A tribute to my mom (for no particular reason)

[ellen_datlow]

My mother is alive and well at 80 my parents and sometimes annoys the hell out of me-- although I've learned to ignore the more hurtful things she says. Despite this, I know she loves me and I'd like to take this opportunity to say why. This came up in a discussion I had yesterday with a friend, prompting me to call and thank my mom when I got home. She emailed me this morning to thank ME and then (typically) made a crack that I'm sure she did not think was nasty).

When I was a little girl my mom--who can barely carry a tune-- used to sing to me a LOT and I loved it. Specifically I remember some weird song with the chorus "The shrimp boats are coming, they're coming tonight". Anyone have any idea where it's from? My mother doesn't remember.

She also instilled in me a love for the old musicals, particularly The Pajama Game which I still adore despite its somewhat dated view of male-female relationships. The music is incredible, and I remember jumping on the couch in the Bronx singing "There Once Was a Man" and "This is my Once a Year a Day" and all the other songs. I loved and still love the movie with Doris Day and John Raitt (Bonnie's dad). Almost fifty years later I went to see the Encores! production and when I got out I ran around Times Square singing at the top of my lungs with my friends. I also saw the recent production with Harry Connick Jr. and Kelly O'Hara.

During that same period of my life my parents bought me a miniature piano (I mean really small, about 10 keys) and my mom wrote up the notes as numbers for me so I could play.

And the thing that really impressed my friend is that although my sister and I were too young to watch the original Twilight Zone tv series because it was on too late -our mom would in great detail tell us the entire story from the night before. It wasn't until at least thirty years later that I actually saw the famous Agnes Moorehead show where she's trying to rid her house of pesky little creatures that turn out to be astronauts from Earth on a planet where she's a giant. My mom did this every week.
She wouldn't let me watch horror movies in the theater (she thought they were too scary) but I watched Outer Limits, Thriller, One Step Beyond, and every other "weird" show religiously.

So anyone feel like giving a shout out about their own moms and the special things they've done?

Comments

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to make a big deal of it--it sounds as if your mother had her hands full. Yeah.

I moved from children's literature like Eleanor Cameron's Mushroom Planet books (US stuff)and Nancy Drew straight to adult. I devoured Bullfinch's Mythology and fairy tales, which is probably why I enjoyed co-editing some adult fairy tale anthos. I read the cereal box at breakfast. There was no YA category then. by the time I was in my teens I was reading "adult lit" that I likely shouldn't have been reading: The Group by Mary McCarthy, Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. along with Ellison and Bradbury and Poe and Hawthorne. I'm sure I would have come to all this on my own, but it was lovely to sit out under the trees (this is in the Bronx in the 50s) with my mom reading to me.

[benpeek.livejournal.com]

nah, it's not a big deal. there was just a reason for it. i hassle mum about it every now and then, just for the laugh.

the first kind of books i ever read were the trashy fantasy books such as the weis and hickman dragonlance stuff. i suppose they're nothing but a form of YA, but we (my friends as well) got into them through dungeon crawler video games. didn't take too long to end up reading chandler, burgess, bukowski, and the like on my part, but all that early stuff was me mates. mum was always good about giving me money to buy books though, which was money we couldn't really afford, and if she hadn't, i dunno what would have happened. libraries were always shit round my neighbourhood.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I read Chandler, Hammett, James Cain, Bukowski, Henry Miller, de Sade (the latter two in college)--I can't actually remember when I got into the noir stuff, but I read everything I could get my hands on.

The only Burgess I remember read is Clockwork Orange--got into Hesse in late HS/early college, and Fowles. I loved early Fowles. In junior high (middle school, I think it's called now) during study hall I read best of the year books on plays. Read Inge, Synge, Arthur Miller, and wahooo Tennessee Williams, whose work I adored (and still do).

I had a library card from a very young age and used it a LOT. We had very good libraries in the Bronx, and then later in Yonkers. I only started buying books when I had my own money working after college--I went to a bookstore every Saturday and bought huge, expensive art books on Bosch, Escher, and Dali. I was very much into surrealism and other weird art at the time.

[benpeek.livejournal.com]

yeah, i like tennessee williams. he's not so big over here, but i found him through the film adaption of A STREET CAR NAMED DESIRE. i always thought that death of the husband sounded weak--who knew they'd strip any reference to gays out, while letting marlon brando rape women. arthur miller they actually teach in school here, which is maybe why i never dug it hugely.

i really dig burgess, though it took me a second read of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE when i was in univeristy to get it. by then i was getting into a lot of language technique work. the broken english stuff by pio, kerouac's spoken word style (though i never liked ON THE ROAD), burroughs' cut up novels, and so forth.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I've seen a lot of Williams movie adaptations and several live performances. I've seen Jessica Lange in Streetcar and thought she was awful (and I usually like her) --she played Blanche as too nutty from the start. But strangely I don't recall Alec Baldwin in it--just looked it up.

I could never get into cut up novels. I tried, I really tried :-)

[benpeek.livejournal.com]

i love those cut up novels. the kind of phrases and word associations he got out in them were awesome. but they're hard going, for sure. when i do my experimental fiction workshop i teach a bit out of NOVA EXPRESS, and all the kids think it's deranged.

i think streetcar is the only adaption of williams i've ever seen, but i like reading his plays. usually reading plays aren't my thing--i prefer adaptions. but with williams, i'm there.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I saw The Glass Menagerie" with Lange in 2005 and I liked her in it but she can bad reviews. Christian Slater was the brother and while he was ok, I wasn't wild about him in it. I also saw Night of the Iguana live but I'm not sure which production. His very late plays just rehashed old material and not very well.

[benpeek.livejournal.com]

i'll have to keep reading for them. i bought one of the american library editions of his work recently with the intent of ready the entire body, so i'll see, i guess :)

(christian slater is never anything to be wild about.)

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

(too true)!

[benpeek.livejournal.com]

those art books are hugely expensive, btw. i just read them in the stores :)

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I can't afford them now! I was young and flush and living with my parents for six months before going out into the world, aka NYC.

[benpeek.livejournal.com]

well, there's the internet now ;)

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

But that's not like flipping through the pages :-)and OWNING it.

[benpeek.livejournal.com]

heh. well, we could always just by the paintings too ;)

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

If only...
I'm trundling off to bed now...till tomorrow!