26 Friday Jul 2013
Posted in Parody
I really have nothing better to say or contribute on a Friday, other than:
Happy Friday, lovelies! Exceptional gif by ohmygodwaytoolong from the following exceptional Mitchell and Webb sketch on Posh Dancing (gif moment captured at the 2:12 mark).
24 Wednesday Jul 2013
Back in April, we posted about an exciting discovery Heather and I made while cleaning out my grandmother’s attic together. We found a journal kept by my great-great-grandmother who lived in Victorian England and who also happened to be a close friend of Heather’s great-great-grandmother. They were both members of high society and well-known patrons of the arts and so moved in very influential circles. This journal contained pages and pages of interviews our ancestors had with famous Victorians. You can imagine our thrill at finding such a piece of history! The first transcription we shared was an interview they had with the great Jules Verne. Today, I want to share an interview with another very eminent personage that they conducted while travelling in the US — the scientist Nikola Tesla.
Katherine’s Great-Great-Grandmother: Thank you so much for joining us for tea, Mr. Tesla. It is an honor to meet you.
Nikola Tesla: The pleasure is mine, madams.
Heather’s Great-Great-Grandmother: Oh. Oh my. Well…uh…phew, that was very…wow, you’re a charmer. Um…<fans self>…
Katherine’s GGG: Yeah, boy, I didn’t expect you to be so…ok, let’s move on. First question…gosh, where are my notes…oh, haha…here they are. Um…where was I…ok, um, what inspired you to invent the light bulb?
Nikola Tesla: Pardon me? Madam, I am afraid I must have misunderstood. I must have been distracted by the lovely sound of your voice. I did not invent the light bulb. Thomas Edison “invented” the light bulb, and I use the term “invented” very loosely.
Heather’s GGG: Hah…haha…oh, silly us. Phew, is it warm in here, Katherine? Wow, I’m just…my notes are all damp…I can’t even read…
Katherine’s GGG: Yes, I…I definitely feel like it might…might be getting really…hot in here. Let me just…EXCUSE ME – Mr. Tesla!
Nikola Tesla: Yes? Is something wrong? I thought I would give you ladies a little demonstration.
Heather’s GGG: I just…holy smokes…I need to leave.
Katherine’s GGG: I’m so…wow…yes, I’m very sorry, Sir, I’m not sure what is making us so…hysterical. Perhaps…perhaps we should continue this interview some other time?
Nikola Tesla: Certainly. I am at your service, ladies. No matter what I am doing, you ladies will always come first.
Katherine’s GGG: <faints>
23 Tuesday Jul 2013
Posted in Tea
Tags
Good morning, readers! It’s another Tea Tuesday here at the Vicky A’s, and this week we’re waking up to my favorite high quality office beverage, Tetley Tea! Ah, Tetley – provided gratis by my office, you are just the pick me up I need on a day like today.
The aroma is like fresh mowed grass on a hot, humid summer day. The color,
like dehydrated urine after a dinner of asparagus the night before – what a
delight! And the taste! Let’s just call it, “indescribable.” Nothing can
tantalize the senses quite like a steaming office-issue styrofoam cup of
sweet Tetley tea. What type of tea is it, you ask? Green, you inquire?
Black? Oolong? Jasmine? Let’s check the packaging.
Hmm…it just says…tea. Oh wait, it’s “Select Tea!” Of course! That ancient
strain of tea, harvested by baboons on the Himalayan ridges, then sifted
out of their droppings by local villagers, dried on a dirt floor inside a
thatched hut, and finally, sent to a large manufacturing facility in
Connecticut for packaging and distribution. The experience of drinking it
transports me away from my desk, my uncomfortable “ergonomic” chair, and my eye-straining computer screens to those blustery, snowy ridges. I feel
like I’m there with those baboons, scooping up their poop, and then
steeping it in hot water to imbibe it. Ah, refreshing!
Happy Tuesday to all you office tea-drinkers (and/or poop-throwers) out there!
