intertext

Last night I returned home from a five-day stint in Toronto, specifically at York University, more specifically the Biennial Congress of the IRSCL (International Research Society for Children's Literature), at which I was presenting a paper on intertextuality in Diana Wynne Jones's Hexwood. One of the nice things was that steepholm was there, and I was able to see her presentation on adaptations of The Borrowers and also spend more time just chatting with her than I've had a chance to do before.

She has written very amusingly about a rather disastrous afternoon we spent in downtown Toronto. It was kind of like this:
Me: "I lost my phone this afternoon."
You: "Oh dear, how did that happen?"
Me: "Well, it was a little damp after I fell in a fountain, so I put it down beside me on a bench where I was sitting, forgot it was there when I walked away, and someone stole it."
You: "You fell in a fountain??"
Me: "Yes, that was when steepholm and I were nearly hit by a speeding motorcycle. When I jumped out of the way I slipped and fell in backwards."
It was, in hindsight, rather funny, especially when miraculously no one was hurt. Losing my phone that way is a whole lot more dramatic than dropping it in a toilet, which I've also done.

The conference was great. I met a lot of people, including a lovely young woman studying at Valencia University who is also doing work on intertextuality - we admired each other's work and the possibility of collaborating on an article was discussed, so that was cool. I rubbed shoulders with a lot of very Big Names, all of whom were very nice.

One of the highlights for me, as it was for steepholm, was Robin Bernstein's talk on bedtime books, featuring Goodnight Moon and Go the Fuck to Sleep and brilliantly deconstructing an argument by Jaqueline Rose. One panel on dystopias in YA fiction featured some discussion on heterotopias which looked at them differently than I did (I theorize an intertextually rich text as a kind of heterotopia for the reader), but intersected in interesting ways. Two of Steepholm's Japanese friends spoke very interestingly about the Green Knowe books, which were among my mother's favourites. I am inspired to re-read them. Yesterday I went to a panel that focussed on sexuality in YA novels, which was shocking in the fact that there are - count them - more than 50 recent YA novels depicting date rape, which raised the question of their purpose, their audience and the awful truth that so many teens and young women have experienced this. Also how few books were actually "sex positive" and what that meant.

My trip home was a lot less eventful than steepholm's, but still delayed by more than two hours, which meant that I was up until 4:30 am Toronto time, arriving home at 1:30 am in Victoria. Today I am feeling very tired and have to go out to replace my phone and also get some food in the house.

Sadly, two days before I left, one of my cats, Simon, disappeared, and he still has not come home. This is very worrying and upsetting, although I'm doing my best to hope that he may yet return. He's not normally a wanderer, though, and the longer he's gone the harder it is to keep the faith. My other cat, Tabitha, was left at home alone while I was away, and I think she missed both Simon and Baggins (who went into kennels). Certainly she greeted me ecstatically when I came home last night, which lessened the feeling of emptiness without either Baggins or Simon. Keep your fingers crossed for Simon.

The further adventures of Simon.

He is settling in very well. He likes me a lot, and he tolerates Robinson, and he adores Tabitha. He says that when he grown up he wants to have green eyes and stripes, just like hers. Tabitha is not so sure about him, even though she has allowed him to touch noses. Mostly she thumps him when he gets too close (but with claws sheathed). Her nose is a bit out-of-joint, especially as he has a habit of rushing in just when she wants to come on my lap for a cuddle, and he's figured out how to jump up to her feeding bowl. Tabitha and I have a long-time ritual that she comes on my bed after she's had her breakfast and while I'm reading LJ and checking my email. It's hard to be peaceful when there's a kitten mewing piteously and waving his paw under the door, but it's either that or Simon zooms in and jumps on my chest purring madly and Tabitha goes off in a huff. On Sunday morning, though, I had one of them on each side of me, which was lovely.

( Extreme cuteness under the cut )