grub street

JC passes on some scans of his "Grub St" collection (the first English edition of the Nights). He suspects they are first editions but isn't sure if 1707 was the first year these particular volumes were published (or if they were also published in 1706 like volumes 1-4). If anyone knows when these particular volumes (5 & 6) came out (they are later additions to the Grub St collection) please comment below.

Pasolini's Inspiration

Pasolini's film version of the Nights is one of the few versions, filmic or otherwise, of the story collection dealing explicitly with the sexual nature of the stories and also includes some relatively unknown stories from the Nights (no Ali Baba, Aladdin or Sinbad!) which I suspect comes at the prompting of Burton.

In his "Terminal Essay" Burton writes:

"The pederasty of The Nights may briefly be distributed into three categories. The first is the funny form, as the unseemly practical joke of masterful Queen Budur (vol. iii. 300-306) and the not less hardi jest of the slave-princess Zumurrud (vol. iv. 226). The second is in the grimmest and most earnest phase of the perversion, for instance where Abu Nowas [70] debauches the three youths (vol. v. 64-69); whilst in the third form it is wisely and learnedly discussed, to be severely blamed, by the Shaykhah or Reverend Woman (vol. v. 154)."

Pasolini uses stories from both "Zumurrud" and "Abu Nowas" and incorporates and makes much use of the blurry lines between what constitutes homosexual and heterosexual sexuality.

I doubt that Pasolini read the entirety of Burton and picked those stories at random, it seems more likely that Burton's essay prompted Pasolini to take a closer look at those particular stories instead.

Aladin in Bollywood

The latest incarnation of Aladdin comes from India and is a Bollywood musical revisionistic retelling of the unlikely hero and his quest for love and power.

Aladin releases India-wide in theaters on October 30 and stars Bollywood megastars Sanjay Dutt and Amitabh Bachchan and is said to combine the Aladdin story with a more complex subtext involving the hazards of power and the blurred lines between right and wrong, with some dancing and singing of course.

The trailer looks pretty slick with heavy emphasis on the film's special effects, I can't embed it from its official youtube page but you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm56IEZ7clo.

from a review here: http://www.ibosnetwork.com/newsmanager/templates/template1.aspx?a=21863&z=4 comes some more info:

"Aladin showcases Ritesh Deshmukh as the college going youngster 'Aladin' and pageant winner Jasmin Fernandez as Jasmine. It is being directed by Sujoy Ghosh who had debuted with the hit Jhankaar Beats several years back. Along with the Ajay Devgan, Salman Khan starrer London Dreams, Aladin releases all over India on October 30th."

There are a ton of songs and videos from the film on youtube, one notable one is the Genie's rap here, when "drop it shorty" meets the 1001 Nights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjufFwloYV8

Here's the whole Genie song, dance remix?, music only (for the film clip see above link):

additional children's books on wax

JC passes on a couple of books on record (that come with books to read along with) from his collection:

Little Golden books. They produced a series of books that included a 45 rpm record. Ali Baba was part of the series. Narrated by Dave Teig.

A 1970 record of Sinbad the Sailor. Story by Jimmy Johnson.