Those crappy pens at the Abigail Adams Birthplace

[matrixrefugee]

Just got back from visiting the Abigail Adams Birthplace in Weymouth. Lovely little house and the woman who gave the tour -- who's also president of the Weymouth Historical Society -- was a delight to have for a guide. She told us this funny story about how the ladies in the Historical Society were experimenting with writing with quill pens, and how it was a minor miracle in some ways that Abigail and John Adams were able to stay in touch during John's long absences from home, tending to the matters of breaking away from England and founding a new country, since the mail took so long and -- our tour guide's own words -- "They had to write with those shitty pens". That got all three of us laughing, and my crazy father latched onto it and used every oppurtunity to break into her guide spiel with a mention of "those crappy pens".

I have to admit that Abigail Adams is one of my heroes and a true example of a real feminist. She wasn't out to conquer the world, but she helped maintain the world and give the guys fighting the Redcoats and the Founding Fathers at their meetings and whatnot something worth going to all that trouble.

Comments

Sort of on-topic...

[(Anonymous)]

At least if you're dealing with "the perfect lady", bastardized so often in fiction...sorry this is long, but it's so funny that I wanted to share it with you- I thought you'd appreciate it.
"The heroine is usually an heiress, probably a peeress in her own right, with perhaps a vicious baronet, an amiable duke, and an irresistible younger son of a marquis as lovers in the foreground, a clergyman and a poet sighing for her in the middle distance, and a crowd of undefined adorers dimly indicated beyond. Her eyes and her wit are both dazzling; her nose and her morals are alike free from any tendency to irregularity; she has a superb contralto and a superb intellect; she is perfectly well-dressed and perfectly religious; she dances like a sylph, and reads the Bible in the original tongues. Or it may be that the heroine is not an heiress—that rank and wealth are the only things in which she is deficient; but she infallibly gets into high society, she has the triumph of refusing many matches and securing the best, and she wears some family jewels or other as a sort of crown of righteousness at the end. Rakish men either bite their lips in impotent confusion at her repartees, or are touched to penitence by her reproofs, which, on appropriate occasions, rise to a lofty strain of rhetoric; indeed, there is a general propensity in her to make speeches, and to rhapsodize at some length when she retires to her bedroom. In her recorded conversations she is amazingly eloquent, and in her unrecorded conversations, amazingly witty. She is under stood to have a depth of insight that looks through and through the shallow theories of philosophers, and her superior instincts are a sort of dial by which men have only to set their clocks and watches, and all will go well."
-- George Eliot, 1856

It appears good 'ol Georgie discovered the true definition of a Mary Sue!

~Ruby

Re: Sort of on-topic...

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

You know, I think it was on the late, great fanwriter "Kielle"'s website, subreality.com, but I ran across an article online entitled something like "150 Years of Mary Sue", in which the author -- an American literature professor, if I remember correctly -- wrote about the early manifestation of Mary Sues in 19th century children's literature, particularly in magazines. If I find the page, I will definately send you the link: the author included some excerpts from some of these Sue-fics, and aside from the change in fashions, the Sues really weren't that different from their modern day fanfictional counterparts.

Re: Sort of on-topic...

[(Anonymous)]

I would argue that even the fashions haven't changed much...how many Sues have we seen wearing "flowing robes", "velvet corsets", and "whispering silks"? One Lord of the Rings Sue had so many lines devoted to her dressing my friend commented, "Um, does this remind you a bit of a harem scene?"
And, horror of horrors...I recently found a "Dark City" Mary Sue. A DR. SCHREBER Sue, no less! As much as I love him, and think he's utterly fascinating, the thought of a teenybopper writer finding him sexually/romantically attractive is just a tad...squicky.

~Ruby

Re: Sort of on-topic...

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

And, horror of horrors...I recently found a "Dark City" Mary Sue. A DR. SCHREBER Sue, no less! As much as I love him, and think he's utterly fascinating, the thought of a teenybopper writer finding him sexually/romantically attractive is just a tad...squicky.

Oh man, and I just re-rewatched that movie last night to get into the spirit for the "Dark City" tribute mini-event which Anubis, one of my buddies in the Matrix Online, is running (and yours truly will be playing "Mr Wall", since the actor who played him also had a supporting role in one of the "Matrix" sequels). You gotta send me the link to that one! You know how they say "seeing is believing"...

Re: Sort of on-topic...

[(Anonymous)]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1520664/1/

It's not so schlocky that it's terrible- I mean, it could have been a lot worse, written-wise (if that makes sense). It might just be that, well, it's Dr-freakin'-Schreber, roughly the LAST character in that movie to be into the syrupy romance thing. Mr. Hand would even be more 'into' it. Dunno...
Would you be free anytime to just chat for a bit? I do miss you and it'd be nice to talk to you.

~Ruby

Oh, also

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe I'm being alternatively harsh/oddly-supportive of the fic since, when the movie came out, *I* made a not-quite-Schreber-Sue myself, lol...

~Ruby