Today’s highlights in my ongoing project to read through and transcribe the letters of Rachel (a wealthy Victorian girl at boarding school on the East Coast in the 1890s) include…
Rachel’s cousin Will and his Yale roommate Allen both have the measles. Rachel shows limited sympathy (”Poor boy!”), before immediately mocking them and calling them “childish” for getting a disease only little kids get.
Rachel and her roommate “B” (It stands for Bertha!) attempted to steal a sign (what sort idk) from a fair they went to but found they “were carefully guarded”. She wishes Will could have been there to help.
Will has a crush on a girl named Jenny, who Rachel knows, and is constantly asking Rachel if Jenny has mentioned him.
“B” often sits next to Rachel as she writes and suggests things to add to the letter or just generally distracts her.
Will and Jack, who are brothers, don’t write to each other. They write to Rachel and tell her to write to the other and pass on a message for them. Rachel keeps asking why they do this, but goes along with it anyways.
Rachel always explains why there are ink blots or areas of sloppy writing in her letters. Explanations so far include such classics as: the dinner bell just rang, it’s after lights-out and I’m writing this in the dark, “B” is shaking my arm, “B” is kissing me, this pen is broken, the postman is almost here, and there was a bee.
For her 18th birthday Rachel received: a new Kodak camera, eighteen white rosebuds, silver manicure scissors, a pair of shell side combs, a silver pencil, and a vase of pink roses. However her favorite present was from her father who wrote to say she could just buy her own present and he would pay for it.
Rachel is always mentioning the pictures she takes with her Kodak. I wish I knew what happened to them.
Rachel likes to put question marks in the middle of sentences to denote sarcasm; i.e. “I am very ? sorry for you.” and “Men were not excluded and we had the pleasure ? of meeting several.”
Your 1890s slang word of the day: “squelch” (verb) – to be lectured or punished for something. Example: “I expect to be squelched unmercifully by mama and papa.” Can also be used as a noun as in: “This term we have had nothing but squelches.”
“Rachel is always mentioning the pictures she takes with her Kodak. I wish I knew what happened to them.”
Update: It took eight years, dozens of emails, an unbelievably kind invitation from Rachel’s granddaughter (also named Rachel) and 16 hours of travel but…
Barbie Pink & Fabulous ― ‘Barbie’ Los Angeles Photocall Barbie 1959 ― ‘Barbie’ Bondi Beach Photocall Barbie Day to Night ― ‘Barbie’ Seoul Premiere Barbie Sparkling Pink ― ‘Barbie’ Seoul Press Conference Earring Magic Barbie ― ‘Barbie’ Mexico Premiere Totally Hair Barbie ― ‘Barbie’ Mexico Photocall Solo in the Spotlight Barbie ― ‘Barbie’ Los Angeles Premiere Enchanted Evening Barbie ― ‘Barbie’ London Premiere
I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH. It’s an older Legends journal that you can use on your own (though, of course I can’t bring myself to dare write in mine, because IT IS TOO PRECIOUS) where Anakin has doodled down some drawings and thoughts on the pages and I love how cute and funny and sweet it is.
I love the idea of Anakin journaling and sketching, using art to work through his feelings, both the good ones and the bad ones, I love that of course he has a safe space to express the frustration he feels with Obi-Wan–THE OGRE DRAWING IS THE MOST HILARIOUS THING–or how he feels like he’s not going fast enough to learn everything as a Jedi, how he is still thinking of Padme even years later, but also how there’s all this wonder of the Jedi Temple.
Seeing other Jedi meditating, the drawings of the fountains, the doodles of the other Padawans he’s met or other Masters he’s met, the sense of detail given to these drawings lets us know that a real impression was made on them, like some of those drawings of Obi-Wan or Padme are BEAUTIFUL, you know that Anakin keeps coming back to them because they’re such important figures for him, I love that not only do we get to see Anakin Skywalker: ARTISTE, but that each piece conveys a feeling.
IT’S SUCH A FUN BOOK AND I’M REALLY IN LOVE WITH THE IDEA OF ANAKIN AS AN ARTIST, THAT HE HAD A BUNCH OF ART NOTEBOOKS SCATTERED ALL ACROSS HIS ROOM AT THE JEDI TEMPLE.
