Are you sure her real name isn't Mary Sue?

Spiritually speaking, I think it is.

A warrior princess?
Does she use that round flying killing thing too?

And then there's the attempted Under Armour angle.

Wait, according to the excerpts in the Daily Mail article, a "snorting, slobbering, raging buffalo" charged her, and so she speared it in "the very edge of the buffalo’s right butt cheek"? So, what, it charged, spun around, and she speared it as it was running away? Or is this one of those magic Maasai boomerang spears, that circled around and hit the buffalo from behind?

Also, I'm a little curious why 16 of the first 20 5-star reviews are from people who've never reviewed anything else.

Jeremy, I see what you mean. They also sound very similar to each other, but don't sound like reader reviews.

This is a train wreck of a book.

"a cultural tradition the affluent West finds exotic and intriguing"

Could this, perchance, indicate an answer to the greying of Worldcon?

The aside to highlight how very dutiful she is in obeying society's mandate that she police her chemical potential energy intake so severely that her brain never actually becomes fully functional is really the cherry on top, I gotta say.

I see only 2 possible options here:

1) Every con man and snake-oil seller in America is salivating. Talk about the perfect mark!

2) She is a would-be snake-oil seller whose business plan is "those people will buy anything", and is hoping to laugh all the way to the bank.

I think the first option is several orders of magnitude more likely than the second, but there is always that faint possibility.

Anyone read the article on this in The Guardian? It's disturbingly positive and credulous.

Lift your game, Guardian!

It becomes even more ridiculous when one realizes (I didn't know) that the Maasai are actually a group famed specifically for resisting cultural changes. What colonialism couldn't achieve in a century, one American woman succeeds at in three months. I mean, nothing I read even mentions trying to end gender segregation -- things like lion hunts and cattle raids seem to have led to more concern.

I'm also curious whether she underwent the circumcision which is, based on an hour of research, necessary for becoming a warrior in that culture. (Women are also circumsized -- or should one say mutilated -- as a rite of passage. This led to a rather depressing quarter hour of reading about FGM in Africa generally.) I suspect the reviews would have mentioned it...

Argh. Imagine that I spelled "circumcision" correctly both times. Please.

So which of the Maasai was playing the Dark Lord?

How much you want to bet "moran" isn't really their word for warrior, they just told her it was?

"Later, when her warrior training is complete, she managed to keep down the ‘bold, salty and metallic’ ooze."

The jokes just write themselves.

No, moran is the term for the members of the male age group that is currently doing the things she does. She doesn't seem to have shaved her hair, though. Or, really, done any of the non-photogenic things that are considered absolutely essential to becoming one and then being one.

No, moran is the term for the members of the male age group that is currently doing the things she does.

Dang. Would have been so much funnier if it had meant "idiot."

If she'd wanted to become the world's first female Dominican priest she'd have needed more than three months just to learn Latin.

But this gives me a great idea for how al Qaeda can raise funds: Open the terrorist training camps to rich, bored young Americans. Pay fifty thousand bucks (plus air fare). Get three months doing PT in Afghanistan, sleeping in tents, and shooting AKs, and at the end you get a nice certificate (suitable for framing) indicating that you are now an International Terrorist with the rank of Top Leader. You can go back home and tell everyone how you got the Taliban to accept women. With the deluxe package, for just ten thousand more, a genuine imam will visit and explain the Way of the Prophet to you, and you will actually learn to say a prayer!

Serge@3

use that round flying killing thing

Unlikely. She probably also doesn't have the spunky best friend/traveling companion with subtext becoming almost text.

(Now XENA I could actually see being genuinely accepted as a Maasai warrior in only three months.)

Teresa (op): The Booklist review, which is otherwise depressingly positive

Booklist reviews are always positive, or at worst mixed. They have a deliberate policy not to print negative reviews; if their reviewer hated the book, they'll just skip over it and go on to the next one.

While Mindy Budgor has undoubtedly qualified for a bonus ration of opprobrium with her subscription to Maasai bills of goods, I think that it's worth noting that Globe Pequot are the apex predator in this chain.

Perhaps Budgor would have self-published her short-attention-span memoir if a publisher hadn't decided there was a profit to be made from her unreflective recounting, but we can't know that. As Teresa's final paragraph notes, Budgor either pays the price of ongoing stupidity or the recurring cost of regret, if she becomes more self-aware.

Globe Pequot, meanwhile, can be sneering all the way to the bank.

Jim @17: If she'd wanted to become the world's first female Dominican priest she'd have needed more than three months just to learn Latin.

Surely not! She's American, Latin is obviously the language of Latin America -- it's what Latinos speak -- so how hard can it be? She's got a natural affinity for it!

So why did this nice young lady become a Maasai warrior princess rather than, say, a US Navy SEAL?

Because becoming a US Navy SEAL is genuinely hard to do, and requires a lot of dedication over a long time. Plus, the process isn't mysterious at all. Any recruiter can tell you in detail all the steps.

As to Globe Pequot, the reason any publisher publishes any book is because they think they can make money on it. "Non-fiction" isn't a promise by the publisher that the book is good, useful, or true. It's just a shelving category.

MichaelI @ 19... Speaking of Xena's spunky best friend, remember the episode where she entered a storytelling competition? One of the contestants was a young man going for pulpy tales so they illustrated it with footage from Italian film "Hercules and the Captive Women". When Spunky's turn came, they showed how much more classy her tales were by using clips from Kubrick's "Spartacus".

For all the people applauding this book, do you have ANY appreciation of how destructive and disrespectful the practice of using another people’s culture as a fun-cessory is? “Exotic” people do not exist to help you get over your first world existential crisis.

I would agree, except that I'm about 90% sure they found a way to part her from (some of) her money along the way in exchange for letting her feed her ego, which makes this oddly win-win.

the Maasai are actually a group famed specifically for resisting cultural changes

So it's not exactly a coincidence that they're desperately poor by the standards of almost everyone else in the world, then. As ye scorn sowing as an upstart invention of effete city-dwellers, so shall ye have nothing to reap?

