...tomorrow, y'all. Suffice it to say that a good time was had by all.
I'm going to go sit in the shade with a bottle of Victory Brewing's Hop Devil. I'm getting to the denouement of Household Gods by Harry Turtledove and Judith Tarr. It's my second time through, and it's every bit as cool as it was the first time.
Instead of Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court, think California Liberal In Marcus Aurelius's Rome. If you like historical fiction, it's a grittily real look at a California lawyer, a good single mom and teetotalling SPCA member, who makes the mistake of wishing for Calgon to take her away to a time when life would be better, simpler, and less sexist, like ancient Rome. She wakes up in the head of a 2nd Century tavern keeper in a frontier city, and the first thing she notices is the smell...
I JUST read this, after having borrowed it from my mother-in-law.
ReplyDeleteI was well pleased. One of my Standard Rants that I just haven't gotten around to posting a variant on is how what people think is the "simple life" isn't remotely fucking simple...
The Smell.
ReplyDeleteThat's one of my favorite things to point out to those that pine for the imagined "good old days."
And it's down hill from there.
Most people just don't realize how well off they really are.
Yeah, but you still left me with a bunch of sweet corn. Fortunately the sidewalk (as well as the kitchen) emptied when they learned it was free. I REALLY didn't want to take it back home....and I didn't.
ReplyDeleteAll The Best,
Frank W. James
I love Household Gods! I recommend it to everyone.
ReplyDeleteI actually noticed it the other day back in the stacks and wondered if it was quite time yet for my 3rd reading...
(and Tam - you have seen the HBO series Rome, right?)
Heaven spare us an age sans deodorant or proper tooth-care products. *shudder*
ReplyDeleteYeah, you think "life is cheap" today.
ReplyDeleteImagine living in a society where that is literally true, (I need a dishwasher, how is is that slave?)and you can go to the stadium and see people & animals killed in particularly gruesome ways every weekday, and twice on Weekends.
And "whoopsie you died of a ear infection, abscessed tooth, infected scratch" isn't a joke.
Tam
ReplyDeleteWould you check the 'TamSlick' address, and give me a call?
I have a question from B, and another of my own regarding an upcoming shoot.
Sorry I didn't make it. Yard work pretty well wore me out.
ReplyDeleteA few years back, I reminded my then 85 year old grandmother that in the "good old days" for which she was yearning, she would have been dead at least thirty years ago. She never mentioned it again in my hearing.
ReplyDeleteNot too long before my last great-grandfather died (back in the late 70's) I heard him tell my grandmother (he lived with them for some time before his death) that he would like for them to build an outhouse. She asked why. He told her it wasn't natural to do "that" in the house.
I've started to pick up Household Gods a couple of times recently. Now I'll have to read it tonight.
As late as the end of the Nineteenth Century, people were speculating that horse manure would bury all cities by this date.
ReplyDeleteThe ecofreaks have no clue how filthy things would be without automobiles and other Twentieth Century conveniences ...