Apparently I feel chatty today

[cleolinda]

Feeling a smidge better. Got a good bit of work done yesterday, even though I was stuck wrangling fussy dogs for eight hours while my parents were on a church orchestra daytrip. (Sam parked himself in front of the door out to the garage once 5 pm rolled around, because that is The Time Mommy and Daddy Come Home, and yet they did not. So he barked at it for two hours.) Today I got up and went straight to work in the den, instead of getting up and faffing around on the computer and/or sleeping on the couch (both also in the den). I'm in there anyway, usually by 7 am, because "I have to keep an eye on the dogs" is a good way to add structure to my day. ANYWAY. I'm starting a new book for my novel research (although, as I noted, there's a point where research is about finding out things, and then there's a point where it's about the fear of not having found out enough, and I've been at that second point for a long, long time now), but I'm also checking Twitter.

@scottEweinberg: This Pattinson kid is on my TV. He looks like a cross between @TheJoeLynch and a Lycan.

O rly?

Ah, the Remember Me publicity circuit has started. I had plenty of time to read my book during commercials, because as American viewers of the Olympics know, NBC is now 85% advertising content.

@cleolinda: Al Roker's outside the Today studio saying Robert Pattinson's name over and over just to hear the girls scream.

@cleolinda: Matt Lauer: "Harry Markopolous!" Herd of fangirls: "... Wooooo?"

@cleolinda: Today show. Middle-aged woman: "I have been here since seven... last night for him." #fanthropology

I did not mention, by the way, that the fangirls were waving all manner of hideous things at the camera.

@poponjer: @cleolinda: just saw someone holding up a pic they drew of RPattz behind Roker. Looked like RPattz as the elephant man.

@cleolinda: I LOVE YOU SAM WATERSTON! He is bravely giving a quick interview outside while RPattz signs autographs in the background.

@cleolinda: What's hilarious is when [Waterston's] trying to talk and you suddenly hear random screams behind him.

@cleolinda: [Matt Lauer:] "We'll be interviewing Robert... if he has any arms and legs left."

@cleolinda: I just looked up to hear Matt Lauer ask Harry Markopolous about possibly having to kill Bernie Madoff. "Well, I do have army training."


The interview itself went without incident, although not without lots of women crushed up against the glass walls of the studio, waving frantically. It basically went, "So... we're talking about something other than Twilight. Huh. I kind of don't know what to say." "I know, right?!" "..." "..." "So... Eclipse is coming out in June..." I think my favorite part was when Matt Lauer said something to the effect of, "You just did a photoshoot for Details with a lot of naked women... I don't have a question, I just wanted to mention that."


@wonderella: Watching the Today Show. One of these moms are gonna lock Rpattz in a dungeon and make him do Realdoll stuff. :(

@cleolinda: @wonderella If only there were someone who could save him!

@wonderella: @cleolinda I'm kinda not feelin' it. I'd save the Underworld guy, tho!

@wonderella: @cleolinda that guy's a vampire AND a werewolf, so it's kind of a twofer.


Speaking of which, today's reading is The Great Big Werewolf Book of Werewolves.


@cleolinda: "It should be stressed that the idea of a man morphing into a wolf is actually well within the realm of feasibility." #orly


So far, I am still on the introductory content--the pages still have Roman numerals--and I have already learned that


>> Medieval cats got their own witchcraft trials

>> In Renaissance France, from about 1520-1630, 30,000 people were charged with lycanthropy

>> A particularly infamous suspect, Gilles Garnier, was all like, "YES, I MOST CERTAINLY AM! PLEASE BURN ME ALIVE NOW!," so they did

>> An Arcadian werewolf won boxing medals in the 400 B.C. Olympics

>> Alpine sorceresses turned men into beasts of burden with special cheeses

(@tzikeh: "Did the beasts of burden have holes in them?")

>> St. Patrick had to deal with a shitload of werewolves in his congregation, which I can only imagine was a bit distracting during his sermons


and cannot WAIT to see what the rest of the book has in store.

Yesterday I finally finished Montague Summers' Vampires and Vampirism, which I found a bit of a slog because he kept quoting untranslated Latin, Greek, French, and German, and I can only muddle through one of those. Also, he kept going off on huge tangents that were unrelated (strictly speaking, and in my opinion) to vampires, like necrophilia and grave-robbing. I hate to break it to you, sir, but vampires don't care about dead people. Vampires ARE dead people. Vampires only care about juicy live people and how best to snarfle them, therefore I doubt they are going to be poking around tombs that do not belong to them, much less whatever's in them. As such, I found pages upon pages of anecdata about people doing terrible things to corpses (safely described in French, because that's somehow more tasteful, except that French is the one language he didn't translate that I can hack) to be both nauseating and tedious, which is something of a feat. I also tweeted ugh twittered sigh a couple of things about this book as well:


@cleolinda: So apparently the ancient Macedonians believed in vampire sheep. #themoreyouknow

@cleolinda: "Vampires and Vampirism" (1929) ends on the casual note that Dracula was recently played on stage by an actor named Bela Lugosi.


Bless.