Seems kind of a raw deal to the *individuals* born into that society, though. Probably especially the ones not well equipped for personal violence.

Jim @23 -- you are so right. "Memoir" is also a category, and there is no requirement that any of the contents actually have happened.

Maasai warrior princess...notice that she claims to have been drinking goat's blood. The Maasai drink the blood of their cattle, I believe. Their precious, precious, cattle.

Holy cats. Or buffalo.

The photo of the Warrior Princess among the Maasai women--her beaming away like a special snowflake, and the women around her looking totally unengaged and a little peevish--more or less says it all. While she was all busy being war-like, did she actually manage to "build schools and hospitals," or did she miss that drudgery by playing make believe?

23/26
When sorting books for the library book sale, in Texas, I always wanted to put the politicians' biographies/autobiographies in Fiction. Or possibly in Humor.

Are there any stories (any medium, and true or false) about people joining an interesting culture and ending up taking a usual amount of time to become competent but not extraordinary member of that culture?

Nancy Lebovitz (29): There's Fletcher in The Outskirter's Secret by Rosemary Kirstein.

Out of curiosity and a desire not to be culturally boorish, when did it stop being spelled "Masai"? This is the first time I've encountered the extra "a", but OTOH it's not a subject I read much about either.

Nancy Lebovitz@29: I enjoyed Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis many years ago: a sports journalist spends a year in the world of competitive Scrabble, and gets pretty good though not brilliant. He keeps it admirably free of ironic smirking at the odd people he encounters.

'One Man's Quest To...' appears as a subtitle to far too many books of this sort. Do something 'wacky' for a year and write a book about it. Ho hum. Some of these are good (I enjoyed Robert Twigger's Angry White Pyjamas—Englishman in Japan does intensive aikido) but, umm, it's a crowded field now.

Nancy Lebovitz, #29: G. Willow Wilson's The Butterfly Mosque (2010) is the very interesting memoir of a young American woman who converted to Islam, moved to Egypt, and wound up marrying into a large middle-class, cosmopolitan Egyptian family. She didn't stay -- if I recall correctly, she and her husband now live in the Pacific Northwest -- but the book is (among other things) very much about her desire, while in Egypt, to become a "competent but not extraordinary member of that culture."

(Wilson is also known as a writer of comics and graphic novels, and her first prose novel, Alif the Unseen, is a World Fantasy Award finalist this year.)

If she's Mindy, where is Mork?

Nancy Lebovitz @29:

Are there any stories (any medium, and true or false) about people joining an interesting culture and ending up taking a usual amount of time to become competent but not extraordinary member of that culture?

In the real world, I know that Mormon missionaries sent to preach to the Navajo used to say that they were just getting to the point of being able to speak the language when their two years were up. I expect it would take years longer for them to achieve minimal competence at dryland farming, raising sheep, or making and selling traditional art.

===

Some daft billionaire ought to sponsor scholarships for curious Masai and Amazonians who want to study the rich spiritual traditions of Ozarks auto mechanics, or take part in the initiation rites of Dakota wheat farmers.

Nancy @29: Not to go too far off topic, because this one's entirely fictional, but it's one of the things I appreciated about the overlooked film "The Forbidden Kingdom." The movie never, ever tries to convince you that the hapless white kid will ever be as good a martial artist as Jackie Chan and Jet Li with just a few days training. He goes into "kung fu" training, and *it's really really hard*, and he's not very good at it.

Jim Macdonald #18: Or you could set up visits to a camp in Yemen where an imam will instruct you in Sevener Shi'ism and you get a certificate proclaiming you a genuine Shi'ite Head.

P J Evans #28: Why not Science Fiction?

Lee #31: At least since the 1970s. To be in line with the actual pronunciation of the ethnonym.

38
Fragano, they weren't a good fit with either SF or fantasy. (Also, at that library, all the adult fiction was shelved together - they had genre labels on the individual books, but no separate sections.)

Nancy @29: A fair number of anthropology monographs, I guess. Some of Nigel Barley's writing, particularly his accounts of working in Cameroon, are a more accessible option - some of the attitudes are somewhat wince-making these days, but you get a good sense of just how hard it is to develop even a modicum of competence is language and cultural-specific skills.

also, Fragano, not exactly OT, I was reading about a couple of the ancestors of Sir Hubert Jerningham, the early 20th-century governor of Trinidad and Tobago. His father's father was a descendant of Charles II, and his father's mother was a descendant of a mulatto slave in Jamaica.

Carrie V @ 36... I'm not sure how long it'd take anyone to become anywhere near as good as Jet Li. When he was promoting the latest "Mummy" movie, I saw a photo of him next to Brendan Fraser, who towered over him, but my money would have been on Li. As for "Forbidden Kingdom", I loved him as the Monkey King.

Lee @9:

I see only 2 possible options here:

1) Every con man and snake-oil seller in America is salivating. Talk about the perfect mark!

2) She is a would-be snake-oil seller whose business plan is "those people will buy anything", and is hoping to laugh all the way to the bank.

I sometimes wonder whether 50 or 100 years from now, we'll look as reality-deprived as the Ancien Régime.

Jim @18:

If she'd wanted to become the world's first female Dominican priest she'd have needed more than three months just to learn Latin.

But this gives me a great idea for how al Qaeda can raise funds ...

Then I realized I had just reinvented the MFA program in Publishing or Creative Writing.

Teresa @ 35:

Some daft billionaire ought to sponsor scholarships for curious Masai and Amazonians who want to study the rich spiritual traditions of Ozarks auto mechanics, or take part in the initiation rites of Dakota wheat farmers.

I would welcome that. Instead, the Walton family spends a lot of money on international scholarships to small, very conservative Arkansas colleges. I try to view that in the best possible light. Those fuckers.

&@ 44:

I sometimes wonder whether 50 or 100 years from now, we'll look as reality-deprived as the Ancien Régime.

Years?

