Snippets

Hey, I just started doing some monologue-ish stuff. I'm not that attached to it, but I figure ya gotta start somewhere:

Baba Yaga: I do not like to air my dirty laundry.

I would have made a good aristocrat. Perhaps I did.

Dutchess of Deliverance? (chuckles) Maybe.

No, I do not like my business known by those who do not need it. Which is everyone.
And I do not care for gossip, though my gate chatters away like an uncouth laundress and my post and pans are among the nosiest of people. Or were.

Your brother, he would have made a good frying pan.

But he also would have made a good knish.

(girl starts to cry)

It woul dnot have happened if your whore of a mother had seen that he was not ready and put him back in to finish cooking! An impolite, disgusting child! When i find him again I will rebake him myself!



------

Baba Yaga:

Is that so? Well, tell me then child, what is the difference between lying and pretending? One is meant to deceive and one is not?

One is spoken, one lies un-uttered?

One is a game? Both are a game!

Is one true?

How do you tell the difference?
No! It's all true, it's all pretend, now stop your lying or i'll give your tongue to my cats.

This is mine

So I emailed this, but just to have everything in one place I'll put 'er here.

Scene: Two young children, a young boy and girl run to Baba Yaga, who is tending a garden outside of the chicken house. She treats them warmly, like grandchildren, and ushers them into the house. After giving them some treats and reading them a story, she tells them it is time for bed, wherupon the children change into nightgowns and walk towards a large over. Baba Yaga opens the door for them, tucks them in, and kisses them goodnight before closing the oven door.

Scene(s): A young girl and boy venture to Baba Yaga’s house in search of fire a la Vassilissa, but the boy runs away in fear. The girl approaches the house as BY arrives. She is assigned tasks and carries them out over a great length of time until she needs no further instruction. Seamlessly, she herself becomes Baba Yaga in both duty and general appearance.

Scene(s) Continued from above. A dashing young prince comes to save his childhood sweetheart. He confronts BY (he does not recognize his sweetheart hunched over, unkept, in layers of dirty clothing) and tries to demand of her information about the girl. BY, in due form, offers that if the prince can protect her garden from the ravenous crows which eat its fruits, she will tell him where to find the girl. BY gives him three hours to complete this task, and rides away on her mortarmobile. The prince undertakes the building of a large scarecrow. As he is working he meets the three riders, and convinces each to help him with his labor (their personalities are so different that this is no easy task). When he is done he finds a shady tree to lie under and sleeps deeply. As he sleeps, BY returns and is so moved by the scarecrow’s beauty that she falls deeply in love. She approaches the scarecrow, and as she does so comes out of her hunched posture to resemble more closely her true young-maiden self. She kisses the scarecrow on the lips, giving it life. The prince wakes up to see his young sweetheart, now unmistakably beautiful, but realizes what has conspired. He charges forward and destroys the scarecrow, tearing it apart. BY/Vasilissa, in a most unmitigable rage, summons the spirits of her chicken house and levels a curse on the prince. It is uncertain whether or not he is dead, but he has vanished from the scene. Vassilissa is no longer a maiden in appearance, but instead much more feeble and witchly than before.

The Hedgehog and the House

This is kind of rough, but I think you will all get the idea:

There is a small hedgehog. He won’t actually be a hedgehog, he’ll probably be a ball covered in fur or a person or a puppet (probably a ball would make more sense), but for now we’ll just say hedgehog. There is an ensemble of “figures” which work together to form parts of the house, and they are disguised in such a way that is unclear the line between the figures and the actual house structure.

The stage is filled with a large structure of house propped up on chicken legs. There are places of the structure which appear fully formed and look like a full cottage wall, and others which look stripped down and bare…you can only see the interweaving wood pieces which form the basis of the house.

A hedgehog rolls onstage, and rolls directly into one of the chicken legs. It now becomes clear that the legs of the house can move (they are operated in some way by the “figures”), and the hedgehog is kicked sideways into another leg. The legs of the house play soccer with the hedgehog, bouncing him back and forth between them in a manner which seems to mimic a dance. Suddenly one of the legs kicks the hedgehog up towards one of the walls from the house, and hands reach out from inside the walls to grab it. The hedgehog continues to get tossed around between the walls and legs of the house for a few more beats until a Baba Yaga enters from above, swooping down and snatching the hedgehog from the house, and throws it into the stove.

rymes and conversations

1. creepy little poems
1a. Rosie went into the wood
Hair was hidden with a hood
Baba Yaga saw her there
Ate her up with out a care
1b. Thomas fell into the well
Down to where the monsters dwell
Baba Yaga fished him up
Then cooked him in a yellow cup
1c. Annie got a little lost
Tripped across a patch of moss
Baba Yaga snatched her quick
And ate her brains up with a lick
1d. Johnny let his light burn out
Then disappeared with out a shout
Baba Yaga gave him light
With her oven burning bright

2. I wrote a dialog of three b.y. daughters talking about the little boy they are standing around and have orders from momma to cook just before he goes all crazy on their asses and bakes them instead but it would be really long to post here and I cant figure out the jump HTML so I'll email it

June 1st Assignment

I'm posting early, because my access to the internet is only so so.

1.           

            Vasilisa stands on a very worn wood floor, calmly sweeping up little heads into a pile. They are mostly about the size of apples, and rustle against each other like paper or leaves. They start to cry and she tries to leave them but they are invisibly tied to her ankles, and so they follow her. They cry louder and she tries to kick them away then she starts to kick them violently. There is a terrible moment and Vassilisa wakes up in her bed.

