Mantitty and Cougars

Today is my birthday!  Since I'll be spending so much time stuffing my face with cake and tequila today (ha, yeah right), I asked King Mho Fho to guest blog for me (he will also be consuming sweets and alcohol, because I do share; but he is much more practiced at doing that and blogging than I am).  Mho is going to try to cheer me up about getting older with a post on mantitty.  Take it away, Mho!

When Heidenkind so graciously asked me, King Mho Fho the much beloved demon sheep mascot of Katiebabs at Babbling About Books, and More and all of blogging land, I said sure! I’m the best type of birthday gift any woman would want. *wiggles cute wooly behind*

You are all in for a treat because I will give you a taste of the day in the life of King Mho Fho and the wacky times I have with Katiebabs.


Setting: Katiebabs' bedroom filled with books to the point if one walks in the room one would smother under the avalanche if they fell.
 

Katiebabs: *Walks in with a handful of books* Hey Mho! You have to see the wonderful haul of books I got- *looks down at Mho in shock* What the heck are you doing? And what are you doing with all my prized books!?

Mho: *Surrounded by books that are thrown all over the floor. Also flexing his hooves and puffs out his chest* I am practicing my man titty romance cover skills.

Katiebabs: *Rolls eyes* What do you mean by man titty skills?

Mho: I have to make sure my chest is muscular and full of man titty goodness! I even took some pictures at Sears that I can send in to show these romance publishers that I am the next big thing. Move over Nathan Kamp! Mho Fho has arrived. Here take a look.





Katiebabs: *Grabs man titty cover shoot pictures and her mouth drops* Oh my god. There are no words to describe what I am seeing.

Mho: *Puffs out his chest even more* Aren’t I the sexiest thing you have ever seen? Since you are a cougar you should appreciate a fine young male like myself.

Katiebabs: *Begins to see red* Cougar? Hello, a cougar is a woman over forty who lusts after men half her age!!

Mho: You aren’t over forty?

Katiebabs: NO MHO!!

Mho: Chill babe. Well, you are a cougar in making then. You lust after Ryan Reynolds.

Katiebabs: Ryan Reynolds is my age.

Mho: How about George Clooney?

Katiebabs: George is older then me!

Mho: *rubs chin* Aha! What is this I keep hearing about you going on and on about the barely legal kid who plays Jacob in Twilight movies?

Katiebabs: *Face becomes red* Well… erm…..

Mho: *waddles over to KB* There, there my sweet KB. It will be our secret. But I have a surprise for you! I heard that the romance pubs are looking for female cover models also. Look what I made for you!



Katiebabs: *smacks head and mumbles* I need a drink…

Mho: Hey KB, where are you going? Why are you drinking straight from a bottle of Grey Goose? It’s not even noon yet! And I haven’t showed you the best cover of all! I’ve decided to change my name to Mho Fabio! *waddles after Katiebabs*

Thanks Mho--I mean, Mho Fhabio!  That actually did cheer me up.  And, um, good luck with that new career. 

Don't worry, Katiebabs, you're not the only one who inappropriately lusts after teen Jacob:



Bad, bad me.

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~Perfect~ Reads

Sometimes when the word perfect is in a book title, it's not being oversold.  For example:



Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles

Alex is teetering on the edge of being in a gang; Brittany is teetering on the edge of becoming a full-fledged Valley Girl (which would be quite an accomplishment, since they both live in a Chicago suburb).  Will these two crazy kids learn to get along?  I just don't know!

Actually, that little blurb doesn't do justice to this great book, which takes ye olde uptown-girl-meets-downtown-guy plot and revamps it with wonderful characters, completely believable setting, and great writing.  One of my favorite books of the year!