Nancy Lebovitz #29:

One I know of is Claude Njiké-Bergeret, a French woman born in Cameroon as daughter of missionaries, educated in France, who then came back to Cameroon in the 1970s to be a teacher, and immersed herself in the traditional way of life of the local people. Most notably, she married a traditional chief who already had 25 or 30 wives and lived as one of them, practicing agriculture and raising children. She had two children with this man, and after his death stayed in Cameroon, where she still lives. Of course, as both a white woman and the wife (then widow) of a prominent man, she enjoyed from the start a celebrity status in her region, and part of her life was and still is mediating between local people and Europeans. She wrote several books in French about her experience, but I don't think they've been translated.

On the (in this case off-) topic of shelving books by perceived better category: I once found a non-fiction book in the science-fiction section of a library, complete with fiction code and a science-fiction sticker. It had been published just after the first World War and was titled _Why Germany Will Do It Again_.

Back to topic: Who is that woman with the book series on how she is initiated into some large number of spiritual traditions? Or has that become a genre at this point?

Nancy Lebovitz #29:
I don't have a copy on hand, but IIRC Kvothe's interactions with the Adem in The Wise Man's Fear come close to this. Learning their martial art does take him less time than normal, but its much less compressed than normal. Furthermore, its repeatedly emphasized that he only reaches the rank of "not so embarrassing we literally have to kill you before you make us look bad", rather than any sort of high honor.

@ Everyone

Has everyone already forgotten "Mutant Message Down Under?" I suspect that Mindy read it some time ago, and understood the One True Lesson of that fabulous tome, which is that White People will buy anything!

Charlie @ 22

You're about 20 years late with that joke, which originated, quite sadly for American prestige, with Dan Quayle sometime between 1988 and 1992. (Even back then the joke wasn't funny, at least if you were American.) By today's standards, and compared to the average Teabagger, Quayle comes off as a very advanced intellect.

Jeremy @5: It's one of those rarely-seen reverse buffalo. Not the most fearsome animals, but their "snorting" and "slobbering" is really gross.

Teresa @ 35: Some daft billionaire ought to sponsor scholarships for curious Masai and Amazonians who want to study the rich spiritual traditions of Ozarks auto mechanics, or take part in the initiation rites of Dakota wheat farmers.

This reminds me of when 'Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom' came out and someone suggested Indian cinema ought to respond with 'India Jones' about an intrepid archaeologist who ventures into darkest America to battle a Presbyterian death cult.

Steve w/b, #32: That sounds like an interesting book indeed. What I'd like to see someone do is a similar immersion experience, but written from the outsider POV, on something like professional football and its fans. Write it straight, but remove the "this is normal" overlay that keeps people from noticing how bizarre it really is.

Teresa, #44: As I see it, your #3 is fungible with my #1. Or, perhaps better phrased, your #3 is the cause, and my #1 is the effect.

Rob @ 52: it wouldn't surprise me if they did. There is at least one Indian cowboy series, much to my amusement. (I can't recall its name, but I do remember that one of the villains is called Rice Plate Reddy. Funny how some things stick.)

Wow, what an utter bonehead and/or scam artist this woman is! Nauseating. I would almost be willing to bet there aren't any interviews with adult Maasai women in that book.

About the five-star reviews: I was remarking to my friend Lenore this morning that I'd be surprised if someone hasn't already implemented software that watches a product on Amazon, and every time a 3-or-fewer-star review is posted, autogenerates two five-star reviews to compensate.

Rob 52: Shortly after those movies came out I was participating in the lettercol of a Christian fanzine called Radio Free Thulcandra, and they were whining about the bad theology in the third movie. I explained that the theology of the second movie wasn't exactly accurate either (for a parallel, imagine Saint Monica cutting her son's fingers off one by one until he agrees to convert). They weren't at all interested; they were (mostly) of the type of Christian who thinks insulting, degrading, and lying about other people's religion is perfectly all right because who cares, right? Those people are wrong anyway.

Fortunately IJ&tToD is also a pretty bad movie, so it doesn't get shown much except in marathons.

I imagine theologically-savvy horror fans have to watch through their fingers as their palms are permanently affixed to their faces. Usually it's the Revelation of Saint John being abused there.

Xopher, I think companies like http://www.viralcomment.com/ probably have this covered -- though oddly enough, the text on the front page of that site comes through in WingDings for me, so maybe it's fake. There are other such companies out there, though, and a search for "reputation management" will find you way too many.

Let's see if the gnomes accept this posting :-)

"Steve w/b, #32: That sounds like an interesting book indeed. What I'd like to see someone do is a similar immersion experience, but written from the outsider POV, on something like professional football and its fans."

I'm suddenly reminded here of George Plimpton's _Paper Lion_. Not quite what you're referring to, but Plimpton was a writer (with no special athletic experience or expertise) who did a couple of tryout and exhibition stints with a couple of NFL teams. He even got a memento engraved "To the best rookie football player in Detroit Lions history," according to a Sports Illustrated article.

Of course, in this case it was clear to everyone involved that the engraving was tongue-in-cheek. In the excerpt of his I read from _Paper Lion_ (or perhaps one of his later football works) one of the main themes was that it was so much harder than an average person might think to even hold it together playing at the NFL level, much less play well. No heat-and-eat Maasai experience here, or claims of one. He did get to have some immersive experiences *with* NFL players, but it was quickly manifestly clear to all involved that he couldn't be one himself.

I wonder if they'll waive the height limit for me?

P J Evans #40/42: A good number of political memoirs seem to me to be bad fantasies.

One result of the long history of colonialism was the presence of non-white ancestry in the upper classes of the colonial powers. The best-known case is that of Lord Liverpool, prime minister of the United Kingdom in the 19th century, who was of Indian descent.

Surely I can't be the only one reminded of Mutant Message Down Under (http://www.creativespirits.info/resources/books/marlo-morgan-mutant-message-down-under-timeline), another what-these-people-need-is-a-honky tale of cultural appropriation.

presumably for a very long link. sending cabbage and bacon casserole.

