What's happening?

Hey Lovelies,
I know it's been awhile, I swear things are happening. Beneath the Scars is a little over halfway through editing it! Which is exciting, and I'm brainstorming cover ideas. I'm toying with doing getting a more professional looking cover vs the CreateSpace templates especially since this is a New Adult cover. However a couple of factors might slow down the writing process for me. I originally wanted to dedicate a book for each aunt/uncle family (so 4 books) close together so it didn't seem like I was playing favorites. As you may or may not know I'm taking grad school classes (right now 3) working towards my Teacher of students with disabilities (TSD) certificate, only 4 more classes and I'll have it, plus an addition 5 if I want my masters. So basically my head is already spinning in circles. On top of that I got some sad news about my baby, Elphie. Elphie (she's green if you know musicals you'll get it) is my 2006 Nissan Altima. She got me through my permit, driving test, driving around with my friends, moving me out of college every year, storing band uniform or my work uniform, and road trips to out of states. Basically I planned on running her into the ground, and I'm not ready to part but she is having strut/suspension problems, bumpy driving on new tires, and vibrates at some speeds. So goal is to try to get the certification as soon as possible and get a full time job to either spend the $700+ fix which could get worse or start looking at new cars to get me on new adventures in life :/ well basically my life right now is one big 'what if' equation.
~Ottilie

'My worst of fates attends me in my grave': joining Lord Rochester at Spelsbury

An interesting weekend for me: on Saturday, I was one of the group of old members of the college had taken up the invitation to return to Jesus College on (just about) the 40th anniversary of our matriculation.

Here I am at breakfast: 'Self portrait in a convex teapot':

On Sunday morning, despite feeling that port has yet to have its moment as an energy drink, I drove out to Eynsham, got my second best bicycle out of the car, and headed off to Chastleton House (NT). It's a lovely old place, and my sister last year was re-gilding the clock face from the courtyard, so I was minded to see that back in place. But I got there early, and was going to have to wait three-quarters of an hour with a dreadful thirst, so I switched to Chipping Norton, where I felt sure there would be a cafe, and where I was minded to see the Rickards tomb in the church:

It is beautifully done, though like many of these things, it has attracted the graffiti of idling youths with knives in their pockets. I wonder if it were fully restored, would a restorer have to leave the incised graffiti, which have become a kind of town record?

The tomb side tells us that Thomas Rickards had died in 1579. Elizabeth Rickards, nee Fiennes, lived until 1603, but was still living when the monument was erected, and they never got round to filling in the blanks - but that she would not outlive the millenium had occurred to the person doing the lettering:

As usual, the drapery on the recumbent figures does not hang, and I can only suppose that this shows the strength of conventional depiction: whoever executed this fine piece of sculpture would have been able to render hanging drapery, but somehow that would not have done. Elizabethans liked the starchy look. This is the mastiff at Elizabeth's feet.

I then decided to loop back to Spelsbury, where John Wilmot, Lord Rochester is buried. I didn't know if there would be a ledger slab, or a wall memorial. In fact, neither: Rochester was placed in a vault under the church. This had been opened back in the 1960's or 70's, and the coffin lid's brass plate, a memorial plate from the coffin, and a lead tablet from his wife's grave were taken and put on display inside the church:

The vault was entered from the north side of the church: I went to have a look, and noticed that the cement holding the quite ordinary garden centre paving slabs that covered the vault entrance was completely loose, and the slabs cracked. I lifted two pieces aside:

Below, I could see that an iron grating was propped against the passageway into the vault underneath the church:

And at this moment, common sense prevailed: if I squeezed into this narrow gap, and got stuck down there, nobody knew where I was, there was no mobile phone signal even at ground level, I had no torch, and why on earth did I think that visiting Milord's pocky bones was a good idea?

 ... Dead, we become the Lumber of the World,  
And to that Mass of matter shall be swept,  
Where things destroy'd, with things unborn, are kept. 
Devouring time, swallows us whole  
Impartial Death, confounds, Body, and Soul.

