Iron Jawed Angels

I don't need to tell you what's going on this Tuesday, Nov. 6th.  And, hopefully, I don't need to tell you to exercise your right to vote, either.

But, here's something else for you.  A little treat.  A reward.  I just found out that the famed film "Iron Jawed Angels" is on YouTube for your viewing pleasure.  This amazing film is a must-see, especially now.  It tells the story of the first wave of feminism and the American Suffrage Movement's struggle to obtain the vote for women.  It's an important film, true, but it's also really good!  Enjoy it.  Then, go out and vote.

Click here to watch the film:  Iron Jawed Angels




Unusual Historicals Guest Blog

Today I am honored to be featured as a guest blogger on the very cool blog, "Unusual Historicals." 

Of course I waxed enthusiastically about Fanny Fern and Shame the Devil, but the editors of the blog asked interesting questions about writing and the writing process, too.

Take a peek at my recent interview, if you please.  And while you're at it, check out the extensive listing of great books, interesting authors and terrific takes on history.

Click here for fun and adventure:  Unusual Historicals




Mondegreens

Mondegreens can be thought of as aural malapropism. Instead of saying the wrong word, you hear the wrong word.  The term mondegreen was originally coined by author Sylvia Wright. As a child, Wright heard the lyrics of “The Bonny Earl of Murray” (a Scottish ballad) as: 

Ye highlands and ye lowlands
Oh where hae you been?
Thou hae slay the Earl of Murray
And Lady Mondegreen

Wright eventually realized that Lady Mondegreen existed only her mind – the actual lyrics were "slay the Earl of Murray and laid him on the green." To this day Lady Mondegreen's name has been used to describe mishearings of this type.

Do you have a mondegreen example?  Here are some humorous ones I found scrolling around online:   

• "There's a bathroom on the right."
  "There's a bad moon on the rise."
  Bad Moon Rising, Creedence Clearwater
• "Excuse me while I kiss this guy."
  "Excuse me while I kiss the sky."
  Purple Haze, Jimi Hendrix
• "Dead ants are my friends; they're blowin' in the wind."
  "The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind."
  Blowin' In The Wind, Bob Dylan
• "Midnight after you're wasted."
  "Midnight at the oasis."
  Midnight at the Oasis, Maria Muldaur
• "The girl with colitis goes by."
  "The girl with kaleidoscope eyes."
  Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, The Beatles
• "You and me and Leslie."
  "You and me endlessly..."
  Groovin', The Rascals
• "I'll be your xylophone waiting for you."
  "I'll be beside the phone waiting for you."
  Build Me Up Buttercup, The Foundations
• "Are you going to starve an old friend?"
  "Are you going to Scarborough Fair?"
  Scarborough Fair, Simon and Garfunkel
• "Baking carrot biscuits."
  "Taking care of business."
  Takin' Care Of Business, Bachman-Turner Overdrive
• "What a nice surprise when you're out of ice."
  "What a nice surprise bring your alibis."
  Hotel California, Eagles
• "Hope the city voted for you."
  "Hopelessly devoted to you."
  Hopelessly Devoted to You, Grease
• "I'm a pool hall ace."
  "My poor heart aches."
  Every Step You Take, The Police
• "Just brush my teeth before you leave me, baby."
  "Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby."
  Angel of the Morning, Juice Newton

I, ahem, must admit that I always thought it was “You and me and Leslie . . .”  No lie!  But, I cannot imagine anyone thinking the lyrics are really “baking carrot biscuits” – “every day,” no less (some kind of bunny bakery?).  Seriously?  Who would think this?  I mean, if you would bake carrot biscuits, you may do it, perhaps once in your life.  Right?  Try some new recipe in the food section and then agree to go back to baking regular biscuits, like other members of normal society.  Or maybe not.  In any case, I have never baked carrot biscuits and likely will never bake carrot biscuits.  Nor will I sing about baking carrot biscuits.  So there.  Unless you and Leslie want them, that is.

Smoke and Mirrors: Conservatives' Attack on Women



Virginia Protesters

With so much to really talk about – the economy, the worsening state of national education, the growing divide of the classes, our country’s crumbling infrastructure – many of the country’s conservatives are focusing their attention on social issues, particularly social issues meant to curb the freedom of women, who make up 51% of the population. Views about gay marriage and abortion became defining ideologies to test the mettle of potential candidates in the 2004 and 2008 elections. Today, social issues are, once again, playing bait and switch with public attention. Instead of discussing how candidates plan to revitalize and rebuild the country, conservative pundits and rabble rousers direct attention to candidates’ views about abortion (again) and even birth control, as if these opinions will save or ruin the nation.