22 Monday Jul 2013
Posted in Art/Photography, Painting
So, for all of our monarchists/Royal-watchers out there, today is the big day for Baby Wales! While we wait, here’s a bit of Mischief on a Mischief Monday. This painting is Travesuras de la modelo or “Model Making Mischief” painted by Spanish realist Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta in 1885. There’s so much to love about this: the expression on her face, the delicate lacework on the hem of her gown, the gorgeous pink color of the dress, and the complex lines of sight and multiplicity in the image itself (i.e., you see the model looking at the painting of herself while looking at the artist and painting him on his own canvas). Simply charming.
19 Friday Jul 2013
Posted in Letters/Epistolary Art, Literature, Victorian Celebrities
It’s a scorching day at Vicky A headquarters; what better way to celebrate (?) it than with a scorching love letter or two, courtesy of our dear Oscar?
The Morgan Library has posted a collection of Wilde’s letters and manuscripts, including several to his lover, Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas. Some of his love letters are spontaneous and immediate in nature; just a quick line here and there. Others reveal a deep longing for Bosie’s company and a youthful ecstasy in his presence that moves us to this day (especially knowing how this particular love story ends).
The Morgan library has a copy of the earliest surviving letter from Wilde to Bosie at the very beginning of their relationship. From the website: “Writing on stationery of the Albemarle Club, probably in late 1892, Wilde expresses candid yearning to be with Douglas … and hopes that Douglas likes the visiting-card case he has given him, perhaps for Douglas’s twenty-second birthday. Douglas later destroyed many of the letters Wilde wrote to him. (Virtually all those he retained are now in the Clark Library at UCLA.)”
Wilde tells him in the letter, dated November 1892: “I should awfully like to go away with you somewhere—where it is hot and coloured—” , which is delightful in its wish to escape the cold November of England and travel to a lush, exotic place of warmth where they could smolder at each other like this:
Weeks later, in response to a letter Bosie had sent, Wilde wrote the following:
“My Own Boy,
Your sonnet is quite lovely, and it is a marvel that those red rose-leaf lips of yours should be made no less for the madness of music and song than for the madness of kissing. Your slim gilt soul walks between passion and poetry. I know Hyacinthus, whom Apollo loved so madly, was you in Greek days.
Why are you alone in London, and when do you go to Salisbury? Do go there to cool your hands in the grey twilight of Gothic things, and come here whenever you like. It is a lovely place and lacks only you; but go to Salisbury first.
Always, with undying love, yours,
Oscar”
Oh, Oscar. I know I wasn’t your type, but you sure know how to melt a girls heart.
His letters to Bosie grew in ardor and urgency and, eventually, in despair and exasperation. We’ll save more of those for later posts. I know, I know, I’m a horrible tease but we have to save some fun for later! Some antici…..pation?
Happy Friday, everyone! If you’re stuck in this heat wave like we are, stay cool (unless you’re reading Wilde’s love letters; then you might need a fan and a cool drink of water)!
17 Wednesday Jul 2013
Posted in Art/Photography, Painting
Der lästige Kavalier, or, The Irritating Gentleman, done in 1874 by the German artist Berthold Woltze (1829-1896).
I experience this feeling almost every time someone tries to talk to me on the Metro. My earbuds are in and my eyes are closed, Sir. I’m disinclined to acquiesce to your request (for conversation). Means no.
16 Tuesday Jul 2013
Posted in Victorian Celebrities, Victorian Hotties
Tags
Charles Edward, hottie of the week, nottie of the week, prince leopold, queen victoria, victorian hotties
This striking young gent in the Highland uniform is Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, eighth child and fourth son of Queen Victoria. I found this photo today and found him extremely handsome, with a piquant expression in his face; however, Katherine reminded me that we had a discussion about Queen Victoria’s strange antipathy for her son, or indeed, her own children. Some particularly ridiculous quotes, courtesy of Victoriana, are as follows:
“Leopold…is the ugliest.” … “I think he is uglier than he ever was.” …”I hope, dear, he [Vicky’s young son] won’t be like [Leopold] the ugliest and least pleasing of the whole family.” … “He [Leopold] walks shockingly–and is dreadfully awkward–holds himself as badly as ever and his manners are despairing, as well as his speech–which is quite dreadful. It is so provoking as he learns so well and reads quite fluently; but his French is more like Chinese than anything else; poor child, he is really very unfortunate.”