If I could be bothered to read the thing, I'd Google the names of any Maasai given in the book (did she even bother?) and find out if they blogged about it. Might be interesting reading.

@Rob Hansen no. 52: I thought I had read somewhere that the cult in IJTD was deliberately designed to make Hindu viewers go, "Man, these people are Jim Jones crazy," starting with the high priest in a cow skull mask--rather than just stealing Hindu religious symbols to decorate the film's Big Bad. But Hindu I am not. Any Hindus reading out there have a perspective on this film?

Or did I just have a "ga-doy" moment regarding Xopher's post?

Fragano, if you want the details, they're here. It's actually pretty interesting.

Nancy Lebovitz @29, what about Doris Egan's Ivory books? As I recall, when the series opens, the main character is surviving, but just barely, in the culture.

John Mark Ockerbloom @ 57: I, too, thought of Plimpton while reading this, as an example of how to do this sort of thing (for a very expansive definition of "this sort of thing") the right way.

Jenny 64: I have no idea what a "ga-doy" moment might be. But I currently have a massive headache, so I'm probably at IQ minuses.

Sebastian @ 60

Alex sighs, thinking of comment # 50. What a waste it was to post my thoughts. I guess I'll just go stab a water buffalo or something...

An aversion to "thick liquid substances"? Oh my, someone stop me before I revert all the way back through adolescence to preschool. I realize that Freudian psychological theories have been out of fashion for 50 years or more, but still, she sounds like a candidate for analysis.

Lee @ 53: In Among the Thugs, Bill Buford immerses himself in British football (soccer) fans to study the crowd violence. It's a very good book.

Nancy Lebovitz @29: There's alwaysthe Irish Queen of Balochistan. More than merely competent, however. (From one of my favorite Guilty Pleasure sites.)

During Colonial times, it wasn't that uncommon for folks to run away to join the Indians. Seems that the Indians didn't have to work as hard and were a lot more tolerant than the Colonials ...

Carrie V @ 31: Much as I enjoyed the film as is (and likewise that they didn't make him suddenly uber competent) I still wished the white main character in that movie were instead a modern day Asian-American divorced from his Chinese heritage and learning that maybe bits of it ARE awesome, instead of a white kid kung fu film enthusiast. I think it would have made a better movie without necessarily adding one whit more film time -- and since Jet Li and Jackie Chan were the one on the posters AND the big name draws, any excuse that they needed a white dude to appeal to audiences grows suspiciously thin.

Alex R @50, that’s not something Dan Quayle himself actually ever said. It was a joke told about Quayle by a Republican Congresswoman joking with other Republicans. Even his fellow party-members thought he was a dope.

Avram, #74: Holy shit, the list of verified Quayle idiocies on that site! Yeah, sometimes you can tell what he meant to say and how it came out mangled -- but many of them are pretty clear indicators of, if not outright ignorance, a complete lack of awareness of the world around him. I don't think it was the media alone that produced the public perception of Quayle as "dumb as a box of rocks"; he gave them plenty of help.

Nancy Lebovitz @29
It's by a person of privilege, but An Arabian Princess Between Two Worlds has the letters home from Europe of Sayyida Salme/Emily Ruete.

I find myself thinking of Beryl Markham's _West with the Night_ which I read a great deal of time ago, and many of the details are fuzzy. She grew up in Africa in the ninteen-teens, if I recall correctly. She was a very early bush pilot, particularly notable for having been both a pilot and female in a world where neither was commonplace. When talking about her childhood. she talks about having hunted with the local tribesman. They don't seem to have made a particularly big deal out of the fact that she was female. I assume that, being white and not of the tribe, she was already so far out of their tradition that her gender was not so important.

It is a really lovely book. It's a real person, who did odd and interesting things, talking about her life, often with surprising amounts of poetry. It is lacking in many of our modern sensibilities about race, class, gender, conservation, and colonialism. For all of that, it is an incredibly human story. She is a woman of her time and place, but she is not blind, stupid, or cruel. She lived a real life in a real place, something Mindy Budgor seems not to have done, yet.

A quick bit of googling indicates that Markham grew up in Kenya, and that amongst the many tribes in Kenya are the Maasai. I do not remember from the book if the tribe she hunted with was Maasai. Actually, what I do remember was the name of her dog, which was Buller, and who had a bad tendency to kill cats. Odd, the details that stick with one. Evidently, there is a character in "Out of Africa" based on Markham, as well.

Who took the photos?

Nancy #29.

Arguably, that's what the typical Bildungsroman is about.

"And if I had kids who were going hungry, and I belonged to a cultural tradition the affluent West finds exotic and intriguing, I’d be cooking up my own version of heat-and-serve woo-woo prepackaged spiritual tourism right now."

I'm not even gonna' wait. For just 199.99 bucks I will make a true Slavic voi, ready to fight the Rus, Avar and Frank! For only 99.99 more, I will also induct you into the mysteries of Svetovid, Peryn and Triglav, making you the heritor of ancient zhertsas. Order both NOW to receive a free gift of your choice: a ready to khram set to make your own backyard temple or a sacred grove sapling to compliment your garden. Slawa!

P J Evans #65: They are indeed interesting. The name Augier makes me wonder if the historian Sir Roy Augier (Fitzroy Richard Augier) a mixed race St Lucian is descended from that family as well. As Roy had the misfortune to teach me, and I might see him next month, I'll try to remember to ask him.

Marek #81: You left out the govno.

Hob, #51: Mayhap a bonnacon?

Lee, #53: There's Hunter S. Thompson's Hell's Angels...

cd @ 84: Ha! That's a great example! So is Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker.

I read the book and was left believing the author to be a whiney, spoiled, angry, drama queen, who is eager to make some money. My first question is why isn't Becca in any photographs? I tried to find evidence of Rebecca "Becca" Bergman on the internet. Nothing. I would think she would want to be interviewed, or recognized on some level. How did their phones stay charged for so long? Didn't Mindy's overbearing parents wonder why she only called, twice? She never mentions insects, lice, or creepy crawlers? The ski lessons (the Masai hadn't figured out how to go down muddy hills?) , the EMT training (where was her Under Armor for blister prevention)? Tampons?! There are so many contradictions all through the book. A disappointing read mostly because I kept wondering if the author was telling the truth. It seems more believable that she wrote the book with a movie deal in mind. A comedy.