Just Perfect by Julie Ortolon

This contemporary romance is aptly named, as the romance is literally just perfect.  Christine, a doctor, goes to Aspen for ski lessons so she can overcome her fear of heights (the ski lift... I can sympathize).  Since she's willing to pay top dollar, she gets Alec, who is actually the head of Ski Patrol (re:  he's a VIP on the slopes).  They rescue a snow boarder, a pretty soon coco isn't the only thing that's hot in the ski lodge! (harrrr harrrrr)

Once again, this is a book with great characters--I absolutely LOVE Christine and how she seems very elegant and contained on the outside, but inside she's tough.  I also loved the emotional development of Alec and Christine through the novel, especially when Christine has to return to Texas at the end of her vacation and both she and Alec try to decide if their relationship is worth making major changes in their lives for.  A great read!



Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James

All right, I haven't read this book yet.  But I read James' first book, Just the Sexiest Man Alive, and really enjoyed it.  So hopefully this one will be just as good, if not better.  Here's the summary from Booklist:

*Starred Review* After eight years of grueling yet friendly competition, both Payton and J. D. anticipate partnership at their prestigious Chicago law firm. But after putting aside their personal animosities and working together to sign an important account, they realize each is vulnerable to, and attracted by, the other. Unfortunately, their boss then announces that only one partner will be named this year from the litigation department, and suddenly the competition is very real—and not at all friendly. In her second novel, following Just the Sexiest Man Alive (2008), James presents a sophisticated contemporary romance set in legal circles, and proves that she is a master at conveying both courtroom and behind-the-scenes maneuvering. As her charmingly arrogant and ambitious characters spar endlessly and entertainingly, they inadvertently reveal their insecurities and personal foibles, while competing for high stakes in both business and love. --Lynne Welch

One Perfect Knight by Judith O'Brien

Like most of O'Brien's books, this one starts to unravel in the latter half; but the first half is so romantic it's difficult to care.  Advertizing exec Julie is a closet romantic.  One day she's helping with a kid's birthday party at a medieval-themed restaurant--the next thing she knows, she's in medieval times and being mistaken for a squire by a handsome knight.

But this isn't just any knight--oh, no, friendlies, this Sir Lancelot.  And y'all know how I love sexy Lancelot.  He takes her back to Camelot and we get to meet Arthur and Gueniviere, as well.  This book completely sucked me into this world and was blissfully romantic.  And seriously--it's Lancelot.  What's not to love?


Have you read any great books with "perfect" in the title?

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The More You Wish You Didn't Know: Ciphers and Codes

In The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, Robert Langdon compares the Masonic Cipher to "the Phaistos Disk, the Dorabella Cipher, the mysterious Voynich Manuscript."  What are these three things?  Obviously, they involve difficult (some say impossible) to decipher codes.

Side B of the Phaistos Disk

The Phaistos Disk is an artifact that was found in a Minoan palace near Heraklion, Crete (Minoans again!).  It contains a series of symbols stamped onto both sides of the clay surface in a spiral pattern.  No one knows what these symbols mean--or if they mean anything at all.  Some people think this disk even represents the first example of movable type, 3000 years before Gutenberg was born.



The Dorabella Cipher was written in 1897 by composer Edward Elgar.  In addition to being a musician, Elgar was also a cryptologist; and this short note to his childhood friend, Dora Penny (whom Elgar called Dorabella), has been completely undecipherable to anyone but the writer and the recipient.  The strange thing is, there is actually a key to this cipher, but using it produces absolute nonesense.  Elgar and Penny were probably communicating in some sort of code known only to them, meaning this note will likely never be deciphered.



The Voynich Manuscript is a manuscript that is mostly famous for being unbreakable by famous WWII cryptographers.  The script looks vaguely Latin, but other things suggest its origin isn't European.  Is it a hoax?  An alchemical manuscript with a clever code?  No one knows.  The website for it from the Yale University Library is kick-ass, though.



Stay tuned for the next TMYWYDK post!

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TSS--In Which I Break All Vows of Abstinence

Another song for you this Sunday:

I know, it has nothing to do with Sunday.  But I don't care; I like it.

Well, I haven't really been reading much this week except for The Lost Symbol.  As of tonight, I'm still working my way through it.  Dan Brown books usually take me a while to finish.  I'm looking forward to starting a romance novel after this!

