.. it is a nice country,
but nobody seems to do anything with it except let it go to waste - which is
probably why it is so suited for horse riding - hardly any fences, lots of
nature. I toyed with the idea of learning Polish for a while, because I
thought it sounded really nice. Never got round to doing it though. I also
had really good meals there - but we weren't served blood pudding - sounds
awful :)

Pamela - I hope you people do realise over there that the Oktoberfest and
the traditional Bavarian clothes are very regional and that it is NOT the
case that every German is wearing these leather shorts and ridiculous hats
while quaffing a pitcher of beer .. whenever I hear about Oktoberfest in
America I shudder to think that that is what's being exported to foreign
countries as typically German. Urgh ;)
  

    
Michaela -
I know what you mean about the stereotypes... Cherokee, NC being a
good example. Most people that go there think they're actually getting
some traditional Cherokee culture, and it's an embarrassment. Not all
Native Americans wore feather headdresses, for example. I've actually
had people say that I (and many of my Cherokee descendant friends)
don't "look Indian" because we don't look like some Italian actor
playing a Plains Indian in a bad Western.
And it's the only racial group in America that you can still openly
slur (especially sports teams names).
The loss of dignity, of your heritage, is bad enough; that the world
as a whole accepts the stereotypes as reality is sickening.

Your English is quite good, probably because you spent so much time
learning Standard English, but we learned to speak colloquial English.
  

    
JaNell; I *hate* that!  There's some Leni Lenape in my bloodline
somewhere, I think, but, regardless, I think that the culture of the
people who'd been here hundreds of years before those Spanish and
Italian "explorers" (yeah, I put it in quotation marks if you
'discover' land that's always been there, and in which people are
already living, and then rape and pillage to heart's content) is one of
the richest in history.  That and Taoism are really some of the only
philosophies/religions/theologies/ways of life that make any sort of
sense at all (you know, as opposed to the 'no-meat-on-Fridays' crowd).
What I hate, I should explain, is that my high school's football team
was the 'Red Raiders'.
Of course, I've never gotten along with jocks, and there were a couple
who deserved to be scalped, but that's another story entirely...

Michaela- I agree that you're English is fine, and I don't hear any
whisper of accent (but, then, I'm only reading, soo...)  I think blood
pudding is called "Kasjanka", and it really is as good as it sounds;
not at all.  If you smother it in mustard and pretend it's... well,
something else, it's... still awful, come to that.  I actually learned
a spot of Polish, just to be able to communicate with her parents and
grandmother without grunting and pointing.  Barely understand anything,
really, but I can spot it if I hear someone speaking it.  I took two
years of Spanish in high school and get to practice occasionally, but
not enough.  French in high school was very cool, but I don't get to
practice it enough and so can hardly speak anything.
Actually, I really want to learn Japanese.  Not speak it, but read it,
and write it, because it seems, to me, at least, so visual as well as
so literate, and I love that.  My tattooes are all in Japanese, and
besides a Celtic one somewhen along the line, Japanese they shall
remain.
All of which is apropos of nothing.  Sorry.
  

    
Jumping in on the off topicness... I'm going to Yosemite!!  :-)  My
boss approved a very brief notice for my time off request, which was
surprising - she's either not an evil three headed monster, or she
already has decided to fire me.

Any which way, I'm able to accept my inlaws invitation to join them
hiking and camping this weekend - wow! I've not talked to them since my
husband and I separated, and hadn't planned on having any contact with
them for a while, now that we're back together (kind of). This is also
the first time he's wanted to *take* me to Yosemite, his special
place...

I'm on cloud nine, and just thought I would share.  :-)  (My itinerary
for the next month: Yosemite til next Weds, home, move, convergance
hunting, concert, concert, friends wedding, Burning Man for nearly 2
weeks... wow, when will I sleep?!)

-Kelly
  

    
Hello!

Kelly, its not too off topic since Yosemite is one place in America
rich in history, albeit natural history. We don't have 800 year old
Catherdrals around here (to return to Michaela's question) but we do
have beautiful old forests and canyons, etc. Have fun! I'd love to see
it sometime.

Michaela--Thank you for the compliments about my site. Glad you like
it-that's a good idea about emailing the Dreaming. I think I'll iron
out a few more errors and then do that.  About your question...I
definately think there are a lot of us here in America (including me)
who long for the history of Europe. Others don't much care.  America
has a tendency to assimilate unique aspects of cultures, and while we
have some of our own, they are new and often very materially based.
There is something magical to me about being able to walk through a
land where your ancestors once lived. I've never had that experience.
To live here, you know at some level you're living on stolen land. In
each person that knowledge translates anywhere from "oh well" or to
feelings of guilt, but its nearly always there. For me, I feel that to
truly access my history, I definately need to go to Europe. And
sometimes that's kind of sad, because I am American and that's that. I
feel like some Europeans have ideas about Americans (many true granted)
that keep us alien to lands we once came from. But all of that is just
me and my take on things.  About the America as center of the world
idea, well, many people here certainly believe that, but there are an
awful lot of people who also are very aware of the ego-centrisism and
despise it.  