Two interesting comments by Maasai women in response to Princess Warrior.

http://africasacountry.com/two-responses-to-mindy-budgor-maasai-warrior-princess/

SMBSLT @ 86: And another one linked from that page:
The #Bullshit Files: Mindy Budgor, 'the first female Maasai warrior'.

Lydy Nickerson @ 78

Beryl Markham writes about hunting with the Naandi tribe. Per a search the name of the tribe is "Nandi," though for some reason my brain is insisting that she spelled it "Naandi."

Of course, Markham didn't claim to be an official warrior, and she certainly didn't "save" the Nandi women from anything. Unlike Mindy, Markham was the Real Thing, tougher than a box of nails and smart as hell.

On the other hand, her book doesn't talk about her three marriages, her romance with the Duke of Gloucester, or her son, who she may have more-or-less abandoned, (or at least sent off to live with her family in Europe, and visited infrequently.) Her book may have been ghost-written (or very heavily edited) but regardless, it is a wonderful thing to read. All this is not meant to be unkind; Markham had the vices of her virtues.

If you haven't read the book, it's a wonderful read and well worth the couple bucks it would take to order a used copy.

Jenny Islander @ #63: I thought I had read somewhere that the cult in IJTD was deliberately designed to make Hindu viewers go, "Man, these people are Jim Jones crazy

That aspect of it I don't know about, but for what it's worth I do remember an interview with somebody involved with the also-infamous banquet scene from the same movie ("Chilled monkey brains!") who said that the intent there was that the Indian host of the banquet was surreptitiously mocking all his foreign guests by serving them weird stuff that he knew they'd accept as What Indians Eat because none of them had bothered to actually learn anything about his culture.

(Sort of like the sheep's-eyeball scene in Jingo, only without a Vimes to point out what was going on. Which unfortunately meant that it wasn't clear to the audience what was going on either.)

P.S. That was in Empire magazine's Indiana Jones retrospective.

...which I've just discovered is online. The Temple of Doom interviews are here, including the bit I remembered about the banquet scene.

(Nothing helpful to Jenny Islander's question, though, at least on a quick skim.)

with a postscript including source information for the preceding comment (and, alas, a blog-style URL).

I'ma keep this uninteresting, so you can replace it with the postscript and not interrupt the flow.

She was a very early bush pilot, particularly notable for having been both a pilot and female in a world where neither was commonplace.

Anyone else having difficulty parsing this sentence and understanding how it can make sense anywhere outside of Athos (either the mountain or the planet)?

Jenny, #63: Well, I'm not Hindu either, but one thing I do know about Hinduism is that they don't eat beef because cattle are sacred. So a Hindu priest wearing a cow skull would definitely put me into WTF territory right there.

chris @ 91: I suspect the world referred to is that of Europeans in Africa.

Nancy Lebovitz #29: Kelandry, in Tamora Pierce's "Protector of the Small: First Test", has trained in unarmed combat and with a bladed staff in another culture. On on a number of occasions she notes how hard she trained to become competent, also that in the culture where she trained, her skill level was not at all exceptional.

Steve 72: Indeed, I understand that everyone who has looked into it knows that that's what actually happened to that "lost colony," but the woo-woo ooga-booga types keep the silly story of it's being a deep mystery going.

Nancy Lebovitz @ 29:
You might enjoy Iron and Silk, the autobiography of an American expat in China who worked very hard for years to become a minimally competent wu-shu (Chinese martial arts) practitioner. It's a good book in great part because he doesn't exaggerate his own abilities at all, as compared to his teachers or their other students. It was also made into a surprisingly decent movie.

Alex R. @69: There now, Alex, it happens to us all. I've also done it to others, which is downright embarrassing.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden @ 97

I was feeling particularly cruddy last night - not the fault of anyone here...

The trick I use to make sure that doesn't happen if I'm in a hurry and can't read all the posts is to open the "Edit" menu and search for likely words and phrases, such as (in this particular case) "Mutant Message."

GQ published an account of an American who went to China to immerse himself in the culture and improve his table tennis skills. He didn't even make it to 'minimally competent.'

Paddled.

@Chris no. 93: I think it refers to the nature of society at her social stratum during that period: parts of the culture were for men and parts were for women,* so it was possible to walk into some place that we consider gender neutral--a university classroom, for example--and see only one gender. Flying was a man's world. Also there weren't many bush pilots.

*Outliers, unless they restricted their gender transgressions to a small social circle of people who liked them, were celebrities, eccentrics, or deviants.

Nancy @29: There's always Cherryh...

You know, it seems to me that there's a template for a novel here. Not my novel, but, y'know, a kind of 1970s interstellar comedy of social errors ...

The Galactic Federation makes contact. As part of their getting-to-know-you arrangement for new barbarian planets, they hand out about 500 tickets so that random representative humans can go forth and explore the galaxy, on the GF's tab, then recount their experiences when they get home after a year or so.

$PROTAG does the Mindy Budgor thing, only with aliens, and doesn't understand that she's barbarian (everyone else is too polite to point and mock). Hilarity ensues, with planetary-destiny-shaping consequences.

Anybody feel like writing it? (I can't: I owe David Hartwell a trilogy.)

Charlie Stross @104, I think I would find that version depressing. I want to read the version where doesn't-recognize-she's-a-barbarian is $ANTAG. $PROTAG moves in her shadow, struggles with trying to understand the alien culture and thinks zie is failing compared to $ANTAG's (self-reported) triumphs - but $PROTAG is the one who gains the aliens' respect in the end.

One more of the bad examples: Medicine Woman-- it was a triumph of memory to track it down. Amazon doesn't let you search on "light yellow cover". I'm reasonably sure that's the edition I remember, but amazon isn't good about editions anyway.

