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The Kerr Family TRIUMPHANT!
We came, we saw, we kicked butt!
Delia passed the double black stripe belt test this morning. I did not attend, but Rob was there and took pictures. Hopefully I will be able to download and post some of them tomorrow. She was actually not feeling particularly well, but Rob said that she pulled herself together and had a good test.
We also got the word that Fiona passed the third pre-test screening.
The test will take place at 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning, and yes, you are invited. This is the black belt exam which is held quarterly for all the National Karate schools citywide, and it is quite interesting to watch. I will post more information about the exact location later, but again, you are invited to come watch. The whole test takes (I think) about two hours.
As for me, I had two appearances today at the Fantasy Matters conference. The first was the panel on The Wild Swans, held at 8:30 a.m. I read two sections of the novel, one from each storyline. David Lenander suggested the sections, and although I hadn't done those ones at readings before, I thought they were well matched and both suitably dramatic. The first was Elias' second visit to the baths, when he was looking for Sean, and then the scene at Central Park where Sean tells Elias he has AIDS. The second was the scene where William and Jonathan follow Eliza to the graveyard, followed by the scene where she is arrested. The advantage to reading the scenes together was that (hopefully) the juxtaposition made it clear to the listeners that the language describing the men at the baths was exactly the same as the language describing the ghosts in the graveyard. That reading took twenty minutes. It was actually an excellent suggestion on David's part; I think I'd chose those two selections for future readings (if I have many other occasions to do readings from Swans, which probably won't happen, actually. The book is getting harder and harder to obtain, although it isn't quite out of print yet). Then David talked for about a half hour about the novel, relating it to the tradition of fairy tale retellings in general and H.C. Andersen in particular. It was lightly attended, but given the panel time, I expected that.
What totally took me by surprise was the turn out at my presentation on the Heart of Flesh/Heart of Stone. My jaw literally dropped as more and more people came into the room. I thought it would be empty because of the panel opposite on Stardust, but I guess they might have ended it early. Anyway, maybe thirty-five people or so showed up, which was a good turnout. I cut one section of the paper on the fly, but that turned out to be a good decision, because it was really just a secondary example of the point I made in the previous section, and that way, the paper came in at exactly the right amount. NOBODY THREW TOMATOES. On the contrary, there were a gratifying number of thoughtful questions and gracious compliments afterwards. It went much better than I ever expected it would.
Hurrah for all of us!
Delia passed the double black stripe belt test this morning. I did not attend, but Rob was there and took pictures. Hopefully I will be able to download and post some of them tomorrow. She was actually not feeling particularly well, but Rob said that she pulled herself together and had a good test.
We also got the word that Fiona passed the third pre-test screening.
Fiona is testing for Black Belt on December 1.
The test will take place at 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning, and yes, you are invited. This is the black belt exam which is held quarterly for all the National Karate schools citywide, and it is quite interesting to watch. I will post more information about the exact location later, but again, you are invited to come watch. The whole test takes (I think) about two hours.
As for me, I had two appearances today at the Fantasy Matters conference. The first was the panel on The Wild Swans, held at 8:30 a.m. I read two sections of the novel, one from each storyline. David Lenander suggested the sections, and although I hadn't done those ones at readings before, I thought they were well matched and both suitably dramatic. The first was Elias' second visit to the baths, when he was looking for Sean, and then the scene at Central Park where Sean tells Elias he has AIDS. The second was the scene where William and Jonathan follow Eliza to the graveyard, followed by the scene where she is arrested. The advantage to reading the scenes together was that (hopefully) the juxtaposition made it clear to the listeners that the language describing the men at the baths was exactly the same as the language describing the ghosts in the graveyard. That reading took twenty minutes. It was actually an excellent suggestion on David's part; I think I'd chose those two selections for future readings (if I have many other occasions to do readings from Swans, which probably won't happen, actually. The book is getting harder and harder to obtain, although it isn't quite out of print yet). Then David talked for about a half hour about the novel, relating it to the tradition of fairy tale retellings in general and H.C. Andersen in particular. It was lightly attended, but given the panel time, I expected that.
What totally took me by surprise was the turn out at my presentation on the Heart of Flesh/Heart of Stone. My jaw literally dropped as more and more people came into the room. I thought it would be empty because of the panel opposite on Stardust, but I guess they might have ended it early. Anyway, maybe thirty-five people or so showed up, which was a good turnout. I cut one section of the paper on the fly, but that turned out to be a good decision, because it was really just a secondary example of the point I made in the previous section, and that way, the paper came in at exactly the right amount. NOBODY THREW TOMATOES. On the contrary, there were a gratifying number of thoughtful questions and gracious compliments afterwards. It went much better than I ever expected it would.
Hurrah for all of us!
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This is giving me ideas for the Assassination of the MN-StF president...
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I could join in the fun, too, if you like. I should be at least a red belt by then.
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What a day. What a big, intense, successful day.
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Not to say i told you so, but I told you so! I'm glad you had such a big crowd! And I hope you get many more opportunities to read Swans. I'd schedule you for a private reading in my house! Congrats to you all.
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If I bought more copies of The Wild Swans and gave them around for Christmas, would that help keep it in print longer? Come to think of it, I might do that regardless of the answer.
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I thought they paired together really well. I'm sad to admit this, but I was one of the readers that hadn't noticed how closely the scenes mirrored each other when I've read the book. And I've read it a few times. Now I can't wait to do a reread.
Your paper was really good, by the way. I enjoyed your presentation greatly.
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