Side note: One chilling fact about how horrible white settlers were to
the native peoples of America is that Hitler researched some of
America's techniques in getting rid of Indians to utilize in his
tactics with the Jews. We honest to god had our own *holocaust* here,
but nobody really thinks about it much.  

Will--Thank you for your compliments! I'm happy you enjoyed it. I'll
see what I can do about the font color. Is it any particular page? I've
noticed that colors look different on diff monitors and so its hard to
know, when things look fine on mine. Thank you for letting me know!

Rebecca--I totally agree with everything you said about Neil. He has
been such a huge influence to me, and I feel that had I not discovered
him, I would be a lesser writer. Maybe I should make a page where
people can give their quotes about Why Neil? What do you all think? 
Anyhow, Thanks for enjoying my site! The *sanskrit font*, is just some
regular font I have. I messed with it a bit, but only a bit. The credit
must go to whoever made up the font :) 

Pamela--Thank you! I'm glad you liked it! I'll fix that image page! I
don't want anyone to have to scroll left and right on any page, so
please let me know if there's more. I have a large monitor (yes, poor
me) so its hard to know when something is too wide.

Tell many people about my site! Even people who just want writing
advice. There's a lot in there and I'd be preaching to the choir here
to say the advice is from one of the best!!!  

I'm glad you all like my site. Mostly I wanted to provide something
new in a Neil site that people would find interesting. Im surprised you
all seemed to read my Why Neil? section, I thought no one would pay
attention to that :) Im very glad though! I hope to keep adding new
quotations, so check back once in awhile and don't hesitate if you have
something good in an interview of your own. I have access to the
online ones, but no doubt missed quite a few print interviews in my
early ignorant years pre-Neil :)

Enough from me for now! 

Feeling non-guilty about the loooong post, Blythe  
  

    
Wow - was checking out a local photographer and one of his models, and
look what I found...

http://www.alaine.net/pictures/nwc-09.jpg


:-)
  

    
Argh, how I wish for an edit... this one, too...  I'm pretty sure that
says "Nerfme" ...

http://www.alaine.net/pictures/nwc-10s.jpg
  

    
No, no, it says Hermione.
Like in Harry Potter.
:)
Far more amusing if her name was Nerfme, though...

Blythe--so you have a font that sort of "hangs" like that?  Or is that
the bit you messed with?  Because I really like it.  Covet it, in
fact.

Michaela--In any case, you certainly write better English than the
high school English (*honors* class!!) I used to teach!  You make me
want to go back to French...it's just so hard when there's nobody to
speak it with...but reading it is a good notion, maybe I'll start
there.

JaNell--what's funny in our family is that the part that *is* Cherokee
mostly comes from my maternal grandmother, whose mother was
full-blooded (lots of family on the Trail of Tears), but who is blonde
(or was...white, now) and blue-eyed, while my maternal grandfather
looked extremely "cinema Indian" and was mostly English/Irish. hehe

In any case, it was amazing to be walking about in England, looking at
all of these houses, built in the 15-1600's, still inhabited.  One of
the funny things that really pointed up the difference for me was a
night I was at a dinner held in one of these houses (even the chairs
looked...venerable...), and someone said something about finding
*Roman* stuff out in the fresh-turned earth of the garden, just like we
find Native American arrow- and spear-heads in ours here in Kentucky. 
I just had never really thought about it...
  

    
Neil sure is photogenic!
  

    
Wow, that next-to-last sentence just ran on, and on...and on, didn't
it?  Sorry about that.  My medication is slowly replacing my brain with
that polyester batting stuff they sell in craft suppliers'.
  

    
*laughs* Actually Rebecca, I meant Neils signature looked like
"Nerfme" ... ;-)

And yes, Linda - he is!

-K
  

    
Hullo again. I'm back from lurking after the David Bowie/Neil love
child debacle. :) 

Blythe -- Your site is beautiful and wonderful. I wish I was so
creative. I loved all the quotes, especially the one Neil did for the
Comic Book Defense League. It was perfect. 