So I had the strangest dream this weekend and nobody understands me so I need to share it with you because you might. Press J to skip this post if you can’t deal, I will accept this.
In my dream I was standing on the back deck of a rural cabin that overlooked a beautiful Vermont/Scottish Highlands landscape of unspoiled wilderness. It was a crisp, perfect autumn morning. I held a cup of cooling coffee in my hands as I leaned against the railing and scanned the perfect rolling hills in the midground, behind which the great patterned mountains with their snowcaps marched on until they blended with the horizon: #aesthetic
As I gazed at a distant meadow clearing in the trees, a pair of brightly coloured humanoid creatures emerged from the woods and began to dance for each other. It was an esoteric, beautiful mating dance, a strange combination of instinct and choreography. I felt awe washing over me. I marvelled. I felt a deep sense of wonder and peace as I observed this vanishingly rare encounter that I had never thought to observe in person. These animals were instantly recognisable but had never been studied in the wild. I felt incredibly humbled and privileged to witness this behaviour – I knew that I was the first human witness to observe this behaviour – and I reached for my phone, wondering if I should film it, so it could join the scholarly record, where it NEEDED to be. This could change everything. But then I held back – something told me “no,” to let the creatures have their privacy.
Ok, I can’t go any further without telling you that they were Teletubbies.
A red one and a yellow one. I know. I know. Stay with me here.
The cryptids melted back into the woods. My subconscious drew a discreet veil over the rest of their mating ritual, but I knew instinctively that this had been a dance of courtship. I was busy pondering the implications, because they were critical. You see, although the creatures were instantly recognisable as Teletubbies, as I had studied them, even at a distance, I had an incredible realisation.
They were adult Teletubbies.
This realisation dawned on me and in my dream I understood it fully. The ones that we know of – the captive ones that we have seen on television – are juveniles. In fact, they are the equivalent of toddlers. When you see the adults this becomes obvious. The garbled speech and silly movements of the four captive Teletubbies we know are the babbles of babyhood, a private primal toddler-language brewed up between sentient beings who have never encountered an adult of their own kind.
The adult Teletubbies have more branching, complex antlers and shaggy coats. They are less brightly coloured. They are terrifyingly large. Their strangely human faces, emerging from the thick fur, are unquestionably adult; remote, serene, reproachful. Their television screens are glitchy, esoteric and unknowable. They are cryptids whose public exploitation has undermined their rarity and their strange, alien dignity.
In my dream my feelings of awe and peace turned to great sadness at the fate of the captive toddler Teletubbies. I realised that I had to be the scientist who brought this discovery to the world and raised awareness of their plight. And I also questioned: are Teletubbies like axolotls? Do they exhibit neoteny? (Axolotls, the cute aquarium pets with flaring gills, are actually juveniles of an amphibious species – if given the right conditions they’ll grow up into land-dwelling black newts. But they can breed in their aquatic juvenile form, and most spend their whole lives in this form. Deprived of their wild potential, will the Teletubbies ever mature? Or are they merely experiencing a long childhood, natural for a species that is unimaginably long-lived?)
So in my dream my husband came out onto the back deck and I began to share these discoveries with him and before I could even bring up the axolotls he just said “what the fucking fuck” and went away again.
I woke up disgruntled and unable to capture the feeling of peace and sadness. I then tried to explain this to my husband in the waking world, and he said “what the fucking fuck” and walked away before I even got to the explanation of the Teletubbies being toddlers, which just goes to show that you never know someone as well as you think you do.
Anyway I’m sure you guys will join me in this knowledge. And also I’ve googled it and apparently the Teletubbies reboot features infant Teletubbies, so clearly they are getting more from somewhere and the time to question this is NOW
Adult Teletubby.
I’m pretty sure I’ll see this in my dreams, too.
oh huh WOW that’s definitely taking it to some powerful mythopoeic heights. that is definitely a forest god with a window into another plane. yes yes yes it is gentle and terrifying
So I went to an art conference at my school. We discussed things there, like how colors can be very powerful and our subconscious picks up the subtlest of hints. Pixar’s UP was a very unforgettable example. The colors of UP had a lot to do with why we cried. You all know what I’m talking about, right??
Ellie’s death.
We were told that her color was pink. That’s why her hospital room had pinkish hue.
And the next scene had strong pink hues. He misses her. I think it’s got strong colors because of her personality.
