I had it first! But...am confused!

So, on his famous and much more popular than mine will ever be journal, Neil Gaiman (journal.neilgaiman.com) has been posting pictures and comments on the state of the weather in my beloved home state (note: while there is much irony in my comments here, I do love being Minnesotan.  For one thing, it means I can drive and walk in the snow without complaining about it all the time.)

And he is calling the blizzard (which snowed somewhere around 19 inches, collapsed our iconic sports arena's roof, and had my siblings shovelling and making snow forts like there's no tomorrow - hah - that's a funny coincidence, given my next sentence fragment) "Snowmageddon."

But I already lived through that.

In Virginia.

So I'm confused.  Should I be jealous, that Minnesota gets it this year (and it wouldn't be as much of a problem, since unlike the pathetic snow equipment here, they know how to deal with it)?  Should I take umbrage at the stealing of our terminology?  Should I turn green with envy at all the comments he'll get on his post, while maybe one person will google "Snowmageddon" ten years from now and laugh at how pathetic this entry is?

Or should I just look at the pretty pictures of snow?  Yeah, I think I'll do that.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

So...

I should be working on my papers and thesis outline, but am reading blogs.  Yiss yiss.

Anyway, I am reminded again that I wish many, many things, but in particular, the three things I wish for most are at this precise moment:

1) That I had the temperament to be in the military.  I don't.  Pretty sure I'd think I knew better than the officers and get myself courtmartialed or dead very, very quickly.  But I love the discipline, hierarchy, and duty of it all.  Plus it would be pretty cool to attain a nice rank, like Lieutenant or Major or Captain.  My uncle's a Lieutenant Colonel, which is pretty cool all by itself.

Plus: guns and airplanes.

2) I wish I were married.

3) I wish I had kids.

Note: this is not a list of wishes I should have, such as "I wish I loved God more" or "I wish I loved people more" or "I wish I wasn't a selfish overcritical angsty stubborn lazy arrogant moron."

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

5 Arts/Artists who changed my life/mind/words

5. Batman Begins.  Not, perhaps, the most powerful and important of life-changing or mind-shaping or word-giving, but this film really had a Eureka moment for me when the character of Rachel articulates why I've always hated revenge dramas - "Revenge is about making you feel better.  Justice is about harmony."

4. The Man Who Was Thursday - G. K. Chesterton.  A 1911ish thriller which is engrossing (I read it in one night at 14 in Switzerland), and at the same time extremely thought-provoking.  Convinced me that instead of embracing the prevailing cultural rebellion against standards, structure, and heirarchy, I would be a rebel against rebellion.  Not quite standing up for "the man," but in a weird backwards way doing exactly that.

3. Little Dorrit.  While I had undergone a significant reversal when I was 17, falling in love with Jane Austen after thinking she was stupid since I was 13, my long-standing hatred of Dickens' ridiculously unbelievable and unlikeable characters and silly plot devices melted in the face of the passionate sincerity and loveable nobility of this amazing, dual-climaxed epic.  A monument to the fact that if I don't love something now, there is a chance (however slim) that I won't always hate it.

2. Sherlock Holmes, as played by Jeremy Brett.  Until I was 13, I hated dressing up, my hair, and thought colors were cool.  When I was thirteen, I began watching this amazing series of adaptations of stories I'd been reading since I was about ten, and those three things changed.  I loved dressing up, began forcing my hair to be combed, and thought black was the best color ever.  In addition to these elements, I developed a lasting and life-shaping interest in adaptation and film directing.

1. Jane Austen.  You didn't know?  I mean, she's only the person who I think has the most beautiful writing style, most loveable and admirable characters, and most satisfying combinations of characters and situations/structures/plots.  Plus, she really is my entry into my chosen profession of literary criticism, theory, and teaching.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

10 Thoughts on animated movies, with a particular focus on Tangled (because it's lovely)

10. It's a fairy tale.  It's Disney.  Why complain about how it's predictable or done before?  Why not note how lovingly and wittily and beautifully those tropes are used instead?

9. Those who think it doesn't do things as well as the "great" Disney films - well, I think it does things just as well, we just have 20 years of nostalgia making those old films (which really are great) perfect.  They're not.  Neither is Tangled - but I think it's pretty darn close.

