on Boxing Day, four things make an entry

[truepenny]

1. the wolf book

Lovely review of A Companion to Wolves here; we also make OF Blog of the Fallen's auxilliary Best of 2007 list.

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2. BPAL

I got myself a bottle of Titus Andronicus for my birthday, and also, of course, imps.

Thus far, I have tried:

Port-au-Prince: pleasant enough, but meh--I thought I smelled like a cookie.

Fruitcake: mirrorthaw thought I smelled like a cookie. Also, the hangover the next morning was cloying.

Iago: started off great, dark and almost chocolaty, but everything faded except a dusty-sweet note I didn't much care for.

The Unicorn: extremely pleasant, robust, and durable, but omg. FEMME. No, this isn't surprising, given the description: A misty, almost luminous perfume: wispy linden blossoms, white flowers, and a touch of sweet herbs. Honestly, great scent, floral but clean instead of sickly. Just not for me. It caused mirrorthaw severe cognitive dissonance all day long. Seriously. Femme.

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3. UBC

Butler, Anne M. Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery: Prostitutes in the American West 1865-90. Urbana: Illini-University of Illinois Press, 1987.

My opinion of this book hasn't changed. The pictures are fantastic, the primary source material is fascinating . . . the book itself is deeply flawed and frustrating.

I'm now reading Alexa Albert's Brothel (2001), which makes an interesting pairing.

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4. Corambis progress, and there even is some!

I went through the first draft and extracted about half of it, non-consecutively, into a salvage file. Most of the rest of it I was positively grateful to lose. I have 60 connected pages of the second draft, and feel much more confident that I might be doing something right this time.

Comments

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

Re #3: _Red Lights on the Prairies_ by James H. Gray (MacMillan of Canada, 1971) is a very good popular account of prostitution in the Canadian West (got good reviews from historians when it was released, too). I can attest that it's very readable and interesting, and has some good B&W photos.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Also WRT #3:
Sin in the Second City (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400065305?ie=UTF8&tag=artandlies-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1400065305), by Karen Abbott, isn't exactly about the west, and is mostly about the Everleigh Club in Chicago, which is definitely a non-standard item among whorehouses, but it might be worth a look. I expect it's as annoying, one way and another, as most of these books are, but it would be another data point, so to speak.

[quietselkie.livejournal.com]

I found this book useful and interesting and not TOO badly written, though it needed a red pen taken to it:
Soiled Doves: Prostitution in the Early West (http://www.amazon.com/Soiled-Doves-Prostitution-Early-Women/dp/096190884X/). It included a lot of photographs and newspaper excerpts.

[cassandraterra.livejournal.com]

I'd love to hear what you have to say about Alexa's journey though legal prostitution. I loved the book. I'm not interested in reading Butler, I think I may have read some of her work as the name sounds familiar.

[cassandraterra.livejournal.com]

I AM! interested. I need more sleep. And not being sick. Whoa.