Witches, it was believed, went unbelted.

[kleenexwoman]

Lookin' up Russian folklore and fairy tales, particularly death folklore. I love Baba Yaga stories, but I realized I haven't read that many, and I conflate Baba Yaga with the fairytale function of witches in general, which naturally has been highly informed by Grimm's fairytales. Russian folklore is amazing. I wish I still had Gail around so I could ask her stuff.

This is proving to be very useful.

Comments

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

I always admired my great-grandfather Waldman (the first Joe Waldman). From what I'm told he could speak five or six languages fluently (the result, no doubt, of growing up in Vienna). English, German, Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, Russian, and maybe some other local Slavic tongue.

What was your high-school language? I took Latin and while it's come in useful when picking apart the English language, I really wish I'd taken Spanish. It probably should be a requirement now, same as math and science. Every kid should take a few years of it.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Spanish; I took four years of it and promptly forgot everything. Took it instead of French because I wanted to live in California when I grew up. drworm took Latin too, and I really, really wish I had.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Well, to live in America in our lifespans, it's practically essential. Even if you never master it, it's good to be able to fake it.

French is worthless as far as I can see unless your main goal is to take the class trip to France to get drunk and laid. (I went to Italy with Latin club one summer and most of the kids on the trip went for those two purposes, and stupid nerdy me, all I did was take photos and actually pay attention to the tour guides. Never so much as had a glass of wine because I was so paranoid and asocial.)

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

I never got to go on a class trip to anywhere except for Canada. Which was nice, but no Sistine Chapel.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Hee hee hee. I almost got kicked out of the Sistine Chapel. They told us "no flash photography", so naturally I ignored them and started popping away, and this huge security goon came up to me and started shoving me toward the door, growling something menacing in Italian. I panicked, but then did something brilliant: I played both stupid and American. "What? No flash? I didn't know. Honestly I didn't. Sorry. Hey, nice tie." And for some reason he let me go.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

I probably wouldn't have gone except that it was ungodly cheap. My Latin teacher had been doing these trips every four years since she'd started teaching there in 1968, and had an excellent fundraising program in place. Since this was her final trip before she retired, she got the school to chip in more than usual, so it was even cheaper, probably only about $900 for the tour (which included hotels) and then whatever it cost for airfare and spending money (which I fucked up on when we took a boat from Italy to Greece -- I changed all my money from lire to whatever the Greek currency was [this was pre-euro], not knowing that the ship was Italian, so I couldn't get anything to eat). Next time we meet up I'll show you the photos. Me looking like a long-haired teenage goon in all the great churches and classical sites of Italy.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Anyway, the Sistine Chapel is overrated. Whenever I look at it the only thing I can think of is the pool scene from Rocky Horror.