Abandon Hope . . .

Perhaps no one would tell Hobbes Junior. It would take a brave animal to break such news to him. Please Christopher!
But she remembered Big Pooh. Big Pooh hated loose females. He would tell Hobbes Junior, feeling it his Captist duty.
Time passed, and finally Annie heard Hobbes Junior shambling up the steps. She tensed as he reached the upper hall, gathered all her strength for a meeting, but he ambled into his den.
He hadn't heard. Thank Christopher! She must gather herself together to go to him. She felt too distempered to go. But was there time?
She heard Hobbes Junior shifting around in his room, but she could not find the courage to call to him. Finally he knocked on her door, and she said, trying to control her voice: "Come in."
"Am I actually being invited into the sanctuary?" he questioned, opening the door. It was dark, and she could not see his face. He entered and closed the door. "Are you ready for the reception?"
"I'm so sorry, but I have a headache. You go, Hobbes Junior, and give Anastasia my regrets."
There was a long pause, and then he snarled, "What a white-livered, cowardly little bitch you are."
He knew! She lay shaking, unable to speak.
"Get up." His voice was pure animal growl.
"Oh Hobbes Junior, I can't. You see--"
"I can see. Get up."
"Hobbes Junior, did Big Pooh dare--"
"Big Pooh dared. A very brave bear, Big Pooh."
"You should have torn him limb from limb for telling such lies."
"I have a strange way of not attacking animals who tell the truth. You are going tonight even if everyone cuts you and Mrs. Pooh asks you to leave the den."
"They misunderstood. Elizabeth and Big Pooh. Elizabeth hates me so much, she'll tell lies about Pooh to make me appear in a bad light."
"You will go if I have to pick you up by the scruff of the neck and shake your ever so charming bottom every step of the way." There was a cold glitter in his eyes as he jerked her to her feet. He went into her closet and drew out her new FRANC dress. It was strapless and very tight. "Wear that. No modest, matronly dove grays and lilacs tonight. Your flag must be nailed to the mast, for obviously you'd run it down if it weren't."

Annie in Limbo

Annie never remembered how she got out of the office. She went like a circus bear, instantly responding to Pooh's command. Behind her, Pooh and Big Pooh were circling each other, snuffling and growling in grim converse in the little room. She passed Elizabeth outside with her back to her. Shame and fear sped her homeward, and, in her mind, Big Pooh, with his leaky stuffing stigmata assumed the proportions of the avenging Cat Monster straight from the Captist Bible (REVELATIONS).
Penny was playing in Anastasia's back yard. Anastasia! Annie's hackles raised at the thought of her. Oh Elizabeth would glory in telling her, not caring if she blackened Pooh's name, not caring if she hurt Anastasia, if by doing so she could wound Annie!
She did not know why she should mind Anastasia knowing. She began to whimper at the thought of Anastasia's dejection when Elizabeth told her that she had caught Pooh and Annie in heat. Would Anastasia leave Pooh? What else could she do with any dignity? "What would Pooh and I do then?" she thought, frenziedly. "Oh, Pooh will die of shame and hate me for bringing this on him."
Suddenly she silenced her whimpers as a deadly fear went through her heart. What of Hobbes Junior? What would he do?

But First, Neglected Queries Department

Eager though we are to return to "Gone with the Captists," posting our synopsis reminded us that we never answered RBUD's question from way back about the War Between the States of the Soul. We meant to, and then we forgot.
After we answered Karen's question about who Big Pooh was, RBUD asked, "Is War Between the States of The Soul a new appelation? Or do I just not remember it?"
RBUD, many ardent Captists have always used this term to refer to the Captist-UnCaptist War. Since we are moderate Captists, however, we did not have occasion to use it on the blog until Anastasia explained what a bear lady was, and our description of Big Pooh was the second time.

And since we are moderately good Captists, we feel we must put the minds of the Cats of Ulthar to rest. After various upsetting allusions to "catgut" were made in recent comments, they wrote, "We must say that we take umbrage at all these references to Cat Gut being thrown around. ME-YOW!"
Cats of U., catgut was always made from sheep intestines, and is now usually a synthetic substitute such as perlon, unless you are playing old music and going for a historically authentic sound. Real gut goes out of tune all the time and does not have as bright a sound as modern strings.

Return of the Captists

Diamonelle likes all kinds of history.