8. I love Charlotte from Princess and the Frog.  While the movie lacked the sweetness that pushed Tangled over the edge into Loved for me, Charlotte's character walked the fine line of the rich, spoiled girl (like a blonde, southern Emma) without falling over into annoying sugar or moronic evil.  From her sweet idealism as a child chasing her dream, to her unselfish love of Tiana in giving her a dress and sincerely admiring it on her friend, to her final, sacrificial giving of her dream to Tiana in the end.  And then she is willing to wait twelve years for a new prince!  I think I have a thing for what TvTropes calls "genki girl" - the short, perky, cute, very very energetic character who sweeps the protagonist all over the place - sort of the good side of the evil shady friend who sweeps the protagonist into drug addiction.  Alice from Twilight, Coraline, Asokha from Clone Wars, Olivia from Twelfth Night, Rosalind from As You Like It, Kaylee from Serenity all share elements of this character, and I tend to love them all muchly.

7. Why was Tangled rated PG, when the much, much darker and creepier Princess and the Frog was G?  Is CGI scarier than 2D?  Because I was much, much more creeped out by the voodoo shadows than the realistic psychological horror of Mother Gothel.  Though the small girl behind me in the theater thought she was pretty terrifying in the climax of Tangled.  Poor thing.

6. Voice acting was really, really nice.  Mandy Moore and Donna Murphy were spot-on, the former singing cleanly (if a bit lacking in high range) and speaking sweetly, the latter being quite different than her nice, T. S. Eliot-loving wife from Spider-man 2.  But Zach Levi, Christian actor best known as TV's Chuck, really brings his sweet-awkward-suave-hilarious vocal mannerisms to the show.  From his awesomely moronic "smoulder" to the don't-freak-out-I'm-not-freaking-out-which-is-why-I'm-talking-so-fast-like-I'm-totally-freaked-out voice when he finds out about Rapunzel's hair, Levi really enhances the character and the movie as a whole, while not showboating and trying to steal the movie away from the rightful center of Rapunzel.

5. The songs - well, yes, Alan Menken is stealing liberally from his own work - but he does so much more coherently than the last major Disney fairy-tale-type film, Enchanted, which aside from the annoying over-the-top-ness and the unworkeable blend of cynicism and sentimentality, was musically incoherent, all over the map from the banal Snow White "True Love's Kiss" to the delightful but out of place "That's How You Know."  The songs for Tangled are catchy, energetic, sweet (an important missing element from Princess and the Frog, for all it's strengths), and fit very well together.

4. Hmm.  Well, I'm not sure what to say here.  This is the last point I'm writing, since I filled things in the way I felt they would make a nice list to read.  Er.  Um.  Oh, right.  Silly me.  THE ANIMATION IS AMAZING!  From the brilliant texture of the cast-iron frying pan, to the hair (of course), to the beautifully rendered skin, to the amazingly precise cast-backs to the way 2D animation from famous movies in Disney's legacy - from Ariel's feet, to Pegasus, to the Beast's redemption - it's all there - but not in the cynical, ugly, disgustingly cheap way of the Shrek films, but in a loving, witty, humorous, lighthearted by completely sincere and genuinely moving way.

3. When I saw the trailers and read the early articles, both of which emphasized the male main character, I was really, really worried that it would turn into a movie about the male character.  I don't care if it's called Tangled.  I don't care if there is a strong male character - after all, Beauty and the Beast really benefitted from a strong male character.  But like the earlier masterpiece, the male character serves the journey of the female character, rather than the other way round.  Rapunzel is unquestionably the main character, with full perspective, development, and utterly likeable character.  Am unbearably relieved.

2. I get quite misty in the floating lights scene.  The combination of utter imaginative creativity with genuine romantic beauty is very, very moving to me.  Plus, though the song shamelessly rips from Aladdin's A Whole New World, it's very nicely sung, and I was shocked to hear Zach Levi's voice ring out so clearly and cleanly.  I like singing the song to myself as I walk around campus.  A lot.