Becca is Alexandra Stillman. Maybe the name was changed to protect the innocent. http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/07/09/some_people_go.html

OtterB @ 105, I think I read that sort of story a year or two back; I want to say it was by Connie Willis but, alas, my memory is failing me. I do remember cringing at the Telegenic Idiot Hero Strutting for His Fans (or Her Fans, but I think it was a He) while the people around him quietly did the work.

Say what you want, she's smokin' hot.

@ Chris #93: Quoting me: She was a very early bush pilot, particularly notable for having been both a pilot and female in a world where neither was commonplace.

You asked: "Anyone else having difficulty parsing this sentence and understanding how it can make sense anywhere outside of Athos (either the mountain or the planet)?"

Um, yeah, that sentence needs a serious overhaul. Sorry. What I meant was that at the time she was a bush pilot, there weren't many pilots, period, and very, very few of those were women. Moreover, I think I was also thinking that at the time in which she was doing all this, women did not have active, public lives in the same way that men did. They were more typically hidden behind husband and family, or otherwise attached to some institution. There are, of course, lots of exceptions, but they were exceptions. Markham was a rule unto herself.

I am having a gin and tonic in preparation for bed. I would be happy to prepare the gnomes one. Or, alternatively, there is marzipan. I do not recommend them together, however.

@109 looks like an odd drop-in

Charles Stross @ 104:

I recall the last time I taught a writing class. One of the students came up with a really nice idea - you know, the bones of a plot device, like that one. Not a plot, no characters, action and resolution, but a great idea. I said it was a great idea, and that I'd like to use it myself.

My God. You should have seen them bristle! I had just become an obvious thief, a plagiarist of the deepest dye.

And here you are, offering a great idea around for free.

Otter - I've been lurking for a few weeks, thought I'd drop in and say hey

OtterB @105:l There's a vaguely similar dynamic in the first arc of the anime adaptation (but not the original novel) of "The Twelve Kingdoms"-- two girls are swept away into an alternate fantasy dimension where one of them is destined to be the Chosen Savior. One girl gets manipulated by her willingness to leap into the role and be All Heroic And Stuff. The other girl is miserable and unwilling, but of course is the real Chosen One.

Nancy, Teresa:
I once read a short SF story (can’t recall the author or title) in which a reporter is doing a story on an Amish community who, some years earlier, had accepted a transwoman; only to notice that one of the Amish men is a classic Roswell extraterrestrial. She tries interviewing him, but he’s unwilling to speak of his past (he’s likely a refugee from his planet) and just wants to talk about his crops. The reporter herself realizes she would never fit into this community and doesn’t try.

PJ @ #42:

Le Chevalier St-George (1745-99) became rather extraordinarily competent as a French aristocrat.

110
Lydy, that was how I was reading it. (I believe I'd heard of her, way back, so I had some lurking context.)

Tsuda Umeko spent the 1870s learning to be American, and then spent the 1880s re-learning to be Japanese.

@ Alex $ #89

_West with the Night_ is a memoir, not an autobiography. I think that she wrote about the things that held her imagination. In trying to understand her, I suspect it very telling that she didn't have anything noteworthy to say about her marriages, affairs, or child. Possibly she was just preserving her privacy, but I suspect they just didn't really hold her attention the way flying and Africa did. In an odd sense, I never really got the feeling that she was writing about herself. It didn't seem like a book about self-reflection and revelation. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't find her omitting those pieces of her life to make it a weaker book.

Nancy Lebowitz @ 106 -- Yes, Lynn V. Andrews is the person I was thinking of in my post @ 48 (second paragraph).

Two Z @114, then welcome. Sorry for mistaking you for potted meat.

I have a bad habit of buying language textbooks that I clearly have no hope in hell of ever beginning, let alone finishing. (Teach Yourself Modern Persian—well, it looks good on the shelf and at least the charity shop I got it from made a few quid out of me for it.) Learning a language properly is one of the great personal transformations. Buying the book and just looking at it from time to time is a nod to the importance of such transformations, without actually putting the effort in.

Some years ago I skimmed through Wild Wales by George Borrow, an entertaining Victorian travelogue that I'd never have touched if Brian Aldiss's volumes of autobiography hadn't put me onto it. If you're fond of first-person narrators who unknowingly give themselves away in funny ways all the time, it's the book for you. Borrow travels around Wales apparently for the sole purpose of astonishing natives with his command of the Welsh language, and other languages, and generally being a smartarse. (He was a talented linguist, but probably not as good as he made out.)

Two Z, #114: Welcome to Making Light. Your initial comment doesn't fit with community norms around here (which is why it parsed as spam), but if you've only been lurking for a few weeks, you maybe wouldn't have noticed that yet. Anything going on in the Open Thread that interests you?

OtterB @105, Julie L. @115 -- that's also one of the main plot points of China Mieville's UnLunDun, IIRC (I know there's a Mieville with that as the pivot point mid-novel, and my memory isn't as good for recent stuff as for older, so I may have the title wrong...).

Tom: You have the title right, though I'd call that a bit of a spoiler.

Cassy B, Julie L, Tom Whitmore, thanks for pointers toward things that take the trope in my @105 where I'd like to see it go.

Dave @113: Amateurs think ideas are valuable.

Professionals value execution.

That idea took me a minute of noodling to come up with after reading the comments on a blog entry. Turning it into a novel would take between 20 and 200 days of hard bum-in-chair work. Maybe longer.

Lydy Nickerson @ 120

I agree with you completely, having read the book many, many times. It's a beautiful book; intelligent, poetic, and very strong, not to mention the very best first paragraph ever, "...I would like to begin patiently, like the weaver at his loom..."

But I wouldn't want anyone to think the book comes close to telling her whole story.

Also, IMHO, it's too bad she didn't marry the Duke of Gloucester; she would have been an amazing princess. (There's an alternate history novel for anyone who's interested: Celebrated bush pilot Beryl Markham marries into the House of Windsor just before World War II begins...)