"Gone with the Captists" begins in April, 2007 on the blog and continues off and on through the July, 2008 archives, again from the Sept., 2008-March, 2009 archives, and from the Aug.-Sept., '09 archives. Resuming toward the end of Oct., 2009, our chronicle runs through Nov. and the early part of Dec. with only brief interruption. We continued the saga from the end of Jan., 2010 through the beginning of Feb., and for most of March, and resumed again in Feb.-early March, 2011.
Owing to Mall Diva's being extremely busy, Toyplayer has agreed to finish the saga, using photos Mall Diva took. So posts should be more regular henceforth.

Frustrated in her love for Pooh, who married his cousin Anastasia, Annie (Anastasia's sister) married Percy, a flyer in the Captist Air Force, just before the war. During the war, in which Percy was killed, Annie helped deliver Anastasia's sickly baby, little O, in Petesville, and, with the help of the daring but intensely irritating Hobbes Junior, retreated during the Fall of Petesville to her mother's estate.
Annie's father, Hobbes, had been kidnapped by UnCaptists and was being held in Ork, and her mother Julia, a Litteral Captist fanatic, had gone a bit funny, or funnier, so Annie, Anastasia, and the few Captist servants who stuck with the family were left to keep the wolf from the door. Anastasia was sickly and busy with her sickly baby and any needy Captist who came around begging for a handout, so it was Annie who cared for the beehives and planted the estate's football field with crops so they could eat. Her only helper was Ginny, an orphan Anastasia took in, who proved a useful farmhand.
Pooh came home, but he was clumsy and not much help. He also rejected Annie's advances. On top of this, Julia's former steward, Red Baboon, came by with his jumped up Captist trash wife, Tawdry Cattery, and told Annie she'd have to come up with three hundred Stuffed Animal Planet dollars in taxes or Julia's estate would be his.
Receiving a letter telling of Percy's fall into a volcano in Ork, Annie journeyed to Petesville, where she offered to be Hobbes Junior's mistress in return for the 300 $APs needed to save the estate. Stuck in an UnCaptist prison after his questionable career as war privateer turned Captist officer, Hobbes Junior heard the humiliating request but refused on the grounds that any attempt to access his money would lead the UnCaptists to it. On the way home Annie met Percy's brother Frederick, who had an understanding with her cousin Elizabeth. Frederick had a store and some money, so Annie told him Elizabeth didn't love him and got him to marry her instead.
Annie ran the store ruthlessly, to the male chauvinist Frederick's surprise and dismay. One day, Hobbes Junior stopped by and after teasing her, revealed that he had lots of money and had come to make sure she was all right. She borrowed money from him to buy a honeyworks for herself (Frederick had no part in it). She then hired Pooh, who had been on the point of moving his family to Ork, to manage it.
Anastasia loved being back in Petesville and was grateful to Annie for all her "kindness" to her and Pooh. Pooh was a hopeless manager, but Annie really did everything anyway.
The corrupt UnCaptist government allowed or even encouraged all kinds of crimes against Captists, the worst of which were assaults on unprotected Captist ladies. The Captist males formed the Cat Claw Clan to defend themselves and the purity of Captist femalehood against these threats.* Annie made Frederick promise not to join, but she worried about him.
On the evening after Annie herself was attacked on her way past the rundown Pansitown and only saved by the timely intervention of Mrs. Arshmol/Ugluk, the Captist bear-menfolk mysteriously did not come home until late, and an UnCaptist patrol headed by Captain Tom the Lone Shark surrounded the house. At last Hobbes Junior, Pooh and Big Pooh returned, all, seemingly, very drunk. This ruse and Hobbes Jr.'s story that they had been visiting Belle Catley's house of ill repute caused Tom the Lone Shark and his troops to leave, but really Pooh was wounded and Frederick killed in their attack on Pansitown.
At first, Annie hardly noticed her widowhood, she was so concerned about Pooh. But when it was clear he would recover, she realized what a bad bear she had been and took to drinking alone in her room, fearing everlasting torments such as attending NG4J rehearsals for all eternity, until one day Hobbes Jr. kissed her into marrying him.
In the beginning she was very happy with him. He spent a lot of money on her and showed her a good time. But there were a few bees in the honeycomb. Annie was annoyed, for instance, when Hobbes Jr. burned her ENTIRE collection of Franc's latest line. And he was high-pawed in other respects as well. For instance, he tricked her into renaming Frederick's General Store the "Caveat Emptorium," and only Pooh's kindly telling her what it meant as the sign was being installed put a stop to this embarrassment.
Then there was the baby. Horrified when she discovered she was pregnant, Annie liked her little doll more than she had expected, but she was astonished and even a little bothered by the almost unbear-manly way Hobbes Jr. loved and indulged the child.
Soon Annie began to use her baby's playing with Little O as an excuse to see Pooh more often. After Anastasia made a remark about the little girl's hair color, she was christened "Penny."
Not only did Annie hate the name, she disapproved of Pooh's softness as manager of her honeyworks. Pooh interpreted her disapproval as evidence of Hobbes Jr.'s coarsening influence.
Moved by his concern and a desire to have no more cubs, Annie kicked Hobbes Jr. out of her den. This was not as satisfying as she had hoped, since Hobbes Jr. seemed eager to roam, and his exit left her feeling forlorn. She could not even think of a delicate way to impress Pooh with the news.
On Pooh's birthday, Annie went to the honeyworks to keep him from coming home early for his surprise party, which he knew all about. Just when Pooh was consoling Annie for their postbellum hardships with an ambiguous kiss, Elizabeth and Big Pooh walked in. . . .