On the other hand, he did a fine job with his more traditionally handsome (and hopefully Vicky-approved?) son, Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who succeeded to his father’s titles after Leopold’s early death at age 30 to hemophilia. I think he looks very much like his grandfather, Prince Albert.
I mean, Queen Vicky wouldn’t have had anything bad to say about him, right?? Not even about his crappy language skills?
He reigned as the fourth and last Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, since the advent of World War I (and Charles Edward’s eventual support of Germany and unfortunately, his joining of the Nazi party as a SA Gruppenführer) led the royal family (via George V) to change their name from the House of Saxe-Coburg to (you guessed it) the House of Windsor in order to distance themselves from their German heritage. Under the terms of the Titles Deprivation Act, per Wiki, “an Order in Council on 28 March 1919 formally removed Charles Edward’s British peerages, the Dukedom of Albany, Earldom of Clarence, and the Barony of Arklow.” An ignominious end to the House of Saxe-Coburg, but one that led to the advent of the House of Windsor and a new era of British sovereignty.
History, hotties, and sometimes notties. (And hotties who become notties? The Vicky A’s in no way, shape, or form endorse Nazism as ‘hot’. His deeply unfortunate life choices pull him into the nottie category, but have nothing to do with his superficial, Leslie Howard-esque good looks.) Just your average Tuesday here with the Vicky A’s.
15 Monday Jul 2013
Posted in Book Reviews, Literature
Tags
As a lover of all things antiquated, I don’t read a lot of modern or contemporary fiction. I have recently been trying to catch up with some of the well-regarded works of the second half of the 20th century, but I got about 40 pages into an “absurdist” novel (The Crying of Lot 49 specifically), and I just couldn’t do it. All that (unnecessary) information being shared, I do like to read popular fiction sometimes. Case in point, Shannon Hale’s Austenland. After Heather posted that movie trailer last week, I looked into the book that inspired it. After finding it available as an E-book from the library (wee!), I went for it and checked it out.
Let me start out by saying, I enjoyed this book while finding it annoying. In the first few chapters, the writing style really bugged me. Hale is primarily a young adult writer and Austenland was her first novel for adults. The writing did not strike me as any more mature than a typical YA novel, though. In the first few chapters, there were sentences like these:
“Argh,” she arghed.
“It’s not something you tell your single best friend. It’d be like rubbing your nose in the poop of my happiness.”
Not a good start, in my opinion. The poop of my happiness? Come on, that doesn’t even make sense. The “Argh” line I think I would accept coming from someone with word-play cred like Nabokov (I do enjoy some 20th century fiction), but in this context, it just irked me. I pushed through this stuff, though, because I was really interested to get into the story. The story is about a young, 30-something woman who is so obsessed with the fantasy of Mr. Darcy that she can’t be happy in a real relationship. Her aunt bequeaths her a trip to a place called Austenland, where (seemingly exclusively female) visitors live in an immersive Regency world complete with handsome actors paid to woo them. The fact that these men are very nearly prostitutes is not at all addressed by the novel and does not seem to be an issue. I found that a little disturbing, but perhaps I’m thinking too hard about things. The interesting question the author has the protagonist (named Jane…”Ugh,” I ughed) face is whether or not the feelings her Regency dreamboats express towards her, and those she feels in return, are real or fantasy.