It would, arguably, have been a suitable end for a literary scholar ('After a long search, Dr Booth's remains were found in the vault where the libertine poet, John Wilmot, had been buried in 1680. He was still clutching Rochester's pelvis.') 

 

Old Nick and Young Nick in Paradise: Nicholas Billingsley’s 'The Infancy of the World' (1658)

 

Nicholas Billingsley began working on his The Infancy of the World (1658) when he was only fifteen. It had probably been set aside for some while when, gratified by the reception of his work, Brachy-martyrologia, or, A breviary of all the greatest persecutions which have befallen the saints and people of God from the creation to our present times paraphras'd by Nicholas Billingsly (a versification of Foxe full of hideous relish for suffering, and for divine retributions on the tormentors), Billingsley realized he could delight his new readers with a swift return to the press if he finished his poem on the Creation. I doubt that he did much re-working, he more probably looked back over his early work to check it was clear of unwise theological speculations or lines that might be misconstrued.

 

As a literary work, it has some interest, mainly negative. There was nothing here for Milton to learn from, but the outputs of eager and pious poetasters like Peyton and Billingsley do remind us that Milton was going to enter quite a crowded literary field. The generation brought up on du Bartas would naturally think of Genesis as a poetic subject. We can learn too from what Billingsley doesn’t do with his creation narrative: the direction he took was towards the pious encyclopaedia, rather than entering into the intellectual drama of the Fall.

 

The main part of the work consists, perhaps surprisingly, of eight sections – one would have expected six, as he is dealing with the six days’ labours from Genesis I. His sections consist of the start of creation (as in Milton, apparently not ex nihilo, but order created out of a material chaos), and the separation of the waters, corresponding to verses 1-9. Then, furnishing the earth with trees and flowers (Genesis I, 11-13); section 3, the heavens (I 14-5); the sun and moon (I 16-9); the waters populated with fish occupies his fifth section, and the birds in his sixth – the material for both sections comes from Genesis I 20-3. The seventh section is the creation of the animals, and the eighth, of course, Adam and Eve.

 

To round off what he had achieved, Billingsley ventured into the Fall itself:

An Appendix 
Of God’s resting day. 
Of Eden garden. 
Of Man’s happiness before his fall. 
Of Man’s misery after his fall.

 

His treatment of the fall borders on the cursory: this is the Fall of Adam. Eve is talking

 

… What? frownes my Adam ? wilt thou not draw nearer, 
And taste my love, then whom my life’s not dearer 
For Eves sake eat, and know both good and ill. 
Adam: 
Seeing thou invit’st me eat, my joy, I will. 
Ah! we have sin’d in medling with this Tree, 
This cursed Tree; Oh whither shall we flee? 

 

Like Stanley Holloway’s lion, Wallace, swallowing Albert, ‘ ’E were sorry the moment   ’e’d done it’. Maybe Billingsley had seen one of those depictions of the temptation where Adam turns away, clutching at his throat after his first bite.

 

As you will have noticed, Billingsley adopted loose rhymed couplets. Here are some examples of him at work:

 

An authorial interjection (he has just mentioned dolphins):

 

“Sweet Jesu! beare me to the Port of Sion, 
Be thou my Dolphin, I’ll be thy Arion.” 

Enumerating the varieties of fish:

 

“A world of Paper, and a Sea of Ink, 
Would scarce suffice to hold them all I think.” 

 

Some fish are tasty, others are large:

 

“Are you a hungry, go and catch a Conger 
What fish is larger then the Whale or longer?” 

 

God himself speaks to Adam:

 

“Be thou obsequious, thou shalt finde me mild, 
I’ll be thy father, thou shalt be my child.”

 

 

The vocabulary has its freakish moments too:

 

“Under him Scorpio exporrected lies” (a Latinism, ‘stretched out’). 