With 98-99% of Americans having used or using contraception, it seems unfathomable that the topic would even be raised. But it makes sense (at least as a political move), when you think about the latest assaults against women’s power over themselves – the Virginia bill to require (often vaginal) ultrasounds prior to providing abortions (Virginia would join 11 other states with this requirement); Oklahoma’s 2010 law protecting doctors from getting sued if they lie to their patients about the results of prenatal testing (presumably to protect fetuses from mothers who would abort them); the dozens of “informed consent” and “parental consent” laws nationwide making it difficult for those who need and want abortions to get them safely. All of this focus on women and their bodies takes attention away from the issues candidates don’t want you to know about, or understand. And it keeps them safely in power.

This political tactic is being wielded broadly. Take the recent attacks on Planned Parenthood, that dedicated promoter and provider of female reproductive health and choice. Not only regarding the whole Komen fiasco, but also regarding their supposed brainwashing of . . . hold onto your hats . . . Girl Scouts. Yes, you heard me! Last week, Indiana State Representative Bob Morris refused to sign a routine resolution commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America, stating that the Girl Scouts “promote homosexual lifestyles,” that almost all of the organization’s listed role models were “feminists, lesbians, or Communists,” and that they operate as the “tactical arm of Planned Parenthood.” The Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood both denied any partnership between the two organizations, of course. And wouldn’t it be convenient to assume feminists were not only all lesbians, but communists? Maybe they could even be called Nazis, if Rick Santorum gets a hold of this latest “controversy.” 

Girl Scouts – a national threat? I’d laugh if there wasn’t a little part of me that was worried that some people might believe it.

Of course, we must push back against these outrageous attacks, but we must also understand the bigger political picture. These attacks on women and girls are meant to divert the country’s attention and to keep the country’s power solidly in the hands of the elite. As if controlling women and girls were the answer to controlling the world, to controlling inequity, to controlling rapidly-changing and unpredictable markets. Thinking logically, it is evident that the conservatives are using smoke and mirrors to divert attention away from tax reform, the recovering economy and other real issues that need addressing – and that could seriously change the status quo.

If they come out attacking, they don’t have to defend the systems of privilege and inequality that are ruining the present and the futures of millions of Americans. Framing elections with social issues may have been successful for conservatives in the past, but the recent outcries give hope to the idea that we may becoming too smart for the same old, same old.

We are, aren’t we? 

We must continue to fight this backlash against women even as we keep our eyes on the other issues conservatives don’t want to address.

Henry Miller's Commandments



Henry Miller

Circulating on Facebook these days is a writer’s list, penned by Henry Miller.  He calls them his “Commandments,” but these guidelines could help anyone who is project-oriented.  Enjoy these notes-to-self Miller wrote while living and working in Paris, c. 1922.  I especially like #7, myself!

Henry Miller’s Commandments:

1.  Work on one thing at a time until finished.
2.  Start no more new books; add no more new material to “Black Spring.”
3.  Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
4.  Work according to the program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
5.  When you can’t “create” you can “work.”
6.  Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
7.  Keep human! See people; go places, drink if you feel like it.
8.  Don’t be a drought-horse! Work with pleasure only.
9.  Discard the Program when you feel like it – but go back to it the next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
10.  Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you “are” writing.
11.  Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.



"Sleigh Bells and Ink Wells" Blog Hop

Are you ready to hop?  Take this tour of 12 blogs -- some you may already know and some new ones.  It's easy.  It's fun.  It's a good Friday diversion.

*******

‘Tis the season, you know, for giving and receiving – mostly for giving, though, right?  But, what is the nature of true giving?  How does one define generosity?  Philanthropy?

As is often the case, my idol, Fanny Fern, has already written the perfect seasonal column about this very topic.  Who is Fanny Fern?  Fanny Fern (the pen name of Sara Payson Willis), was one of the most successful, influential, and popular writers of the nineteenth century. A novelist, journalist, and feminist, Fern (1811-1872) outsold Harriet Beecher Stowe, won the respect of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and served as literary mentor to Walt Whitman. Scrabbling in the depths of poverty before her meteoric rise to fame and fortune, she was widowed, escaped an abusive second marriage, penned one of the country's first prenuptial agreements, married a man eleven years her junior, and served as a nineteenth-century Oprah to her hundreds of thousands of fans. Her weekly editorials in the pages of the New York Ledger and other periodicals over a period of about twenty years chronicled the myriad controversies of her era and demonstrated her firm belief in the motto, "Speak the truth, and shame the devil."  