            At the moment the light comes up on her there we should immediately be focused on her hands clutching her quilt, clenched tightly over it. A real voice calls for her and though decidedly different, there is something of the crying heads in it. She stands, taking a piece of the quilt (which seemed to be attached to the whole when it lay against it) and wraps it around her shoulders like shawl. Vasilisa goes to her mother.

 

2.

The good news is

In your dream there was no air      crack            and so it implodes blown out by  a thin reed

Lurches you back into that air you know   you will find it between the sheets

in the rag rug rag

in the bread.

In the breath it will take to answer your mother’s call you will find it there too.

The smoke and dust are rotting in the air. Unlatching the door will not clear it out the two fronts will meet

and they will rage.

You’ve never tried but you’re sure. They taught you this in science class.

Better not to stir it up at all.

"Once there was..."

I just thought of another interesting way to think about "Once there was and once there was not."

The setting of one of Brecht's plays is, in his own words, "Chicago which is not Chicago." Never having been to the city himself, he has set his play in the Chicago in his imagination. He wants anyone putting up his play to have that in the forefront of their minds (how Brechtian).

Anyway, so I guess what this brings to mind for me is the question What do we know about Russia, these traditions, this folklore, and how much attention do we want to draw to it's fabrication? Hmmm...

This quote was in the back of one of the copies of Vasilissa the Beautiful I was reading:

"I particularly loved this story because it is a tale peopled by women. From Vasilissa's mother and her deathbed blessing, to the wicked stepmother, to the wily old witch, Baba Yaga, to Vasilissa's adopted mother, even to the little doll--it is women who challenge Vasilissa to grow, who sustain her in her troubles, and who rejoice iwth her in her final triumph."

That was a quote by the author, and then there was another really intersting comment by the illustrator. The illustrator chose to put Vasilissa in a kitchka, which is a cap with horns, which were extremely disliked in Russia after it adopted Christianity because the caps resembled the devil.

Russian Art

I also found this article that has some really nice art in it, and since Rachel was talking about the wood cuts, you guys might be interested in it. If you go to JSTOR and search for this:

• Children's Books by Russian Emigre Artists: 1921-1940

• A. L. de Saint-Rat
• The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Vol. 11, Russian/Soviet Theme Issue 2 (Winter, 1989),... more
• Published by: Florida International University Board of Trustees on behalf of The Wolfsonian-FIU

you will find it. plus, it tickles me to read from the journal of decorative and propaganda arts.

Baba Roga, Yaga Jaga, OTher Stuffs

Hey guys!



Lookit! I figured out how to post on this thing! I did some reading today, and I found one article in particular that I found really helpful. It's the second link, though I bet the first one (an article about Russian fairytales by the same woman) will be also interesting.

THe article has a lot of examinations of her in modern fiction which are really interesting, some good stuff about her multiple personalities, and something REALLY WEIRD about how the whole cannabalism thing may be a reference to this Russian practice called REBAKING where they would put sick children in the oven to make them better.

Is everyone writing something? I haven't started yet, but I'm going to! By June 1st! Woop Woop!


http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/rrrussian.html

http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/rrBabaYaga.html (THIS ONE)

Other exciting things like quotes

Quotes I liked from various versions:

-"I do not like to expose my dirty washing." BY, praising Vasilisa for not asking questions about the things in her house.

-"Once there was and once there was not." I know we talked about this, but just saying.

-"Tishka, Tishka, bread and meat. Come ashore it's time to eat!" I'm always excited by little song stuff like this in folklore.

Lubok Folk Art:

In Katya Arnold's book, she explains that her illustrations are inspired by this kind of hand colored woodcut. I looked it up and it looks pretty cool. Something to think about design-wise. Here's a link: http://tars.rollins.edu/Foreign_Lang/Russian/Lubok/lubok.html

and here are some that I liked from there:

Baba Yaga Versions I've found

I've been having some trouble finding a variety also, but I recommend asking a librarian (children's librarian if possible) because I've found that a lot of them that are less similar have weird un-yaga names. 

Some noteworthy versions the Children's librarian helped me find: 

-The Black Geese by Jessica Souhami

-Baba Yaga and The Wise Doll by Hiawyn Oran (the child is, think, not gender identified, and named "Too Nice" which is interesting to me)

-Baba Yaga by Katya Arnold (This story focuses on a little boy named Tishka, shortened from Tereshichka, who is apparently present in a lot of Russian stories. This one is worth reading especially for the introduction and the illustrations. 

I'm having trouble coming across different Baba Yaga stories...most of the ones I've found are just different versions of Vasalissa the Beautiful, but I know Audrey said that she appears in multiple different stories? Is anyone else running into this problem?

here we go!

so, I didn't locate the book until 5 minutes before I was leaving Hampshire and therefore did not go to duplications and get important sections scanned for everyone.
sorrysorry

so, because the book seems hard to locate, I would say that you guys should try to read as many actual Baba Yaga stories as possible, there are some online, and think about the following when writing:

-The adult/child relationship: how do they see each other? Who has control over the situation? Who thinks they have control?
-Objects and pets in BY's house often do the opposite of what she does, help or hinder the hero.
-The idea that the hut in the forest is a gateway to the underworld, things work backwards (you can carry water in a thing with holes, you can cook in an upside down pot), how you change when you leave
-The history of BY, where did she come from?
-The stove as an focal point in the house and plots of many stories

I'm flying away to a far off land tomorrow and will be m.i.a. for two weeks but keep posting ideas and things you've read about and don't forget our first writings are due on JUNE FIRST!

sick cloak

Slotslot

We've been slotted for the spring studio!
Weeee!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0820467693?tag=thesurlalufairyt&link_code=as3&creativeASIN=0820467693&creative=373489&camp=211189

thats the book I've been reading