List by Tosca
"It's a big deal, what's happened here and what lies ahead. Rebuilding this city is history in the making, and my family - as we're fond of singing around here - is going to be in that number: This is not just Anywhere USA we're talking about. This is New Orleans. This is our home. Our future.
It's a hard-luck city right now, and you can look at it as a half-empty, half-full conundrum, although, in New Orleans the truth is that the glass is shattered.
But we're going to pick up the pieces. Starting today."
- Chris Rose in 1 dead in attic
In 2005, from the warmth and safety of my home, I remember watching news footage that showed the devastation that Hurricane Katrina left behind when she had finished with New Orleans. It was heart-breaking. Perhaps 'finished' isn't the right word because, really, the physical damage was just the start of a long and emotional journey for a city and its people to rebuild itself. Something they're still doing at the moment. I was fortunate enough to visit there in 2009, the culmination of a 22-year old dream to do so, and was amazed by the generosity and hospitality of a people in perpetual recovery mode. I met so many people who had such personal stories to share. And share them, freely and without prompting, they would: the cabdriver who lost his business, the woman who relocated and came back once a year to visit family, the student who moved to Mississippi but commuted each week because she wasn't quite ready to move back and start again, the young man who saw the hurricane as a clear message to get his life together and make something of himself. I heard these stories and so many more just like them and all told without any pretensions whatsoever. The most memorable conversation I had was on the Amtrak to Memphis with a young woman seated beside me. The New Orleans she spoke of - broken, dirty, unrecognisable - broke my heart. She had moved herself and her son to Chicago, unable to face starting over in the Lower 9th. Not forever, she made it more than clear that it wouldn't be forever, but certainly for the forseeable future. In the meantime she so desperately missed all that was familiar about home: family, friends, food, music, lifestyle, Mardi Gras, sleeping in your own bed...the list was endless. I was moved by her honesty and by her hope that, eventually, this would all pass over and be something she looked back on as having made her stronger. I'm not sure I could have found peace in that were I in the same situation.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Top 5 much loved fairytale reboots
List by Danielle and friends & family
"Fairy tales were not my escape from reality as a child; rather, they were my reality -- for mine was a world in which good and evil were not abstract concepts, and like fairy-tale heroines, no magic would save me unless I had the wit and heart and courage to use it wisely."
~ Terri Windling
Like a lot of fantasy readers, I grew up devouring fairytales and folklore, and practically haunted the 398s in my local and school libraries. (To this day, it's the one Dewey number that I could find in the dark, the path to it is just engraved on my brain somewhere.) There's a lot of magic to be wrung out of those deceptively simple stories, plenty for writers to explore and readers to latch onto - heroes and heroines taking destiny into their own hands, adventures into unfamiliar realms, happily ever afters.
Me, I loved the sparkliness... girls transported from their own mundane lives to palaces full of gems, through forests of trees with glittering leaves, wearing gowns of gold and silver... SIGH. That said, one of the most moving (though least sparkly) reimaginings of the 'girl meets palace' storyline that I've read recently was in Margo Lanagan's Tender morsels, where a transformed hut with straight walls, clean floors and sturdy furniture - and absent an abusive father - is the most incredible gift for Lanagan's heroine.
Here below, inspired by Annie and Teigs' brilliant lists of late, my mum and my co-worker Julia have helped put together a list of the five retellings that have meant the most to us, over the years.
"Fairy tales were not my escape from reality as a child; rather, they were my reality -- for mine was a world in which good and evil were not abstract concepts, and like fairy-tale heroines, no magic would save me unless I had the wit and heart and courage to use it wisely."
~ Terri Windling
Like a lot of fantasy readers, I grew up devouring fairytales and folklore, and practically haunted the 398s in my local and school libraries. (To this day, it's the one Dewey number that I could find in the dark, the path to it is just engraved on my brain somewhere.) There's a lot of magic to be wrung out of those deceptively simple stories, plenty for writers to explore and readers to latch onto - heroes and heroines taking destiny into their own hands, adventures into unfamiliar realms, happily ever afters.
Me, I loved the sparkliness... girls transported from their own mundane lives to palaces full of gems, through forests of trees with glittering leaves, wearing gowns of gold and silver... SIGH. That said, one of the most moving (though least sparkly) reimaginings of the 'girl meets palace' storyline that I've read recently was in Margo Lanagan's Tender morsels, where a transformed hut with straight walls, clean floors and sturdy furniture - and absent an abusive father - is the most incredible gift for Lanagan's heroine.
Here below, inspired by Annie and Teigs' brilliant lists of late, my mum and my co-worker Julia have helped put together a list of the five retellings that have meant the most to us, over the years.
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