 

            “Phæbus his refulgent face, 
The upper and the lower world doth grace, 
With equal splendor; his irradient beams 
Refresheth all things; his ignivomous teams 

Run restless races…”

 

(another Latinism, and altogether a typical 17^th century English word, well-evidenced in the OED: ‘fire-vomiting’)

 

 

That God should address Eve as ‘nefarious woman’ now sounds odd to us, as the word has become comic, but the basic sense of ‘offending against the moral law’ makes perfect sense: 
“Nefarious woman, ah! what hast thou done, 
That thus my awful presence thou dost shun?”

Billingsley’s mind moves instantly from the examples of God’s profuse creation to the wondrous behaviours these animals exhibit in the postlapsarian world. He isn’t troubled about what the birds, fish and beasts did, behaviourally speaking, prior to the Fall. The author himself had experienced desperate ill-health when young, and is recurrently emphatic of the curative things a provident God has placed in His creation: the congregation of the waters leads Billingsley rapidly onto an enumeration of the curative wells, and it rather sounds as though he had spent his time at Tunbridge and Bath taking the waters, and the herbs are all orientated to cures

 

Of Tunbridg famous in our Kentish county, 
For casting up their subterraneous bounty, 
Which relishing of Iron, and sulph’ry veines 
Cures well nigh all infirmities and paines, 
Nay lengthens life causing the fates t’unspin 
Lifes drawn out thred, hath any got the spleen? 
The dropsie? the vertigo? or the stone? 
These waters will yield remedy alone. 
Suppose th’art Lunatick, or Planet struck, 
Hear’s that will help thee, if thou hast the luck 
To come and take it …

 

Gouts, schyaticas, the French-mans pox, 
And what flows from Pandora’s opened box 
These Springs resist…

 

 

Here jaundis-cureing, Horehound, which is good 
Against the Asthma; heer is Southern-wood 
Good against Feavours; here the Worm-wood eases 
All Surfeits, drunk’ness, Cholerick Diseases. 
Cough-chasing Rocket, Rue-expelling vapors, 
Which dim the sight …

 

One thing that had not struck me before about these minor hexameral works – though it’s obvious enough – in both Peyton and Billingsley, their subject allows, even requires, the author to say his piece about Sabbath observance – and they both take a very insistent attitude about the sanctity of the holy day of rest. Milton doesn’t do this. At the end of His week of creation, God returns to elaborate praise in Heaven:

 

So sung they, and the Empyrean rung,               VII 633
With Hallelujahs: Thus was Sabbath kept.
And thy request think now fulfill’d, that ask’d 
How first this World and face of things began…

 

And there it is where it should be, biblically speaking, but Milton certainly doesn’t use this as a soap-box to insist on Sabbath observance. Not that this is a surprise in Milton.

 

Among Billingsley’s lines about the subject of the Sabbath day are these odd couplets – he is describing the waters of the world, and among the rivers, he gets to the Thames. He praises the watermen shooting London Bridge, and then says:

 

Great London is the Bow, the Thames the string 
The Boats are arrows which about do spring 
The Streams Sabbatical do rest and stay. 
In observation of the Sabbath day. 

 

He couldn’t really have thought that the tides in London stopped for the Sabbath, could he? Maybe - Billingsley was very pious (he would go on, as a clergyman, to have a lot of trouble conforming to the Church of England), and seems credulous of wonders he had picked up from books.

 

The largest portion of this whole work consists of a series of rhymed lists of the things and beings God has created. Dealing with the waters, Billingsley compiles seas, rivers, wells, until he admits his reading can carry him no further, and it’s time for him to turn in anyway:

My Muse hath touch’d the chiefest she hath read, 
And tir’d with search, discretion calls to bed. 

Next section, he busily lists trees, herbs and flowers, then on to the constellations and planets, section 5 has a long list of fish, 6, birds, 7, beasts. About all these aspects of creation, Billingsley is fideistic:

Look here, look there, nay turne I where I will 
I see Gods greatness and his goodness still. 

and willing therefore to believe any kind of wonders about whatever aspect it is of God’s mysterious design:

 

The envious Peacock hideth out of spight 
His med’cinable dung from humane sight: 
Treads softly like a theif, but from his throat 
Yels out a horible Tartarian note …

 

Pliny asserted that the peacock deliberately devoured its own dung; dried dung of peacocks seems to appear in most of the pharmacopeias. It was more effective if it was white, apparently. (I have a notion that bird poo contains vitamin B12, but this is not an idea on which I am prepared to act.)