In other news, Thursday I went to the Friends of the Library book sale!  It was the first time I'd ever been to a library sale.  I got a boatload of books for $7 (all right, I had to pay $10 to join FotL, but that's still a good deal).  Voila--here's all the books I got:



And some of them I even wanted!  Like Monkey and The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie.  I'm pretty sure I read the The Swan Witch at some point in the past, but it's hard to tell.

And then tonight, after drinking margaritas, I went to the bookstore.  I think being in a bookstore after months of abstinence must have gone to my head, because I bought way too many books there:



So shiny and new. *pets*  Basically, I have acquired 35 books in the last week (!).  Uh, yeah, you know that vow I made to reduce my TBR pile?  Pretty much shot to pieces at this point.

Other news:

• I signed up for the 24 Hour Read-a-thon, even though I will be working during it.  But working is such a relative term, isn't it?  I can work and read at the same time, right?
• Today I'm guest posting at Rebecca's blog, Lost In Books!  The topic is dance in Indian art.  Please note:  I am not an expert in Indian art.  If you find any inconsistencies in my post, please let me know.
• This week is my birthday.  I will be a year perilously closer (perilouslier?) to thirty.  I'm thinking about doing a giveaway for it from my newly gained pile o'books.  Can you guess which two books?  Also, King Mho Fho, the mascot of Babbling About Books, And More! will be guest blogging here!

Challenge Update:

• M from Alberti's Window has written a review for Heidenkind's Art History Challenge on Dark Water by Robert Clark, about the 1966 flood in Florence, Italy.  Check it out!

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The More You Wish You Didn't Know: Savonarola Chairs

In The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, the bad guy, Mal'akh, lives in a house with "a Piranesi etching, a Savonarola chair, a silver Bugarini oil lamp."

What the heck is a Savonarola chair???

Savonarola: Crazy priest who lived in 15th-century Florence, known for burning "immoral" books, dresses, and paintings.  That is, at least until the Florentines got tired of him and executed him.

A chair: Something you sit in.

How do these two things go together?  Well, it turns out they actually don't; the Savonarola chair is a fold-up wooden chair that dates back to Roman times and has been popular throughout Europe at various times.  But it was especially popular in Italy during the Renaissance, so it somehow acquired the "Savonarola" moniker.  They're also called Dante chairs or X-chairs.

As for the other items--Piranesi is a 19th-century artist famous for etching imagined prisons, or carceri, scenes; and Bugarini was a famous Italian silver smith who made neo-classical oil lamps, also during the 19th century.  So I guess the point of that sentence is... this guy is moneyed.  And also enjoys all things Italian.



Next time... curious codes!

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The More You Wish You Didn't Know: Ancient Goddess Cults

I saw the cover for Secret Society by Tom Dolby at I Heart Monster. What struck me about it was the similarity between the cover and a famous Minoan painting--not because of its similarity to the painting per se, but more because of the ankh on the back of the girl's neck.



The painting in question is called La Parisienne (so-called because of her striped dress, which was popular in Paris at the time of Knossos'--an ancient Minoan fortress on Crete--initial excavations). You'll notice that the back of her dress has a strange loop and then two scarf-like fringes hanging down. Ancient Aegean women used knotted cloths during menstruation; but Arthur Evans, the lead archaeologist at Knossos, noticed that many images of women there had a looped and knotted scarf on the back of their clothes, as well. Evan speculated this was because the knot had become a symbol of a goddess the women worshipped. He also casually mentioned the knot's similarity to the Egyptian ankh.

The origin of the ankh symbol is unknown, but some speculate that it evolved from the knot of Isis, a symbol of the goddess which was worn on girdles by her priestesses, and which appears in Minoan art as well! Is it possible goddess worship at Knossos developed directly from Egypt, or vice versa? The art certainly seems to suggest it. Various Egyptian objects were found at Knossos, and snake goddess statues from both Knossos and Egypt show a definite similarity (for more about this, I recommend Christopher Whitcombe's excellent article, Women in the Aegean: Snakes, Goddesses, Magic, and Women).

