Jitterbug Perfume, Week 20, Daffy Yum

JITTERBUG PERFUME
Week 20, Feb. 16 – Feb 22

Page 137

"It was encouraging that he would mention a contemporary female, for Pan had begun to live in his memories, an unhealthy symptom in anyone, suggesting as it does that life has peaked. Every daydream that involves the past sports in its hatband a ticket to the grave." Ouch, this hurts a bit. I'm not as old as Pan (having turned 53 years young last October), but old enough to find myself telling the 20-somethings at the restaurant where I work (I wouldn't call myself a genius waitress, but I am a waitress with a Master's degree!) stories from my younger, crazier days. TR's words are a good reminder to stay in the NOW and enjoy creating new stories! Gem

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If it's never too late to have a happy childhood, let's get started regenerating our 20-somethings.
Dale
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Page 138

Renga ding dingThe mortals grow suspiciousYou can live foreverBut not in one place.Kudra and Alobar flee Constantinople. This sort of reminds me of Tom's idea for a tv show about Helen Keller as a detective. Tagline: She's blind, dumb and mute, but she can smell a rat from a mile away.Tom 1Google 0I'm pretty good with Google but I couldn't track down a reference to Basil II breaking cedar boxes over his head. Anybody else know where that anecdote comes from?Bits like Basil II are rabbit holes hidden in Tom's fiction. You can explore them into equally, shall we say, byzantine story tunnels. http://www.nationma ster.com/ encyclopedia/ Image:Basil- II.jpgDale
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"They are always in good humor and health...They bathe together. They smile too much...They are often at the act of love..." so obviously they are "Agents of the Evil One"!Alobar and Kudra obviously need this new "depressant drug" (Sorry, don't know how to post a link, but copy and paste works!)http://www.theonion .com/content/ video/fda_ approves_ depressant_ drug_forGem
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Thanks for the hilarious link, Gem. And in reality which Onion often mirrors "A depressant drug reportedly taken by such dignitaries as the Princess of Wales, Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles and Donald Trump has been found to cause social upheaval in a colony of laboratory rats. Scientists investigating how the popular drug affects mood and behavior in humans found that it causes subordinate rats to rise up and challenge the authority of the dominant "top rat.""Sounds like some good old chemical-induced outlawism, Robbins style.
Dale
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Jitterbug Perfume, Week 18, Daffy Yum

JITTERBUG PERFUME
Week 18, Feb. 2 – Feb 8

Page 120

......."the perfect taco" Metaphor? Yes...no.... both?

Weality
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Page 123

.......would a whale mask be suitable to me.......?

"Actually, there are two kinds of people in this world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better" SLWW

Weality
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Jitterbug Perfume, Week 17, Daffy Yum

JITTERBUG PERFUME
Week 17, Jan. 26 – Feb. 1

Page 114

This is the first sentence of my thoughts about page 114. This is the second sentence. This is the third sentence which tries to really express my ideas about page 114 but fails. Finally this sentence succeeds in expressing the thought that Priscilla takes a spill on her bicycle whilechecking out the Last Laugh Foundation where i assume Alobar will soon show and another connection is made with New Orleans and her parfumier Stepmom. This sentence sighs with relief. This is the next to last sentence. This is the last sentence. Nope. Now.

Dale
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Well said, Dale! I am excited to be pulling in to New Orleans...knowing that however many of us are reading JP at present, that many consciousnesses will be reveling in pan-sensory descriptions of that still recovering city, we'll be grooving with the denizens, all that focused, positive energy has got to help in some small way to revivifying New Orleans! May it be so!

Gem
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Page 115

I really liked the opening of this page, "When we accept small wonders we qualify ourselves to imagine great wonders."But I have to admit that I hate dialect in a novel. I especially find a white southern writer doing black dialect to be icky no matter how good the intentions. "Mouf" for "mouth" and "libber" for "liver" just sounds bad to me. Am I missing something?Creating studio apartments out of your own secretions sounds interesting though. I'd tell you how to do it but it's "TOP SECRETE".

Dale
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Ha! Dale, your secrete slays me!

I understand your distaste for ethnic dialect in general; however, it does go a long way in making a character come alive--regardless of ethnicity of either the writer or the character. When I read dialect spoken by rich white hipster techno speak geeks (regardless of the writer), a vivid picture comes to mind. Or worse--the dialect of corporate lawyers, whose inflated nonsense lingo is spoken to identify and separate themselves not by ethnicity, but by class. That said, when we read dialect spoken by a character in a novel, it helps them come alive. You can hear V'lu speak and the aural image of her is completely different than if she spoke without the dialect, e.g.: "I eat liver with you, made from goose livers, but I won't eat any slime." TR in no way allows her to be condescended or demeaned, and in fact, the reader identifies more with V'lu than Madame Duvalier. (At least I do--especially when it comes to eating slime. ) Iguess my point is, that I see written dialect as an identifier and expression of the character's personal and cultural style. It is a credit to the author who does not cringe or succumb to flatlining the language into one "correct" way of speaking. (I'm not saying one word about "shrooms," because I know that if a character said "shrooms" TR would tell it like it is. I just know it.)

Mary
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It emphasizes the two extremes of V'lu...and that she's laying it on real thick so her true intellect and sophistication is guarded by her cloak of the general public's underestimation of her...gives her plenty of wiggle room to fly under the radar...

Messy Kat
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You make some good points, Mary as usual. I personally find thick dialect to be distracting. A few words to suggest the dialect is sufficient for me. This particular dialect makes V'lu seem simple-minded to me, which may be Tom's purpose as messy kat suggests.(Is Tom putting us on, by having V'lu put us on?) Southerners are usually kinda sensitive to people "doing" Southern accents anyway. Anyway as hot as V'lu sounds from Tom's descriptions I wouldn't be attracted to her because of the way she talks. Oral non-sex I guess. Now I will "Shut my mouf." :-)

Dale
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Ah, that's interesting. I have totally forgotten the details of this novel. I keep expecting them to rush back into my brain at any moment but they don't. I expect the details to get back, messykat. It makes it like I'm reading it for the first time (now I know how Ronald Reagan felt on entering the bedroom with Nancy each evening). I'll watch for V'lu's secrete agent personality to emerge.

Dale
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Hey Dale....for me, the dialect draws a distinct picture, one I wouldn't necessarily have without dat moufpiece.....i mean, she could have had a bloody Br-ish accent...but no, our gal was Southern...and she musthave smelled good too, to pass the Bunny’s nose.Remember...."Don't trust anybody who'd rather be grammatically correct than have a good time."

Michael
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