Once I got into the story, I definitely enjoyed it. I burned through the book in two days which is fast for me even with an easy read. The story was totally fun – enough so that I was able to get past the overly-simplistic and too colloquial narration from the protagonist. I found the premise a bit misleading, though. I thought the idea would be that the protagonist was obsessed with Austen’s works in book form, but it seems like she is much more hung up on the movie versions of all the novels. While some of the cinematic versions of Austen’s works have been great, the real art is in the written word. To become overwhelmed with the fantasy presented on the screen strikes me as shallow. I didn’t believe “Jane” was an Austen fan so much as a movie-romance fan, and that took something away from her character. I can get behind a reader lost in the worlds of her favorite books; I have less sympathy for a character pining for Colin Firth in breeches to the point of dysfunction in real life.
I also found the ending totally unrealistic and a bit bizarre. In fact, Jane’s return to real life at the end is when the plot takes the most fantastical turn. Still, I did relish the thought of what it might be like to live in the Regency world for a few weeks. I appreciate that Hale made a point to show the “life of leisure” that upper-class women lived to be almost unbearably dull at times. Hale also writes romantic tension well – I felt engaged in Jane’s relationships with the male leads and was sincerely hoping she’d end up with one in particular. For the devoted Darcy lover who likes breezy chick-lit, this book is a fun, very easy read. For the real Austen fan, this book is enjoyable but ultimately not satisfying.
11 Thursday Jul 2013
Posted in Letters/Epistolary Art, Literature, Parody
Tags
benedict cumberbatch, dedications, dracula, edgar allan poe, frankenstein, lady audley's secret, madame bovary, oscar wilde, the hound of the baskervilles, the pickwick papers, the scarlet pimpernel, the woman in white, wuthering heights
Just the other day, Katherine and I got into a discussion about writing and procrastination and to whom we would dedicate our works of dubious art. Naturally, this led us back to a) Benedict Cumberbatch and b) musing upon specific dedications in our favorite Victorian novels. We’ve included many transcribed dedications below from our own book collection, added a few that should have been, and, of course, came up with a few of our own.
Dracula by Bram Stoker
To my dear friend, Hommy-Beg
(According to this comment here, “The dedication is to Stoker’s friend Thomas Henry Hall Caine, the popular novelist. Of Manx parentage, and author of the Manxman, Caine was known to intimates by the Manx diminutive ‘Hommy-Beg,’ meaning ‘little Tommy.’ “)
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
To William Godwin, author of Political Justice, Caleb Williams, etc, these volumes are repectfully inscribed by the Author.
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
My Dear Robinson: It was your account of a west country legend which first suggested the idea of this little tale to my mind. For this, and for the help which you gave me in its evolution, all thanks. Yours most truly, A. Conan Doyle
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (a MUST read; we will review and discuss this in a future post)
To Bryan Waller Procter; From one of his younger brethren in Literature, who sincerely values his friendship, and who gratefully remembers many happy hours spent in his house.
Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Dedicated to the Right Hon. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P., D.C.L., &c., &c., in grateful acknowledgement of literary advice most generously given to the Author.
(This one is particularly excellent, in my personal opinion. Bulwer-Lytton is known for many amazing things, including being the author of The Last Days of Pompeii, and was responsible for the phrases “the pen is mightier than the sword” and the infamous opening lines “it was a dark and stormy night”. There is a magnificent Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest held in his name every year, described as “a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels”. It is truly one of the best things around; pouring through entries of years past is a magnificent time-suck. NB: the inscription I have does not include a hyphenated last name, though every other source seems to indicate that his name, properly spelled, is hyphenated.)
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
To Julia Neilson and Fred Terry, whose genuis created the roles of Sir Percy and Lady Blakeney on the stage, this book is affectionately dedicated.
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
Dickens dedicated his volume edition of the Pickwick Papers to Mr. Serjeant Talfourd, M. P.