As part of the “Sleigh Bells and Ink Wells” Blog Hop, my blog will introduce you to the real-life writing of the heroine of my historical novel Shame the Devil.  Her typically-sarcastic June 5, 1852 article, published in Boston’s The Olive Branch, follows:

Mistaken Philanthropy

“Don’t moralize to a man who is on his back;—help him up, set him firmly on his feet, and then give him advice and means.”

There’s an old-fashioned, verdant, piece of wisdom, altogether unsuited for the enlightened age we live in; fished up, probably, from some musty old newspaper, edited by some eccentric man troubled with than inconvenient appendage called a heart!  Don’t pay any attention to it.  If a poor wretch—male or female—comes to you for charity, whether allied to you by your own mother, or mother Eve, put on the most stoical, “get thee behind me,” expression you can muster.  Listen to him with the air of a man who “thanks God he is not as other men are.”  If the story carry conviction with it, and truth and sorrow go hand in hand, button your coat up tighter over your pocket book, and give him a piece of—good advice!  If you know anything about him, try to rake up some imprudence or mistake he may have made in the course of his life, and bring that up as a reason why you can’t give him anything more substantial, and tell him that his present condition is probably a salutary discipline for those same peccadilloes!  Ask him more questions than there are in the Assembly’s Catechism, about his private history, and when you’ve pumped him high and dry, try to teach him—on an empty stomach—the “duty of submission.”  If a tear of the wounded sensibility begins to flood the eye, and a hopeless look of discouragement settles down upon the face, “wish him well,” and turn your back upon him as quick as possible.

Should you at any time be seized with an unexpected spasm of generosity, and make up your mind to bestow some worn-out old garment, that will hardly hold together till the recipient gets it home, you’ve bought him, body and soul; of course, you are entitled to gratitude of a life-time!  If he ever presumes to think differently from you after that, he is an “ungrateful wretch,” and “ought to suffer.”  As to the “golden rule,” that was made in old times; everything is changed now; it is not suited to our meridian.

People shouldn’t get poor; if they do, you don’t want to be bothered with it.  It is disagreeable; it hinders your digestion.  You would rather see Dives than Lazarus; and, it is my opinion, your taste will be gratified in that particular,—in the other world, if not in this!

--Fanny Fern


Ha!  You said it Fanny!  To learn more about Fanny Fern and my historical novel about her, click here: Shame the Devil.

To continue onto the next “Sleigh Bells and Ink Wells” blogger, the amazing Malcolm R. Campbell, click here: Malcolm’s Round Table.  From Malcolm’s site, you’ll be directed to hop to the next blog until you finish the whole short, wonderful tour of twelve blogs.  Enjoy! 

“Sleigh Bells and Ink Wells” blog hop participants are authors of small press/university press books that are eliciting discussion and notice.  Blog hoppers include:

Smoky Zeidel @ Smoky Talks

Patricia Damery @ Patricia Damery

Debra Brenegan @ Debra Brenegan, author

Malcolm R. Campbell @ Malcolm’s Round Table

T.K. Thorne @ T.K.’s Tales

Anne K. Albert @ Anne K. Albert

Elizabeth Clark-Stern @ Elizabeth Clark-Stern’s Blog

Collin Kelley @ Modern Confessional

Sharon Heath @ Sharon Heath

Melinda Clayton @ Author Melinda Clayton

Ramey Channell @ Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge

Leah Shelleda @ After the Jug was Broken

Scandalous Women

Wow – Elizabeth Kerri Mahon, self-professed “history geek” and noted blogger of the popular website about scandalous women in history has me as guest blogger!  Click here to read my latest about Fanny Fern and to check out other amazing books recommended by Mahon.  Find out more, too, about Mahon’s well-received book, “Scandalous Women – The Lives and Loves of History’s Most Notorious Women.” 

Click on the link below to go to this site named one of the 100 Most Awesome Blogs for History Junkies by Best Colleges.com: 

Scandalous Women Blog