Also, It’s like her presence is still lingering.
When he got home, only a small part of the frame (window on the right) has a pink hue as the sun is setting. By now, we know her presence is drifting away.
Mr. Fredricksen walks up the porch and goes into his house.
And when he shuts the door, the final frame looks like this:
Ellie is gone.
The entire frame is desaturated and cold because the warmth in Mr. Fredrickson’s life is gone.
And that’s another reason why this masterpiece is heart-wrenching. And that’s how powerful colors are in films.
Frogs fall out of my mouth when I talk. Toads, too.
It used to be a problem.
There was an incident when I was young and cross and fed up parental expectations. My sister, who is the Good One, has gold fall from her lips, and since I could not be her, I had to go a different way.
So I got frogs. It happens.
“You’ll grow into it,” the fairy godmother said. “Some curses have cloth-of-gold linings.” She considered this, and her finger drifted to her lower lip, the way it did when she was forgetting things. “Mind you, some curses just grind you down and leave you broken. Some blessings do that too, though. Hmm. What was I saying?”
I spent a lot of time not talking. I got a slate and wrote things down. It was hard at first, but I hated to drop the frogs in the middle of the road. They got hit by cars, or dried out, miles away from their damp little homes.
Toads were easier. Toads are tough. After awhile, I learned to feel when a word was a toad and not a frog. I could roll the word around on my tongue and get the flavor before I spoke it. Toad words were drier. Desiccated is a toad word. So is crisp and crisis and obligation. So are elegant and matchstick.
Frog words were a bit more varied. Murky. Purple. Swinging. Jazz.
I practiced in the field behind the house, speaking words over and over, sending small creatures hopping into the evening. I learned to speak some words as either toads or frogs. It’s all in the delivery.
Love is a frog word, if spoken earnestly, and a toad word if spoken sarcastically. Frogs are not good at sarcasm.
Toads are masters of it.
I learned one day that the amphibians are going extinct all over the world, that some of them are vanishing. You go to ponds that should be full of frogs and find them silent. There are a hundred things responsible—fungus and pesticides and acid rain.
When I heard this, I cried “What!?” so loudly that an adult African bullfrog fell from my lips and I had to catch it. It weighed as much as a small cat. I took it to the pet store and spun them a lie in writing about my cousin going off to college and leaving the frog behind.
I brooded about frogs for weeks after that, and then eventually, I decided to do something about it.
I cannot fix the things that kill them. It would take an army of fairy godmothers, and mine retired long ago. Now she goes on long cruises and spreads her wings out across the deck chairs.
But I can make more.
I had to get a field guide at first. It was a long process. Say a word and catch it, check the field marks. Most words turn to bronze frogs if I am not paying attention.
Poison arrow frogs make my lips go numb. I can only do a few of those a day. I go through a lot of chapstick.
It is a holding action I am fighting, nothing more. I go to vernal pools and whisper sonnets that turn into wood frogs. I say the words squeak and squill and spring peepers skitter away into the trees. They begin singing almost the moment they emerge.
I read long legal documents to a growing audience of Fowler’s toads, who blink their goggling eyes up at me. (I wish I could do salamanders. I would read Clive Barker novels aloud and seed the streams with efts and hellbenders. I would fly to Mexico and read love poems in another language to restore the axolotl. Alas, it’s frogs and toads and nothing more. We make do.)
The woods behind my house are full of singing. The neighbors either learn to love it or move away.
My sister—the one who speaks gold and diamonds—funds my travels. She speaks less than I do, but for me and my amphibian friends, she will vomit rubies and sapphires. I am grateful.
I am practicing reading modernist revolutionary poetry aloud. My accent is atrocious. Still, a day will come when the Panamanian golden frog will tumble from my lips, and I will catch it and hold it, and whatever word I spoke, I’ll say again and again, until I stand at the center of a sea of yellow skins, and make from my curse at last a cloth of gold.
Terri Windling posted recently about the old fairy tale of frogs falling from a girl’s lips, and I started thinking about what I’d do if that happened to me, and…well…
!.
You know how if you go through years and years of “best science fiction short stories”, every so often you find some short story you’ve never heard of before, but it’s just amazing and brilliant and leaves you wondering why you never read stories with that plot before? This is one of those.
