If you happen to be having one. If not, happy more-or-less midwinter / midsummer. I’ve never really got the hang of time and space. Let’s hope each day is better than the previous one, and pray for the strength to cope with each one as it comes.
“I will go out,” said God.
“I will go out, not only from the place that is mine,
But I will go out from the place that is me.
I will go out from myself and forswear my own presence.
We are one, I am three,
But we, but I, will be severed, sundered, divided,
Because it is my nature to rend my nature
For love.”
Marion Pitman c. 1968
Not sure what this is doing here on its own. Maybe I started to write it and got distracted. It’s the title of a story of mine in one of the Alchemy Press anthologies. I got the idea from the late great Paul Jennings, who among other things wrote a column in the Observer under the title Oddly Enough. Some of his pieces are hysterically funny, or at least I find them so; some are profound; some almost mystical. Some are all three. His pieces on Resistentialism and on English language without the Normans are erudite and unsurpassable. Seek out his books, if you find yourself turning words backwards, pondering on the names on long-distance lorries (my personal favourite, that I drove behind for some time once, is Pratt & Co, independent banana ripeners of Hemel Hempstead), or wondering why les choses sont contre nous, and where that Belfast sink in the storage unit that you have never seen before came from…
Real loves and true loves
Cyril Tawney, in his songs, generally used the term “real love” where the traditional folk song usually uses “true love”.
I can’t say I blame him. The term true love in folk song is flexible, to say the least. My “true love” can be the person I love. Or the person who loves me. Or the person I don’t love any more. Or the person who doesn’t love me. It can be my manifestly untrue love, who is shagging someone else, or indeed has married someone else. It can be the person I am about to brutally murder, or the person who is in the very act of murdering me. Sometimes it simply means, someone I had a fling with once, a sort of, “I think I had a true love around here somewhere, a long time ago.”
Of course, it may mean the one person I have loved through many reincarnations, and the other half of my soul. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
Folk song is really not romantic.
New book from Jacey Bedford
My new book, The Amber Crown is released into the wild today, published by DAW, and available on both sides of the Atlantic as a trade paperback (large format) and also as an electronic book (Kindle, E-book etc.). I’m delighted that it’s available on Kindle in the UK. My previous six books were only available in various e-book formats in the USA and Canada because the publisher only had North American rights. For the Amber Crown they have world rights, so distribution is international.
“An elegantly told story of intrigue, steeped in detail and rich character.” – Adrian Tchaikovsky.
I’m excited to welcome The Amber Crown into the world. This book has been a long time in the making. At the time I sold my first books to DAW (2013) I already had a first draft of this, but once I had my first three book deal, and then my…
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One of my favourite stories too
It’s time for my favourite Christmas story!
Experienced readers will know this is not your standard Christmas story. In fact, it’s not an actual Christmas story at all. I first heard this story over twenty years ago, and when the holiday season rolled around, it was the first thing I thought of. So I’ve been posting it every year, and will do so until further notice:
One night, Confucius had a dream about chopsticks.
In the dream, he was transported to Hell, where he saw multitudes of people sitting at enormous tables set out with wonderful foods of all kinds. There was so much food that the tables groaned under the weight and the various delightful aromas made the mouth water.
But the people sitting at the tables hadn’t touched any of it.
They had been told they could eat as much as they liked but only if they ate…
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I do like this!
Luxurious man, to bring his vice in use,
Did after him the world seduce,
And from the fields the flowers and plants allure,
Where nature was most plain and pure.
He first enclosed within the garden’s square
A dead and standing pool of air,
And a more luscious earth for them did knead,
Which stupefied them while it fed.
The pink grew then as double as his mind:
The nutriment did change the kind.
With strange perfumes he did the roses taint,
And flowers themselves were taught to paint.
The tulip, white, did for complexion seek,
And learned to interline its cheek;
Its onion root they then so high did hold,
That one was for a meadow sold.
Another world was searched, through oceans new,
To find the marvel of Peru.
And yet these rarities might be allowed,
To man, that sovereign thing, and proud,
Had he not dealt between…
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interesting interview with a terrific writer
Tell us your biography in three sentences or fewer.
Born in the West of England where I now live. Have had a varied career, including witchcraft shop owner, SFF writer, college lecturer and international education administrator. Practising occultist.
How and when did you begin writing, and what was your first published piece?
I started writing before the age of 10, with a plaigirism of Lloyd Alexander (I was an early adaptor of Prydain! – and I also loved the Welsh legends of the Mabinogion). I remember being uneasy about this at the time and thinking that I ought to come up with something more original. This has been happening ever since. My first published piece was, I think, actually in Pravda and related to the education system of Kazakhstan. I remember being impressed that it wasn’t censored. When it comes to science fiction, I had a short story…
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Includes a short piece of mine 🙂
Christmas Present – a short story by Marion Pitman
Doris heard the slight plip of the cat flap, followed by the scrutch scrutch of claws at work in the doormat. There was a pause, then the plink of the name tag on a collar against the rim of the food bowl. After a while she heard the claws in the carpet behind the sofa, a pause, and the air was enriched by the fishy aroma of a well-timed feline fart.
