Story Swap

Last night was the monthly Voices in the Glen story swap. There was pretty good turn-out, partly since Eve brought her husband and three sons along. There was a lot of good stuff. For example, Bill started out with a couple of bits from a book on Weird Maryland. For example, there is the legend of the bridge of the swine-faced woman. If you drive over the bridge at night and don't stop, your car's electrical system will fail and the car will stop in the middle of the bridge. Then the swine-faced woman will come out and kill you. If you drive over the bridge at night and do stop, the swine-faced woman will come out and kill you. The choice is yours.

Margaret told a very nice Swedish story involving putting salt on a magpie's tail leading to a wish. I think I've heard her tell it before, but that never really matters. The story is very similar thematically to the Indian one of the woman who marries a would-be alchemist. Her father persuades her husband that the secret of turning base material into gold involves the dust gathered at dawn from the leaves of banana trees, so he develops a banana plantation. Of course, he sells the bananas and becomes wealthy. When he has enough of the dust from the leaves, the father points out that, by growing the bananas, he has already turned base material into gold.

I made my first attempt at telling the Fijian story, "The Man Who Was Used as a Ball." I'm not quite happy with the demons yet, but I did, at least, remember all of the things that Tui Leku does to try to evade them. It mostly needs more practice. Which is not exactly a surprise - most stories need a few tellings with an audience to figure out what works. That's why I go to story swaps.

News round-up

Items in the news which caught my interest over the past several days:

Harvard and Islam. There were a couple of editorials about Islam at Harvard. Apparently, the muezzin's call to prayer was broadcast at Harvard Yard during an Islam Awareness Week in February and this has some people upset. I don't get what the big deal is. How is this any different than, say, the tolling of church bells? The same editorials also complained about 6 hours a week at one gym being set aside for women only at the request of Moslem women. Again, I don't see the big deal. I'd be all for setting aside an equivalent amount of time for men only, too, at similar off-peak hours.

Price of movies. There are now movie theatres opening up which charge $35 a ticket. They're supposed to be all luxurious, of course, but I am hard pressed to imagine what amenities could ever make me pay that much to go to a movie. Maybe if a suitably attractive leading man jumped off the screen and gave me a massage during the show. I think I will stick to the $5 budget matinees at the Cinema Arts Theatre in Fairfax, thank you.

Latest home medical test. The Identigene DNA paternity test is now on sale at drugstores for $29.99 plus $119.99 for laboratory processing. I assume it includes a copy of one of those "How to Do Your Own Divorce" books, too.

Baseball quote. From George Will's column in today's Post, comes the following profound thought:
Asked in 1971 how it felt to be the shortest player in the major leages, the Royals' Freddie Patek, a 5-foot-4 infielder, said, "A heckuva lot better than being the shortest player in the minor leagues."

Sleep In for the Cure. An ad for the National Race for the Cure has an option which may be more appealing. Namely, you can sleep in on race day and still support breast cancer research by registering online for "Sleep In for the Cure." Basically, this is a way to get a t-shirt in exchange for a donation. I'm not sure why, but I find this deeply disturbing. (Despite which, I will note that one of my all-time favorite charitable promotions was the Stay Home and Read a Book Ball that the West L.A. Regional Friends of the Library sponsored. There was a check-box on the registration for which of several authors you wished to be "seated" with. And you didn't have to eat rubber chicken or get dressed up!)

Elephants gone wild. The National Zoo is concerned about the behavior of Kandula, their teenage male elephant. The story goes on to talk about increasingly violent behavior among elephants in the wild, apparently due to a lock of older male role models, combined with post-traumatic stress disorder due to culling. They claim that "in South Afria, young male elephants have begun assaulting and, according to some news reports, raping rhinos."

I also jotted down a note that says, "2 sets of directors" but I can't remember what it refers to. Google didn't come up with anything that reminded me, so feel free to make up your own news story.