Also, IMHO, it's too bad she didn't marry the Duke of Gloucester; she would have been an amazing princess. (There's an alternate history novel for anyone who's interested: Celebrated bush pilot Beryl Markham marries into the House of Windsor just before World War II begins...)

Beryl, Air Warrior Princess! The pulpish purple prose practically writes itself!

Well, actually, it doesn't. There's that whole "execution/bum-in-chair" thing Mr. Stross mentioned somewhere upthread. Nevertheless, the Air Warrior Princess is likely to amuse me for a day or two...

Wirelizard @ 130

"There's that whole "execution/bum-in-chair" thing..."

I've already got a couple of those; a website I'm working on (still much code to write alongside my day job) and a script for the Elf/Orc Buddy Movie.

Sorry, the post above is incomplete. It should have continued as follows: "So anyone who wants to take the "Beryl, Air Warrior Princess" thing and run with it is welcome to the concept - just thank me in the Introduction or something.

Here's one that I'll never write because PEBKAC: Fairies weren't depicted with peculiar elongated faces until the so-called Sicilian Fairy, Caroline Crachami, became a sensation. Caroline Crachami was a little person with (apparently) Seckel syndrome, which produces the distinctive facial features. She also had TB. A huckster promised her musician parents that he would take her to a dry climate, then the only effective cure for TB, and exhibit her in order to build up money for her continued care; instead he pocketed all of the money he made exhibiting her in London, where she died.

Now: At one point, while poor little Caroline was being shown off like a two-headed calf (pay extra and get to pick her up), a little girl about her own age was brought to see her. That was Princess Victoria.

What if Victoria had kicked up a fuss and demanded that the poor little "fairy" be taken out of the freak show? For all I know, she did; what if somebody listened? And what if Caroline, given a new lease on life by being installed at the royal family's seaside residence in peace and quiet, experienced spontaneous remission?

This started as my earnest wish for a happier ending for Caroline and her grieving parents, but the life of a little person at a court that was supposed to be beyond the keeping of court dwarfs, Caroline's alternating status as the disregarded oddity in the room and the (possibly reluctant) celebrity, perhaps her musical aspirations, even her unrecorded intervention in a major historical event . . . I hereby set this plot bunny free, because somebody else could do something good with it.

Sorry, I typed too soon: When I first thought this one up, "Seckel's bird-headed dwarfism" was the name, with some individuals being mentally impaired and some not. Caroline may have had a condition that used to be lumped under the same name, but does not always produce mental retardation; or she may have been only mildly retarded.

"'India Jones' about an intrepid archaeologist who ventures into darkest America to battle a Presbyterian death cult."

If they did the mormons then the bad guy could be Mitt Romney http://hesaidshesaidmovies.tripod.com/img/posters/templeofdoom2.jpg

OtterB @105 : that's at least one Retief story.

Charlie, #128: Also, a lot of interesting ideas are not in and of themselves stories; they're the background against which a story could be set. Many beginning writers don't understand the difference. I didn't recognize it myself until someone else pointed it out to me some years back. Your idea is at least a story in its own right.

Alex R @ 129 (and sundry others)

NaNoWriMo looms: the challenge to write 50,000 words in November.

Even within the select group of fluorospherians, I hesitate to suggest that anyone can hit the target, or write anything worth reading. But I reckon it's worth trying. For me, it maybe got me over the last vestiges of uncertainty, which go back to my schooldays and the attitudes of my teachers.

"Be vewy quiet, I'm hunting plot-wabbits." (Makes note to avoid Caerbannog...)

Earlier this year, Charlie managed a NaNoWriWeek.

#138: I hereby notify everybody that I am disqualified from NaNoWriMo in perpetuity. And I'd like to sack my muse (except I'm kind of scared of him: he looks a bit like a grizzled USMC drill sergeant, and threatens me with physical violence if I don't deliver words on schedule).

Here's what happened ...

I went on a bunch of travel in the first half of this year, culminating in a literary festival in Estonia from which I came home with Bell's Palsy. When one of your eyes begins to water after less than five minutes unless you forcibly close both eyes for thirty seconds, you can't write. Or read effectively. This lasted for nearly three weeks, after five weeks of non-writing due to travel (I can't write effectively on the road). Then it wore off over the course of about three days, and I abruptly recovered the ability to read and write after two months of forcible withdrawal.

So I woke up at 12:04am one Saturday morning, mind churning, and succumbed to a fit of hypergraphia the like of which I have never experienced before and hope never to experience again. Hypergraphia is acutely disturbing, physically draining, and quite unpleasant. It's not a normal writing process, it's a deranged compulsion. You're not writing because you want to write, you're writing because you can't stop. It's the sort of condition normal people seek medical help for. Unfortunately, I'm not normal. Result: 51,000 words in 166 hours, i.e. 2% over NaNoWriMo's monthly target in two hours less than one week. Then 35,000 words the next week. Finally, I was able to write THE END on the 18th day ... 109,000 words later.

So yes, I beat NaNoWriMo in a week and went on to write an entire first-draft novel in 18 days. Yay, me. Except it was the wrong book.

At the time this happened, I was under contract to deliver a trilogy. But I was about a quarter of the way into the first book, and I was blocked -- I had a bad structural problem and needed to take time out to think my way past it. So the crazy fit of hypergraphia burned itself out and left me with the first draft of an entirely different novel, written in an altered state, which for contractual reasons I can't sell until I deliver the trilogy. Which is mortifying, unprofessional, and one hell of an incentive to get moving and finish the official contracted project on time ...

Luckily I worked out what was wrong with the official project while I was bouncing off the walls and ceiling, and it is now back on course. The 18 day fit of insanity didn't bite too much time out of the 18-month project, so there is no cause for alarm: the first book in the new Merchant Princes trilogy is done, the second is under way, and I expect to have the third finished on schedule.

But I can't help thinking that if I'd been able to point the hypergraphia engine at the right target, I'd be delivering it nine months ahead of schedule.