Apparently, there was a connection between the ankh, the symbol of life, and goddess cults--to be more specific, snake goddess cults--in both Egypt and Ancient Crete. Minoan women wore knots on either the back of their necks or on ceremonial girdles to signify their affliation with this cult. Does this have anything to do with the book Secret Society? I have no idea; I haven't read it. But if it does, I will have to give both the author and cover artist huge props for doing their research.



Next up, more fun with art history curiosities from The Lost Symbol!

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The More You Wish You Didn't Know: The Tomb of King Mausolus

Artist's rendering of the Tomb of Mausolus, c. 1500

In The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, the Masons gather in The House of the Temple near the White House, a building that is a replica of "the temple of King Mausolus, the original mausoleum."  Where was this ancient temple, and why was it so important and famous that it eventually became synonymous with tombs?

The tomb of Mausolus was built by his sister/widow, Artemesia, in the fourth century B.C.  It resided in Helicarnassus (modern-day Bodrum, Turkey) and was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World until it was destroyed through a series of earthquakes and ransacking by pirates in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 

Modern-day scale model of the tomb.

Artemesia spared no expense in building the tomb for her brother, hiring four of the best Greek sculptors of the day to design it.  Like all Greek temples, it was surrounded by columns, much like the Parthenon, but set on a raised platform.  Steps guarded by lions led up to the top, where there were statues of Greek gods and goddesses.  The roof had bas-reliefs showing the battle of the Centaurs and Lapiths, and the Greeks battling the Amazons, a favorite subject for Greek temples.  And at the very top of the building, Mausolus and Artemesia occupied a bronze carriage pulled by four gigantic bronze horses.

Now, you may think this your typical Greek building; but in fact, at the time it was actually very, very STRANGE.  First of all, despite the fact that Mausolus' tomb was designed by Greeks and in the style of a Greek temple, Mausolus wasn't Greek.  He was an invader and conquerer of a few Greek Islands, and he admired Greek culture very much, but he wasn't Greek.  From the Greek perspective, he was an uncivilized, uncultured, barely human animal to be feared and loathed--exactly the type of person the Greeks liked to represent as Centaurs and Amazons, which makes the bas-reliefs on Mausoleus' tomb more than a bit ironic.

You can tell Mausoleus and Artemesia weren't Greek because the way they designed the tomb makes little sense, at least from a Greek perspective.  Greeks didn't bury their dead in or around temples; they marked their graves with Greek vases (and in fact, both Mausoleus and Artemesia were cremated, their ashes placed in Greek vases that were set inside this tomb--not that that makes much sense to the Greek mind, either).  The statues in the mausoleum ran the gamut of Greek deities; the Ancient Greeks would only honor one god or goddess within a temple.  And they certainly wouldn't have put a statue of a mortal man or woman (especially not a woman) at the very top of their temple.  Furthermore, the raised platform that lifts the temple and the pointed roof on top is reminiscent of Ancient Near Eastern temples (like the Tower of Babel), not Greek ones.

So what makes the Mausoleum of Mausolus truly significant is not the fact that it's "the first mausoleum," but rather that it's one of the first examples of the dissemination of Greek (and Near Eastern) culture into the rest of Europe.  The look of Greek temples was adopted for another type of building altogether; the stories of the Greeks were exhibited without knowledge (or at the very least, context) of some of their more subtle implications; and the style of Greek art was used to depict non-Greek people.  Mausoleus' tomb is the beginning of the story of how Greek art and architecture survived centuries, including the destruction of its original civilization, to be adopted by cultures as far afield as India and for uses as diverse as banking, religion, scholasticism, and government, just to name a few.

In fact, the House of the Temple, modeled after Mausoleus' hodgepodge of borrowed Greek culture, is probably the most appropriate building I can think of to grace Washington, D.C.--a city built on a hodgepodge of neo-classical ideas if there ever was one.



Check back next time to learn more than you ever wanted to know about ancient goddess cults and their connection to YA book covers!

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