Hello. Wow. Of all the things, I did not expect a 2–days-across-3-weekends film project to throw me off the side of the wagon of this newsletter’s posting schedule. But it did. Good to know!
Last week I watched all three seasons of Reservation Dogs. It is a good show. And it was what I needed: a necessary focus for rest. While I watched I knitted three quarters of a speckled pink cabled sock from a pattern in Jane Brocket’s knitting book, as I sat on my bedroom floor and recuperated.
It was good, and it was deeply needed, and I felt like a better person afterward.
Pardon the rug, it’s covered in the remnants of movie props like this one:
And then we FILMED AGAIN LAST SATURDAY! Another huge thanks to everyone who joined in. It was so cool to hang out with friends and family and costumes and bread and puppets around a campfire in the woods by a lake on a cloudy day. Everyone worked hard and it has been such a fun micro team to hang out with throughout the past month!
I have been reading THE BEST THRIFT STORE BOOK FIND OF THE DECADE; an anthology of magical short stories by Patricia C. Wrede, author of the Enchanted Forest chronicles. It’s called the Book of Enchantments.
The stories range from modern (well, it was published in the mid nineties but it’s timeless) settings infused with deep fairy or folk tale motifs, to classic fantasy tales, to a sequel story about Cimorene and Mendenbar (Queen and King of the Enchanted Forest and as practical as ever) called “Utensile Strength.”
It’s a reminder of how much we owe to E. Nesbit. C.S. Lewis, Edward Eager, Patricia C. Wrede… among many others, I think Maryrose Wood, Madeleine L’Engle, Neil Gaiman carry on echoes of her voice and her work as well.
I’m thankful for Edith Nesbit.
Amabel... took up the [railway timetable] again to look for Whitby, where her godmother lived. And it was then that she saw the extraordinary name "Whereyouwantogoto." This was odd—but the name of the station from which it started was still more extraordinary, for it was not Euston or Cannon Street or Marylebone.
The name of the station was "Bigwardrobeinspareroom." And below this name, really quite unusual for a station, Amabel read in small letters:
"Single fares strictly forbidden. Return tickets No Class Nuppence. Trains leave Bigwardrobeinspareroom all the time." And under that in still smaller letters—
"You had better go now."
What would you have done? Rubbed your eyes and thought you were dreaming? Well, if you had, nothing more would have happened. Nothing ever does when you behave like that. Amabel was wiser. She went straight to the Big Wardrobe and turned its glass handle.
—"The Aunt and Amabel" in The Magic World, by E. Nesbit, 1912
A Quote:
"He's probably come to apply for a job in the kitchen," Cimorene said. "We still need a third assistant cook and two scullery maids, and I told the head cook I want to interview them myself. I refuse to let him hire a princess in disguise who's hoping to sneak into the next ball wearing a dress as shining as the stars so that Daystar will fall in love with her. Princesses are very persuasive, but most of them aren't much use in the kitchen."
Daystar blinked. "But Mother, we hardly ever have balls. And I really don't think I'd fall in love with someone just because she was wearing a fancy dress."
"Try and convince a princess of that."
—“Utensile Strength,” from Book of Enchantments by Patricia C. Wrede