 

Here he retails, quite uncritically, all the old lore about hyenas:

 

Alternately his sex Hyæna changes, 
His eyes assume all colours which as strange is; 
Such Dogs as on his shadow light grow dumb: 
His feet stick fast whoever sees him come; 
Calling the shepherds from their thatched bowers, 
He slayes them, and their slautered Corps devours… 

 

The elephant, meanwhile, understands human language, has its own elephantine faith, and is a royalist:

 

The Elephant next claimeth excellence, 
This beast comes nearest unto humane sense; 
He knows his country speech, he’s us’d in warrs, 
He worshipeth the Sun, the Moon, the Starrs. 
The greatest of all beasts the earth doth hold, 
He’s proud of trappings wrought with burnish’d gold 
Adores the King, his most ambitious spirit 
Aspires to glory, glory to inherit. 

 

Maybe I am being severe on Billingsley. If Pseudodoxia Epidemica, published in 1646, does not seem to have come his way, even if Browne dismisses the nonsense about the elephant’s legs having no joints, he was himself willing to credit elephants as writers and speakers, as they enjoy a ‘proximity of reason’:

“That some Elephants have not only written whose sentences, as Aelian ocularly testifieth, but have also spoken, as Oppianus delivereth, and Christophorus a Costa particularly relateth … we doe not conceive impossible; nor beside the affinity of reason in this Animall any such intolerable incapacity in the organs of divers other Quadrupedes, whereby they might not be taught to speake, or become imitators of speech like birds; and indeed strange it is how the curiosity of men that have been active in the instruction of beasts, have never fallen upon this artifice, and among those many paradoxicall and unheard of imitations, should not attempt to make one speak; the Serpent that spake unto Eve, the Dogs & Cats, that usually speak unto Witches, might afford some encouragement, and since broad and thick chops are required in birds that speake, since lips and teeth are also organs of speech; from these there is also an advantage in quadrupedes, and a proximity of reason in Elephants and Apes above them all.”

But occasionally Billingsley the fifteen year old appears in his verse:

 

“The Stockfish is a fish that wil not boyl 
Unless you beat it with a stick a while”

 

Billingsley does not seem to have registered that dried cod needs to be tenderized before cooking, that you can’t just boil it without doing this first seems to have stuck in his mind as a miraculous property of something called a ‘stockfish’.

 

As I said, Billingsley added an appendix about the Fall to his poem about the Creation. here, he daringly ventures into dialogue.

 

God and Adam he treats using a figure of the two as landlord and tenant:

Of all the trees that in the Orchard be 
I set them for thy use, one only tree 
Shall be my rent; that tree thou shalt not tast, 
Which in the center of the garden’s plac’d 
The rest are freely thine, by my permission, 
Rent-free: but yet on an imply’d condition: 
What I injoyne be studious to fulfill, 
Touch not the tree of knowledg, good, and ill; 
For by my sacred majesty, I vow, 
And by my venerable name, if thou 
Break but thy Lease, “thy very lips that shall 
“Let in this fruit, shall let in death withal. 
But if thou please me well, this tree shal be 
A sacred pledg between thy God, and thee. 

 

Adam replies in kind, and sounds up-to-date on property law

 

                        shall I fail 
To keep from thee thy right? shall my transgression 
Displease the Landlord of my free possession. 
O no, I will obey …

 

Adam then produces a series of impossibility tropes, including some that show him creditably knowledgeable about the world he has so recently entered:

Sooner shall sun-burnt India grow cold, 
And Icy Zealand hot, and heav’ns grow old. 
E’re I from my first principles retreat, 
And disobey my God, so good, so great… 

But Satan does his thing:

(His) plot the better to accomplish, he 
Goes wriggling up on the forbidden tree: 
Assaults the woman, with his baited gin, 
And thus he drawes the silly woman in:

 
Serpent. 
Great Empress of the world: I humbly sue 
To be resolved of a doubt, which you 
Can satisfie me in: have you indeed 
Your appetite restrain’d? what, mayn’t you feed    
On evr’y pleasant fruit? why so? doth God 
Limit your pow’r? if so, 'tis very odd.