*This is, of course, the Captist side of the story. For our real view, click here.

Enigmatic Post

And a final follow-up, for anyone who was wondering after the end of the post-before-yesterday's, or who just felt like hearing something beautiful,

Queries & Carps

Karen asks, regaeding yesterday's post, "Is Mall Diva as cool a performer as Kyung Wha Chung is in this Bruch 3rd movement video example?"
I think there is some semantic slippage here, K. If you mean, "Does Mall Diva get up and focus on conveying the music as single-mindedly as Kyung Wha Chung here?" I would say "Yes." On the other hand, if you mean, "Does Mall Diva play with all the fire of Kyung Wha Chung?" I would say, "No, her performance is not as hot, or cool, as you prefer."
Yet on the third hand, Mall Diva herself, who wishes to remain anonymous, informs us that "Mr. S.* hates that recording of the Bruch," and I did notice some interpretative liberties, especially rhythmic inaccuracy, of which I don't approve either. So I give you this for comparison.
No one knows whether Mall Diva will ever be as hot or cool as these famous performers, but at least I feel reasonably confident that with her skill set she will never go hungry.

*I was surprised to find this clip on YouTube. I'm the concertmaster here, and you can see Mall Diva's former teacher in the corner of the frame, conducting.

Mrs. Weirsdo

Weirsdo Congratulates

We congratulate Mall Diva on winning the Auburn Concerto Competition with this piece:and hope she will play it just as well with the Auburn Orchestra next season.
This competition is open to Very Red State University students and residents of the county of any age. Mrs. Weirsdo entered several students, not with any real hope of their beating Mall Diva, but for the experience, and besides, you never know. She is proud of their efforts, but one actually was a co-winner! (There were four winners in all: two college students and two violinists.)
This girl also won the Alabama Music Teachers Association auditions last year. For that competition she played this,, the second movement of Ernst Bloch's BAAL SHEM SUITE (Three Pictures of Hassidic Life: "Vidui" means "contrition"; "Nigun" means "improvisation"). It was sort of funny when she and her mom--very Korean--the pianist--very Aryan German--and I--very WASPy--were rehearsing this very Jewish music, but among us we did get her to master the idiom, and she actually loved it so much she insisted on working up Nigun for this competition, even though we all agreed it was a stretch for her.
Going into the competition, I was surprised at how much she had accomplished on this piece, but since we were working on very basic things, like the right notes, right up to the last minute, I was not sure she would even present it well, much less win. Besides the difficulty, this girl is not as cool a performer as Mall Diva, and is only 13.
But according to the conductor (also a judge), "Mall Diva we expected to perform well, but J. played the best I've ever heard her play--it was amazingly good." Though a fan of Jewish and 20th-century music (I am no dummy when picking repertoire for students), this conductor is not given to compliments or enamored of children. When I first broached the idea of putting Mall Diva (aged 8) into the Very Red State University/Community Orchestra, he said, "I don't know. This isn't a YOUTH orchestra." Shortly thereafter he held a second-violin sectional on Elgar's THE ENIGMA VARIATIONS, and Mall Diva was the only one who could play the notes. Now my students are half of the violin sections, but most are intimidated by this conductor, and J. is no exception. When she read his e-mail about her "amazingly good" playing, her face lit up in a priceless way.
It was a good day. Congratulations, J. and Mall Diva.