Pamela (at least I think it was Pamela) -- I agree with you that while
reading AG I felt like I was reading about America, but perhaps not
this America. It felt a little weird, reading a Brit's take on my
country. Neil's descriptions were strange, weird, poetic and perfect,
but perhaps not how I see the US. But then, perhaps that's the point. 

Ah well, I'm babbling again. night all. 
  

    
Linda wrote  "Neil sure is photogenic!"

Mmm, yes. Yes he is.
Glad I have a gorgeous husband of my own, or it would be hard to sleep
at night... ;>
  

    
I know several women who find it hard to sleep some nights regardless
of husbands, and all because of Neil.  Hell, if I were a bit more
non-straight, *I'd* find it hard to sleep some nights after seeing
that picture in Faces of Fantasy.
  

    
And he's says he's not shaggable - that's right up there with the 'not
having an entourage' thing.  

Neil, you're trippin'.
  

    
        Well, what's he supposed to say, for heaven's sake?  "Well, yes, I am
in fact hotter than July on Venus.  Flammable materials spontaneously
combust in a 30-foot radius around my body.  My vibe has more shag than
Carpeteria.  I spend hours in front of the mirror practicing that
brooding face that makes all the little goth girls melt like butter in
hell.  I have been gifted by dark powers with the ability to know at
all times how many women are presently masturbating to fantasies of me,
and it's a miracle I can think about anything else.  You all want to
do me, and you're right to so want.  I am the Bill Gates of sexual
magnetism.  Undiscovered alien species in the Clouds of Magellan have
carved an entire planet into a vast likeness of me wearing nothing but
a leather jacket, and they sacrifice a thousand virgins to it every
full moon.  And they have twelve moons."  He's English, for god's sake.
 He's not going to say that, nor should he.  Or, really, anyone.
  

    
Neil knows you have to be careful what you wish for.  He's read all those
types of stories and written some.
  

    

On a completely different note, e-mail from Jouni:

A BABY IS BORN

I'm a bit woozy from the lack of sleep and from the 'bubbly' I've been
drinking today...

but yesterday my wife gave birth to the most beautiful baby-boy in the world
(they all are, eh Dan Guy?). We went to the hospital during the biggest
thunderstorm of this summer and I took it as a GOOD OMEN. I mean it was a
great show...

and 11.36am, almost exactly 12 hours later the boy was born. He has my eyes
and the sand-coloured hair I have, but othervise he looks like his mother...

which is good, because his mother is very beautiful indeed.



Like I said earlier, you all are the little boy's fairy godmothers and
-fathers...

.... I love you all

.... and I'm a bit drunk

.... but I still love you all.

Jouni

PS. So, I'll be mostly off-line about five weeks, startin' from next monday
or tuesday (that's when Piritta and the boy will come home)...

PPS. NEIL - Hope you had a great time in UK (it sure sounded like that)...
Oh, and AG is a great book. I'm lovin' every minute of it (I've been readin'
most parts twice to make it last longer)... I still have about 100 pages to
go...

Sorry if I'm babbling... I just can't help it.

I'm so happy.
  

    

Let me be the first to say Congratulations, Jouni!!
  

    
JaNell--It's amazing what we assume about appearances, isn't it?  I
couldn't look more Irish if I tried--green eyes, red hair (I perm it,
so it's even curly), pale,  freckles....and yet, my great, great
grandfather was Choctaw.  I don't know what he looked like, but his son
was dark haired, dark eyed, etc. with a high-bridged nose.  My dad
looked like his mom's side--blond, green-eyed, fair.  Yet at the end of
his life, I suddenly realized he had the nose....

Will--yo, go easy on the "fish on Friday" bunch.  There's a very good
reason we do that--there was at one point in Italian history, a
depression in the fishing industry.  So Il Papa was convinced to help
out these fine, upstanding businessmen.....  ;-) (it's true, actually.
Before that you just didn't eat on Fridays).  It's funny--even though I
know the reasons it started, I find fasting & abstaining from certain
foods to be a powerful spiritual practice.  Talk about keeping you
mindful!  And it ties me to a tradition, which leads me to my next (and
I promise, last) thought.

Michaela--yes there are many of us who have a yen to come to Europe. 
Lots of us move there, as I'm sure you've noticed!  I've been to London
4 times and I would move there in a heartbeat, if I thought I could
find work.  I loved Ireland, too, but it's almost painful to visit,
maybe because Thomas Wolfe was right, and for good or ill, my
grandfather came here. And we stopped being Irish in some mysterious
way.

O.K., one more thing--Blythe--loved your site!  You rock!

O.K., obviously, there's one more thing--CONGRATULATIONS, JOUNI! 
What's my god-child's name?

Mary (excited about being a fairy, and a godmother)