Death and Intersections

Russell Pope, February 14, 1947 - March 23, 2016.

The day I learned that my uncle passed away, I spent the afternoon staring at the computer screen, making false starts to type up notes about project status. Eventually I gave up and did what I really wanted to do - write about my Uncle Russ.

He was a tough man, tall, with a salt and pepper beard, wild eyes, and an ever-present earring made
from a rat’s jawbone. He was an iron worker and a welder, and had, in his youth, served in the Army. Russ wore black leather jackets and rode a Harley. He drank a lot. He cussed. He didn’t take advice, and for most of my life, he scared me a little bit.

But he could be kind. One year during our family’s white elephant Christmas gift exchange – which sadly replaced the chaotic free-for- all I had grown up loving – I ended up with a tacky magic set. Russ took it, freeing me to choose something closer to my liking.

When I was a kid, my sister and I played often with his two boys. One winter day as we all rode in the backseat of Russ’s car, my uncle unleashed a torrent of cold weather survival advice.

“Stay dry!” he warned us. “Keep your hands warm. If you need to, stick ‘em in your armpits. Or your
crotch.”

I figured that was good advice – go where the warmth is.

Many years later, after college and when I had grown weary of living in the Washington, DC rat race, I mentioned that I planned to move to Montana.

“You’ll freeze your ass off,” Russ said.

“Maybe. But I have a really, really good coat,” I said. It wasn’t a great answer, but it was the truth.

He could be funny, too. We came from hardy Pennsylvania stock – winters meant ice skating and sled riding. We all grabbed boots and sleds one night at a local hill and zipped across the snow. My uncle watched, incredulous, as an immigrant family brought out empty plastic milk jugs, bits of carpet, and other objects as makeshift sleds.

“What are they gonna do next, take the damn hubcaps off the car?” he muttered.

Wherever he is, I hope Russ is warm, and comfortable. Maybe I didn’t know him well – and he didn’t know me – but as I write this, I can laugh a little, and I can remember. I can remember the times when we intersected. And the intersections, after all, are what we leave in our wake when we are gone.

Good Girls Don't Waltz

I’m in Nashville this week, Music City USA (although Austin, TX may also put in a claim for that title), and where there’s music, there’s bound to be dancing.

I don’t expect to see any foxtrot or waltzes here, which like Nashville’s original speakeasies, belong to another era. For me, witnessing a waltz has always felt like a step back in time. What can be more refined and more romantic?

Illustration of the nine waltz positions. Correct Method of German and French Waltzing (1816).

But it wasn’t always that way. Waltzing, when it first inveigled its way into British ballrooms by way of Austria during the Regency era, was met with shock and outrage. Matrons disapproved of it, the patronesses of Almack’s banned it, and no less a libertine than Lord Byron derided it.

What was so bad about the waltz?

First, unlike other popular of the dances of the period, couples danced with each other rather than as a group.

Secondly, the waltz involved the man touching the lady. For an extended period of time. In public. Scandal! In his poem satirizing the waltz, Byron wrote, “Waltz – waltz alone – both arms and legs demands, Liberal of feet and lavish of hands; Hands which may freely range in public sight.”

Attitudes gradually relaxed, and even the formidable clique of Almack’s patronesses began to permit waltzing, under certain conditions, by 1815. But the dance itself would continue to be considered “riotous and indecent” in certain circles for another decade.

If the waltz created such a stir, I cannot imagine what the response would be to what happens in today’s clubs!

Sources:

Mass Historia – “The Shocking Waltz”

Jane Austen Centre – “The History of the Waltz”

Wikipedia – Waltz

Getting the "Look"

Queen Amalie Auguste, c. 1823.

It’s Paris Fashion Week, an event I am sure that Kate Cochrane would have loved – certainly the spectacle if not all of the styles.

When it came to dressing my own heroine, the prospect took me in directions I couldn’t have imagined. I periodically found myself in the midst of writing a scene – a ball, a dinner, a horseback ride – and then stopping cold when it came to describing what Kate had on. For inspiration, I turned to the fabulous collections of material objects at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

I didn’t want to describe any old dress, or any type of jewels; I wanted what Kate wore to be as authentic and specific as possible to the age in which she lived. One of my favorite scenes in the novel involves Kate receiving a pair of emerald earrings from her husband. But how were they shaped? Were the earrings large or small? Did the stones appear simple or ornate? After many winding paths via Google searches and scouring museum collections, I found an image of a stunning pair of emerald earrings (and matching necklace!) that was allegedly a gift from the emperor Napoleon Bonaparte to his adopted daughter. Quelle merveille!

Emerald earring and necklace. V&A Museum.

I followed a similar approach for other aspects of Kate’s wardrobe, finding example of dresses and fabrics that show likely possibilities for what she would have worn. Silk for evening, or perhaps an airy muslin trimmed with silver threads, with cotton fabrics for daytime. Luckily, there are many people just as interested in the Regency and Georgian periods as I am, and I found a wealth of sources. The Jane Austen’s World blog, Jane Austen Centre, and Jane Austen’s London were all enormously helpful.

The Cochranes, my Pinterest board inspired by Kate and her family, shows more of the clothes, jewels, people, and places that inspire my novel! 

Travelers Tales from Edinburgh

Pub in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland.

This week find me at World Travelers Today. This is a very exciting new travel site that not only features stories of wanderlust from around the world, but tips for travel safety and security plus behind-the-scenes features on local food and drink. I'm personally looking forward to the "Bartenders' Best!"

I'm very pleased to have the honor of writing a guest post about my travels in Scotland - what a trip down memory lane! Find out why Edinburgh is a UNESCO City of Literature, and learn where to lunch like J.K. Rowling.