Doris smiled and shook her head. She must start tidying the house – it would be Christmas Eve tomorrow, and Norman and Christine would be round early.
Doris wondered where she had gone wrong with Norman. He wasn’t a bad son; but one of the things that were immutable in Doris’s universe was that you didn’t leave your old mother all on her own at Christmas. They would come round…
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With my other hat on – putting this on here so I can refer people to it – I have a stack of Jack Payne Popular Music and Dancing Weekly from 1934/5. Some of the lyrics are incredibly daft.
May 16 1935 32
Out in the cold cold snow
the tower of London
The Lover’s Waltz
Antonio
Yvonne
Bon soir!
Dec 1 1934 (2 copies)
Without that certain thing
Swaller-tail coat
The sweetest music this side of heaven
Blue river roll on
Song of the dawn
Bonny Face
(Home)
Oct 13 1934
Easy Come, Easy Go
Lady of Madrid
Aloha beloved
The show is overcoat
Josephine
Icicle Joe (the Eskimo)
(Whispering)
Oct 20 1934
Unless
The beat o’ my heart
In other words – we’re through
Melody in spring
True
Hospitality
(Lady of Spain)
Oct 27 1934
My design for living
You have taken my heart
Lullaby in blue
Beloved
Coom, pretty one
In San Antonio
(Clap hands, here comes Charley)
Nov 10 1934
Dearest
Sweetheart of Red River Valley
Why not?
If
Nobody’s sweetheart
My Convent Belle
(On the air)
Dec 15 1934
Kickin’ the gong around
The old sow
Humming to you
Old monastery bell
Little wallflower
Spellbound
(You die if you worry)
Dec 22 1934
The sun has got his hat on
Driftin’ tide
It don’t mean a thing
At the corner of the street
What do I care, it’s home
The bells of home are ringing
(On her doorstep last night)
Dec 29 1934
Throw open wide your window
In my little bottom drawer
Go to sleep
You or no-one
Here’s to the ones we love
Hills of Devon
(Airman)
Jan 5 1935
Good night, lovely little lady
Moon Country
Best wishes
Prairie Lullaby
I’m one of the lads of Valencia
You’ve made my life complete, dear
(Casabiance)
Jan 12 1935
Grinzing
Who’ll buy my lavender?
Seven years with the wrong woman
Love thy neighbour
The captain’s daughter
If I hadn’t been green
(The changing of the guard)
Jan 19 1935
Cocktails for two
Cradle in the trees
Old father Thames
Ill wind
You’re in my power
Rio Grande
(What’s the use of money after all)
Jan 26 1935
The very thought of you
You’re just unfair
Rockin’ chair
Trouble in paradise
The ripping waltz
My sweet
(Sittin’ on a five barred gate)
Feb 2 1935
Madonna Mine
Remembrance
It’s all forgotten now
He was a handsome young soldier
I’m bettin’ the roll on roamer
A star that shines in the night
(Soldier on the shelf)
Feb 9 1935
I bought myself a bottle of ink
The breeze
That’s what life is made of
In the Cumberland mountains
Will the angels play their harps for me?
My Treasure
(Fairy on the clock)
Feb 16 1935
Isle of Capri
Faith
Little Dutch mill
Silly girl
You oughta be in pictures
Sonoma
(Cupid on the cake)
Feb 23 1935
Soon
Ridin’ around in the rain
The prize waltz
How’m I doin’?
The general and the private
When it’s springtime in Normandy
(Fire! Fire!! Fire!!!)
Mar 2 1935
Out in the cold again
There was an old woman
Riding on the clouds
Just a little grey-haired lady
The crazy song
That forgotten melody
(When I met Connie in the cornfield)
Mar 9 1935
Oh! Muki Muki Oh!
I read it in the paper
Marta
Where? (I wonder where?)
‘Fonso
Faded letters
(Dance of the rain-drops)
Mar 16 1935
Dreamy Serenade
In the hills of Colorado
Let’s make love
Snowball
What is there to take its place?
Away from the rest of the world
(Oh! Arthur)
March 23 1935
Every time I look at you
Over on the sunny side
You’re wonderful
Hold up your hands
Rufus on the roof
Blue moon in the sky
(Oh! Sailor behave!)
Mar 30 1935
The sob song
Lullaby lady
Someone’s laying the table
When days begin
Three o’clock in the morning
Offer up a little prayer for mother
(Please Percy)
April 6 1935
Way down south in North Carolina
Three of us
This is the rhythm for me
I’m going to meet my jolly old girl
In a gondola
I will have a real good time
The shamrock your wore in your hair
April 13 1935
He didn’t even say goodbye
Lady rainbow
Roll along Kentucky moon
Old Sweetheart days
The closer they nestle together
Oh! Suzanne!
April 20 1935
Argentina
I was in the mood
I heard
Rambling down the lane together
Wait for the kettle to boil
Desert Start
April 27 1935
That night in Venice
Song of the Nightingale
For ever
In the hollow of your hand
I’m a failure
I’ll always be sorry for you
andallshallbewelldotcom 