 

At this point, Billingsley opts to make Satan into a bad Cavalier poet:

Coy woman tast, behold their beautiful 
And cherry cheeks, coy woman do but pull. 
Cannot those mellow-delicates, invite 
Your wat’ring palate, to an appetite? 
Methinkes they should, taste, and you shall have skil, 
To know the diference 'twixt good, and ill. 
Why draw’st thou back?

                                    To the possessed Snake, 
The cred’lous woman this reply did make. 
Eve. 
Wisest of beasts, all that you speak is true, 
You counsel for the best, all thanks be due, 
For your great love your love which doth transcend 
All merit of mine, thanks to my loyal friend: 
My life’s to small to hazard for your ease, 
Friend I could give’t, your speeches doe so please. 
This fruit is marv’lous pleasing to the eye; 
And questionless, 'tis to the taste: I’ll try. 
And eat thereof and give my husband Adam . 
Serpent. 
They bow to serve you, at your pleasure, Madam. 
Eve. 
Ah! how delitious is this fruit, how sweet! 
A finer Apple I did never eat …

The commendatory verses Billingsley solicited from fellow students and relatives are kind, and lay judicious stress on his youth. If we made him touch Josuah Sylvester’s corpse, asks William Jacob, would it cry out ‘murder!’? No, not a bit of it. John Swan notes that

Whiles others of thine age mispent their  times

In toys and pastimes, thou in sacred Rhimes

Applied thy self …

D.R. of Merton College says that this ‘accurate’ poem that it confutes Epicurean atomism.

My illustration, of an Adam reacting instantly to the ‘bad fruit of knowledge’, comes from a Book of Hours, Use of Rome, French, first quarter of the16th century http://bodley30.bodley.ox.ac.uk:8180/luna/servlet/detail/ODLodl~1~1~4230~104346:Book-of-Hours--Use-of-Rome-#

Review ~ Come What May by Faith Sullivan

Hey Lovelies!
I finished Come what May by Faith Sullivan which is the second book in Heartbeat which I also reviewed. I'm enjoy her New Adult Contemporary Romantic Fiction novels! Then again I'm a sucker for blue eyes ;) 
Here is my review for Heartbeat and I can't wait to read the third installment! Also heads up, her books do get a little steamy, so if you're not into that or if you're on the younger side I wouldn't recommend these books. Otherwise enjoy ;)

There is nothing more haunting than nightmares that won't go away. You don't always know why you are having them, and your sub conscious knows all of your fears to feed off of. Adam keeps seeing Katie, the girl who seems to hauntingly know him, yet this stranger's death stains his hands. Adam is having a hard time dealing with the loss of Katie and forgets who he is. Jada is his new partner on the job though. A spitfire with shadows in her own past. These two have a very rocky road together as they try to feel each other out for trust. Their attraction for each other confuses each other, but there are lives on the line.

After the cliff hanger in 'Heartbeat' the readers are left wondering where the second book will go. Seeing differences between Adam of the first book, and the second. Jada is a girl you can relate to. 'Is Adam flirting with me, or am I just fun to flirt with? Should I allow myself to trust another person?' Who hasn't wonder those things? Girls will relate to Jada who is a strong young woman yet who is compassionate. Adam is a lost soul that the readers will want to give him a kick in the butt then a hug. To top it off, Faith Sullivan has the readers prepared for one ending only to pull the rug from under their feet, and wondering why don't they have the third on hand.