ETA: WARNING: Before you run off and buy The Great Big Werewolf Book of Werewolves, I have to warn you--the reviews on Amazon are terrible, and now that I've gotten into the actual encyclopedia-style entries, I'm starting to see why. There's an entire entry about aliens and UFOs, a really sketchy attempt to connect Elizabeth Bathory to lycanthropy (she totes hung out with wizards and vampires and werewolves, you guys!), and the tale of a French guy who was really more of a ghoul than a werewolf, see, but while we're here... And if you can tell me what Charles Manson has to do with lycanthropy, believe me, I'd love to know.

Comments

[sea-of-tethys.livejournal.com]

Argh. I can understand French and German fairly well, but untranslated quotes are one of my all-time book-related pet peeves. It always looks like the author is just doing it to show off, or to exclude people. This goes double if they're quoting from a language that uses a different alphabet, like Greek.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

YES, which particularly pissed me off, because I don't even have a fighting chance with a different alphabet. He might as well have put it in the Enigma code for all the good it does me.

... I think I suddenly just realized why the expression is "It's all Greek to me" rather than some other language.

[wyldirishtric.livejournal.com]

That's weird, those werewolf facts... though one nitpick, that you can't really do much about, I'm aware. :) 1520 - 1630 is really more Renaissance France, not medieval.

[wyldirishtric.livejournal.com]

I totally agree! You should put the quote translated in your text, and have a footnote or something if you want to include the original language, for people who want to nitpick about whether you got the meaning correct with your translation.

Most people are not going to be going to that level though.

[flamingtoilet.livejournal.com]

^^^ @poponjer, just so you know ;)

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

There were copious footnotes, but I didn't see many, if any, translations in them. I keep wondering if Summers was operating on the idea that True Scholars of the '20s would know all those languages.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Oh, DUH, why did I even say that. That's completely Renaissance.

Although, actually, now that I think about it, I can't remember if the book claimed it was medieval or if that was just me.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Ah!

[scornedsaint.livejournal.com]

The only place I don't mind untranslated French is in old Agatha Christie mysteries, because it comes off as simultaneously quaint and cosmopolitan.

[beckyh2112.livejournal.com]

So... What did St. Patrick do with his werewolves? /curious

[stateofserenity.livejournal.com]

">> Alpine sorceresses turned men into beasts of burden with special cheeses

(@tzikeh: "Did the beasts of burden have holes in them?")"

I seriously just spit soda all over my work computer screen.

*dies of hilarity*

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I haven't gotten to that part yet, but I'm curious about that myself.

[sea-of-tethys.livejournal.com]

It's less annoying in a novel, because if that's how the characters speak, it would sound bizarre for them to constantly stop and translate!

[wyldirishtric.livejournal.com]

Or he was just being a stuffy git. :P I think even in the '20s there weren't quite as many people who knew Greek.. Latin, yes, French and German certainly, though I can't say anything for certain on the level of language knowledge at that point in time. I know it is entirely not the done thing nowadays, because it comes across as snooty and very unhelpful. The point of writing a scholarly work was to make all your research clearer, not muddle it up more. :)

[wyldirishtric.livejournal.com]

The way you quoted it, I took it to mean the book claimed that it was medieval. But since I don't have the book, I can't check that.

[beckyh2112.livejournal.com]

Will you tell us when you find out, please? I've been enjoying your random Twitter facts. ^_^

[flamingtoilet.livejournal.com]

My twitter's a bit more public than my LJ, hence the different name. I'd just as soon people that listen to the radio station I work for NOT find this account, or I would've said hi on Twitter instead.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Is it bad that I now want St Patrick to be some kind of action hero? HE FIGHTS SNAKES AND WEREWOLVES. POSSIBLY AT THE SAME TIME. WHILE DRUNK. BECAUSE THIS IS IRELAND*.

[wyldirishtric.livejournal.com]

Uhm, some of it, I vaguely remember, is him transforming irritating pagans into werewolves. It's what they got for bothering him and not becoming good Christians.

[maudelynn.livejournal.com]

I am reading a bit of the Dom Augustine Calmet book today. Want I should throw out some fun facts?
"Some people thought vampires were the dead who were disturbed when trying to complete a pilgrimage unfinished in life."

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I know, right? OH I FORGOT TO MENTION my favorite part, where he takes this anecdote about a vampire incident and says, "Clearly this is ridiculous and implausible... so it must have been reported wrongly, because obviously it has to be true. Therefore I infer that it actually happened x/y/z way, the way other reported vampire incidents happened, because those are true, and happening differently from the way it was reported to have happened would make this incident true. Because I said so."

[beckyh2112.livejournal.com]

This seems like a conversion method that would not work well today. On the other hand, it might really get teenagers back into church in a "dude, if I am an annoying pagan, I get to become a werewolf! ROCK!" way.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Checking the book... "the Middle Ages." Well, I know I trust the fine scholarship of this book going forward.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

omg you have it! Is it online? I don't want to read every single text mentioned, if only because that would be an excellent excuse to not actually write my own thing. But still!

(By which I mean yes!)

[wyldirishtric.livejournal.com]

Hagiography is really great. Welsh saints are fantastic as well, and the conversion of Iceland is very.. full of violence. (As is expected.)

Continental European Saints can be pretty interesting, particularly later day ones when people were kind of trying to squeeze in more famous secular figures into Sainthood.