rymenhild

Dere Maister Chaucer:

Mesemeth that TNH of makinglight wolde ben a moste fyne drynkynge confrere (consoeur?) for thee. For when shee partoke of her neighboures vodka, shee fel into a moste straunge and lovelie tongue verray muche like unto thine. Povre wif.

Thine admirer,
Rym

In other makinglight news, if anyone with an interest in the subject hasn't seen the discussion of fanfic yet, and you have an hour or two at your disposal, go read. It's acquired 567 thoughtful and interesting comments so far. Basically, professional writers, fan writers, publishers, lawyers and interested onlookers of all stripes and varieties have shown up to debate the ethics of producing stories about other people's worlds. Some highlights:

• Jane Yolen argues that works should be copyrighted long enough to earn money for the writers' heirs.
  
• Mercedes Lackey admits to writing collaborative MMORPG fanfic.
  
• Joss Whedon is, unsurprisingly, awesome.
  
• A fanficcer named C.Elisa describes fanfic as "a form of full-contact literary criticism."
  
• rhandir provides the Cliff Notes for the whole discussion.
  

I can't believe I just went back to find the good parts of that conversation instead of writing more of this thrice-damned paper.

Princess November can't sleep, now that the moon has gone away. We learn this in the first few pages of Andrea L. Peterson's gorgeous webcomic No Rest For The Wicked. To tell you what the princess begins to find, when she goes into the woods to look for the moon, would spoil quite a bit of the fun. Those of you who enjoy exploring the lovely, funny, terrifying spaces of fairy tale (I'm thinking of a lot of you here, but most especially prosewitch) must read it.

Have any of you had the experience of reading a book with the same name, by the same author, as a book you read a decade or more ago, and discovering that you're reading a completely different work? I am currently about halfway through T. H. White's Once and Future King, and approximately once per page I stop, stare, and bang my hand against my forehead, saying I'm sure I don't remember that. I was surprised to see that Robin Wood and his men were Saxon partisans in King Uther Pendragon's day, but even more startled when I finally realized that White had Uther Pendragon conquering England for the Normans in 1066. The tally-ho P.-G.-Wodehouse-meets-Walter-Scott Merrie-Old-England nationalism was completely lost on me. (By the way, I'm fairly sure that political attitude is associated with either the Whig or the Tory party, and I can't remember which. gramarye1971, help?) I certainly didn't get the joke in Sir Grummore's complaint, "God knows what the dear old country is comin' to. Due to these lollards and communists, no doubt."

(By the way, the fact that I am reviewing webcomics and rereading T. H. White should tell you how my productivity is going this weekend. La la la, not thinking about exams.)

Edit: nuqotw has favored us with another warped fairy tale. This one's in Orthodox Jewish dialect, and there is no glossary, alas, so it will only be funny if you've heard too many mahmir (1) types whine about yihud (2).

(1) Mahmir: Concerned with observing every single tiny little detail of Jewish law, above and beyond what is necessary.
(2) Yihud: The state of being alone in private with a member of the opposite sex; according to certain readings of Jewish law, an unmarried woman and unmarried man who end up in private together are automatically married.