kindle $2.99
paperback $5.39
nook $2.99
smashwords $2.99

Review ~ Unexpected by Faith Sullivan

Hey Lovelies,
I just read the lastest book written by Faith Sullivan who is a New Adult Romantic Contemporary writer. Her books are for adults because they do get a little steamy ;) Not only is this a good book, but when you buy it during the month of September 50% of the proceeds will go to the 9/11 Memorial Fund! Here is Faith going into more detail about it; details

Even when it seems like every ounce of security is taken away from you, through the fog there is a chance for hope. Michelle has done everything in the book right, loving daughter from hard working parents, great grades, and got out of her small town to attend NYU. Yet she is attending college in 2001 for her first semester, the world around her chance because of 9/11. Connor was born and raised in New York, and because of the disaster the two work together to figure out what had happened, and how to get back to a sense of normalcy.

Faith Sullivan creates these two characters that are witty and don't let the other push them around. Connor has the attitude you love, yet pushes any girls' buttons. Given everything that has happen you can't help, but want to keep reading because you love the characters. The readers will feel the emotions wrapped around not only the characters, but also the event that is still around us. I was 11 at the time of the event, and what I remember she got the feeling of needing to get together for the readers who weren't there to understand. Another great read from Faith Sullivan :)

Kindle $2.51
Paperback $5.39
Nook $2.99
All ebook formats smashwords

Daring escape by IAF officers from Pak jail - Part 2

Second and last part of M P Anil Kumar's piece on the escape of three IAF officers from a Pak jail 41 years ago. "The three escapees were never feted for their awesome attempt... The threesome truly deserves official recognition. Why not honour them at least now through retroactive decoration?" asks the author. More 

Daring escape by IAF officers from Pak jail - Part 1

My friend M P Anil Kumar's gripping account of a daring escape by three Indian Air Force officers from a Pakistan jail. More

Shutting petrol pumps and #MoilyIdeas

Petroleum minister Veerappa Moily's idea of shutting down petrol pumps at 8 pm in order to save fuel consumption, shows how befuddled the central political and administrative machinery in the country is, on improving the economy. (The original story in Indian Express & in Epaper). It's difficult to even understand the logic behind this bizarre thought.

Very few petrol pumps are open late in the night, and fewer open round the clock. Most petrol pumps anyway shut by 10 pm. Never heard of people filling up petrol and going on long drives in the night just because they saw fuel stations are open after 8 pm. Wonder how much Moily thought the oil companies would save by closing these pumps 2 hours early.

If at all such a restriction comes into place, one, people will fill more petrol in the hours when the pumps are open. Two, people who need fuel on emergency will be put to great hardship. Three, a remote possibility of vested interests hoarding petrol and selling it near stations illegally at a higher price for people who are caught unawares and need fuel urgently after 8 pm.

Moily's remark has led to a flood of comments on Twitter with the hash tag #Moilyideas. It was trending for a while yesterday. But the tweets are still pouring in here.

Here are some of them:

Nikhil Narayanan ‏@nikhilnarayanan
"Boss, I need to leave by 7 today. Gotta fill fuel" ~ Possible office-talk, thanks to #moilyideas 

Mocking Bard ‏@Spooferman_ 
People are getting fat. Please shut down restaurants between 8am and 8pm.

IndiaFirst ‏@NiketNabriya1
Government bans sex from 8pm to 8am to conrol population explosion! 

Faking News ‏@fakingnews
BREAKING: ATMs to close down by 8 PM to arrest the slide of rupee

Gaurav Sabnis ‏@gauravsabnis
After 8 pm, women traveling alone in cars should walk on the streets instead.

Now Moily says the idea to shut down pumps came from the public and not from the government.

Everyone, including people in government, know that there's not control on fuel consumption for government vehicles. The common logic is that since it comes free, why bother. That attitude has to change, because that's where the maximum wastage occurs.

Secondly, limit free trips and travel allowances for government functionaries.

Thirdly, remove the subsidy for diesel. Or if that could add to inflation, then have differential pricing mechanism for it.

I am sure people are willing to take the hard measures, provided they see that the government itself is setting an example.