(Here’s the sweetest part: [Excerpted] “Accept the dedication of this book, my dear Sir, as a mark of my warmest regard and esteem – as a memorial of the most gratifying friendship I have ever contracted, and of some of the pleasantest hours I have ever spent – as a token of my fervent admiration of every fine quality of your head and heart – as an assurance of the truth and sincerity with which I shall ever be, My dear Sir, Most faithfully and sincerely yours, Charles Dickens”
From VictorianWeb: “A mark of the strength of their early friendship was Dickens’s dedicating the September 1837 volume edition of The Pickwick Papers. Some seventeen years older than Dickens, Talfourd was a friend of the great literary lights of the Romantic era: actor-manager William Macready, poets Coleridge and Wordsworth, and the essayist Lamb. By the autumn of 1836 Talfourd was moving in a younger circle of artists and writers, including the painters Maclise and Stanfield, critics Jerdan and Forster, Dickens, and that Romantic hold-over, the editor Leigh Hunt.”)
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
To Marie-Antoine-Jules Senard Member of the Paris Bar, Ex-President of the National Assembly, and Former Minister of the Interior
Dear and Illustrious Friend, Permit me to inscribe your name at the head of this book, and above its dedication; for it is to you, before all, that I owe its publication. Reading over your magnificent defence, my work has acquired for myself, as it were, an unexpected authority.
Accept, then, here, the homage of my gratitude, which, how great soever it is, will never attain the height of your eloquence and your devotion.
Gustave Flaubert, Paris, 12 April 1857
Dedications that Should Have Been:
Oscar Wilde: To Bosie: for being an obnoxious little snot who, though handsome, didn’t deserve my awesomeness, didn’t treat me well, and ultimately wasn’t worth my time (or the time I wasted away in prison). Tell your persecuting and prosecuting father the Marquess to shove off. No Love, Me.
Edgar Allan Poe: To Booze and Darkness: ILU. You complete me. In gratitude forever, E.A. Poe.
George Bernard Shaw: To Warner Bros Films: Really? Casting Audrey Hepburn over Julie Andrews? Wouldn’t have had to dub her singing voice if you’d chosen wisely. I’m not saying; I’m just saying. G.B.S.
Wuthering Heights: To the (not-so-honorable) Stephanie Meyer, and to the future Mr. and Mrs. Cullen: No. Just don’t. Regards, Ellis Bell
Through the Looking Glass: To the reader: It’s drugs. I’m talking about drugs.
The Vicky A’s Do Some Dedicating:
Academic Paper: “To Bendywinks Crumplethong: without whose icy gaze and deadly cheekbones this work might have gotten published quicker and with less sexy procrastinating.”
Cookbook: “For (Eggs) Benedict Batchofcookies, the ultimate stud-muffin.”
Poetry: For Butterscotch Crumplebath, whose very name is poetry in motion.
Science Textbook: To Bunsenburner Cuttlefish: you blinded me with science.
And last, but certainly not least:
Every post on this blog: Dear Husband, Sorry I ignored you last night while writing this. Love, Your Wife
09 Tuesday Jul 2013
Posted in Literature, Movies/Television
Sometimes everything strangely comes together in a perfect (media) storm. That seems to be the case with Jane Austen this week. Two things of note sprang up yesterday and today. First, this trailer for Austenland, starring Keri Russell as a woman so obsessed with all things Austen that she heads to an Austen theme park/getaway of sorts for period costume/cosplay fun (uhhh, is the NSA monitoring my home? I’m pretty sure Katherine and I would do this for real). It also features Jennifer Coolidge (of the American Pie series), Jane Seymour and BRET MCKENZIE of Flight of the Conchords and Lord of the Rings fame (he plays Lindir (or Figwit for those of you/us REALLY in the know) ). His name gets caps-locked because I’m really excited to see him as a Wickhamesque character in the film. UNF.
Secondly, this ridiculous statue of Darcy.
No, I mean it. WTF is this. It’s supposed to be recreating one of the hottest moments in the A&E Pride and Prejudice and it just ends up well, falling flat on its face. Just terrifying. I’m going to be seeing this in my nightmares. The swans look a bit confused as well.
What say you, Dear Readers? Are we excited for Austenland? What would you want to see in a real-life Austenland? Should the Darcy statue be sent to Davy Jones’ locker?