An "amusing" coincidence: "Bugor" is also a Russian slang term; specifically, it means "The Boss: Used in penitentiary for the men who control the criminals."

Charlie @140: In the last year or so, I've occassionally had the cannot stop thing with my sculpture. Fortunately, when I've been able to relax into it, it's joyous. Does require some extended recovery, though.

I now finally have a referrent for J. Michael Straczynski's assertion, "Don't try to be a professional writer unless you cannot not write."

Dear Mr. Stross -- thank you for letting me know there are (wheeeee!) three more Merchant Princes books in the offing.

I have been wondering about some of my favorite characters fates for quite a while. I confess, I have been worried.

(Note to self, assemble older books for re-read.)

Lori, more details here. Note the revised UK editions of the Merchant Princes series; I'm hoping these show up in the US before the new series (I overhauled and edited everything, reassembling them into something closer to the original planned format).

Oh, boy, revised editions?! I'll let my favorite bookseller know.

Thank you very much.

What I’d love to see is the reverse of Charlie @ 104: tourist from a Highly Advanced Alien Civilization comes to Earth, seeking to immerse itself in the rustic, quirky, and highly romanticized human culture, and some human grifters take him for a ride.

Three months later and a few thousand credits poorer, our tourist is a black belt in karate, an ordained Catholic priest, and a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer.

Charlie @140:

Is the 18-day book saleable, or did your fit of unprofessional hypergraphia kick out something that not only took away from time writing your contracted work, but can't be recouped later anyway?

When the news gets me down, I like to reimagine it as a headline in the Non-Jerk Universe. Hence:

Two Sides of the Planet: Kenya, California, and the Wild World of Ecotourism by Lemuanik Ole Sabore and Mindy Budgor

The engrossing account of two ecotourism entrepreneurs who changed places for a year. Ole Sabore and Budgor, who first met online, clicked immediately, bonding over the astonishing similarities among their clientele and the culture of ecotourism in their two countries. With the bemused acquiescence of their business partners, they decided to conduct a cultural exchange. For one year, Budgor would lead safaris in the Maasai Mara while Ole Sabore ran a charter fishing operation off the Channel Islands. What they learned makes for a story that is hilarious, enraging, and thought-provoking. You won't be able to put it down. This year's best read!

Jenny: I like your universe. Please let me know if they start accepting immigrants.

@147: probably salable, but first it needs a re-write which it ain't getting until I'm out-of-contract and can do it with a clean conscience.

David @151: thank you for blowing it. (No more crit filter access for you ...)

I had thought that the "Thud" posts on your LJ were open rather than flocked, and that since anyone could see those posts that you didn't mind having that knowledge be open. Evidently I was mistaken about that. I am deeply sorry, and beg the moderators to remove my #151.

I want to say that I am capable of being discreet about sensitive information. I could adduce some examples, but by their nature they would need to involve sensitive information that I couldn't repeat, and that would be difficult to verify. So this is the sort of thing that's difficult to give evidence for.

This particular instance was stupid on my part, certainly: if I'd been thinking, I'd have said to myself "Charlie@140 wrote quite a bit, but didn't give the book's title or any information about it; maybe he doesn't want that known." In hindsight, that's obvious. All I can say now (other than that I've emailed moderators asking for an edit) is that I'm sorry for overstepping.

I've unpublished the comment in question.

Um. How do I email a moderator? I wish to mention something that perhaps shouldn't be noted on a public thread. Abi, could you drop me a note at (rot-13) pnffl@obbxjlezr.pbz please?

There is a short story about a guy who lives in a post-Contact world. Turns out the aliens are strict capitalists so no hand-outs for new races. The UN comes up with the fare to send him out on a commercial freighter to explore the galaxy. He comes back and writes a book about his experiences, which is of course a publishing sensation. Then it is taken up by a big alien publisher and is an inter-galactic hit. All's going well till it turns out that it's viewed as a comedy across the galaxy and has single-handedly created the "Stupid Earthman" genre.

Annoyingly I can't remember title or author, but it seems oddly relevant here.

Cassy (and everyone),

I can be reached at abi at this blog's domain dot com.

Cassy, I'll email you, but do note that it's half past twelve where I am, and I'm not likely to be able to do anything till morning at the earliest. It may be later, since I'm also single parent at the moment, and have three people to launch tomorrow morning.

Faster service may be obtained by emailing pnh at panix dot com, since he's in a more suitable time zone.

Abi, whoops, forgot the time difference. <sheepish look> I'll email pnh as suggested.

And I have NO idea how that double-posted. Apologies, all.

Everything cleaned up. As you were.

#156 ::: Andy Brazil

The story you want may be "A World by the Tale".

Charlie Stross @ 104 (And Various Editors)

Charlie, it seems to me that you've designed an extremely fun shared universe. Tor should have someone design the shared background then recruit a bunch of writers to create stories.

IMHO Eric Flint would do a wonderful job on one of these. (I don't mean the Eric Flint who's writing Great Big Books these days, but the Eric Flint who wrote The Philosophical Strangler, which is extremely funny!)

On the Charles Stross shared Universe, I realise that I am very small potatoes, but I would appreciate knowing if it gets off the ground, since I would like the chance to submit, at least a chapter (or whatever) and precis.

It's a great idea. And oh, how I faunch to be able to write SF again!

What I’d love to see is the reverse of Charlie @ 104: tourist from a Highly Advanced Alien Civilization comes to Earth, seeking to immerse itself in the rustic, quirky, and highly romanticized human culture, and some human grifters take him for a ride.

"Jewish Princess", in which Grzztblat spends three weeks being initiated into the esoteric traditions of the Jewish tribe of Beverly Hills, eventually becoming their first thirdgendered rabbi, while teaching them that Hebrew is an unnecessary and outdated language, and that male circumcision really isn't needed.

@52, 135, etc:

The Mormons were exotic enough for a Sherlock Holmes novel, at the time...

#161 Nancy, It is indeed. Many thanks - truly All Knowledge...

And there's a Project Gutenberg edition.