1. GO SEE TANGLED.  Embrace innocence.  Embrace a love of beauty.  Embrace catchy, sweet songs.  Embrace long, long hair.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

BBC Dramas, from 1980 to present, incomplete list

The Last Dance by Samuel Sim  
Download now or listen on posterous

19 the last dance.mp3 (4032 KB)

1980 – Pride and Prejudice
1981 -
1982 -
1983 – Mansfield Park
1984 -
1985 -
1986 – Northanger Abbey
1987 – Lord Peter Wimsey – Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, Gaudy Night
1988 -
1989 -
1990 – House of Cards
1991 – Adam Bede
1992 -
1993 – To Play the King
1994 - Middlemarch
1995 – The Final Cut, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice
1996 – Tenant of Wildfell Hall
1997 -
1998 – Our Mutual Friend
1999 – Wives and Daughters
2000 -
2001 – The Way We Live Now
2002 – Daniel Deronda
2003 – State of Play
2004 – North and South, He Knew He Was Right, Charles II
2005 – Bleak House
2006 – Jane Eyre
2007 – Oliver Twist, The Old Curiosity Shop, Cranford, Ballet Shoes
2008 – Sense and Sensibility, Miss Austen Regrets, Tess of the
D'urbervilles, Little Dorrit
2009 – Emma, Return to Cranford
2010 – Upstairs Downstairs
2011 – South Riding

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

The Special Relationship vs Creation

Five points:

1) Period drama is one of my favorite kinds of stories.  Partly because I believe the past, while no golden age to be missed, is also no dark age to be shut of.  People in the past, to me, are people just like me - though in movies, they're usually a lot prettier, smarter, and more powerful (and have more money).  The Special Relationship, dealing with the relationship between Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, and Creation, treating Darwin and his wife's relationship, are two very different period dramas.  One is edgy, full of handheld camera movement, hallucinogenic moments, frank sexuality, and stark religious and political pontifications.  The other is elegant, crisp, carefully framed, with the occasional crudities used for emphasis, and politics and morality treated in a very ironic, sublte manner full of greys.  And, surprisingly, the former is the one set in the 1800s, the latter set in the 1990s.  I prefer the latter myself, as I find the grace of well-planned camera movement combined with strong acting (which, to be fair, is a definite strength in both films) much more appealing than "gritty" "energetic" run-and-gun style editing and shooting techniques.

2) Politics, religion, and sex.  All three figure incredibly prominantly in both films.  The politics of Darwinism and how it is propagated appear starkly and with few nuances in Creation - the extreme supporters and detractors are both presented as boors, though Jeremy Northam is allowed some grace as the religious opponent who tries to maintain friendship with Darwin, while Toby Jones as Darwin's Bulldog, T. H. Huxley, is a complete jerk.  However, in The Special Relationship, Blair, Bush, their advisors, opponents, and wives all appear as extremely flawed but also extremely gifted and often very idealistic individuals, making you wonder just how to take Clinton's ending monologue about how evil his successors are, after his own leadership has been tarnished by both sexual misconduct and public dishonesty.  One great thing about the film is that it made me question how much of my own antipathy for Clinton was actually based on politics rather than morality - not an easy thing to do for one as firmly conservative as myself.  A similar approach to religion and sex pervades the two films - Creation showing religion in an almost Marxist "crutch of the weak" simplicity and sex as a purely romantic reconciliation between Darwin and his wife (played very touchingly by real life husband and wife Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly).  The Special Relationship, in contrast, shows the complexities of marriages between flawed humans in both the Clinton and Blair families, as well as Blair's struggles to work out his religious faith in light of his political convictions.

3) Music - Creation features a score by frequent Marvel Comics film scorer Christopher Young, in a rather unmemorable background.  The Special Relationship managed to secure Alexandre Desplat, who has been consistently given higher and higher profile projects in the past two years, and who composed for the previous film about Blair by the same production team, The Queen.  While not nearly his most lovely work (I personally think his score for New Moon is my favorite for lyrical beauty, if a bit simplistic), he suits the modern, high-pressure world of Anglo-US politics with a style very similar to that found in the film preceding The Queen, The Deal, which had many lovely minimalistic elements and a strong pop flavor, while maintaining really beautiful moments of orchestral melody, such as Hilary's exiting the car after Bill's confessions, and the Clinton's farewell at the end of the film.

4) Background: Peter Morgan, writer of The Special Relationship, has written dramatic, sometimes criticized for accuracy but often lauded historical recreations of several major political events, including his two precursor to The Special Relationship "Blair Trilogy" The Deal and The Queen (the latter especially being inredibly powerful), and other excellent (by repute - I've not had the chance to see them yet) period films such as Frost/Nixon and The Last King of Scotland.  Jon Amiel, director of Creation, a story about the birth of one of the most controversial scientific theories in history (though its supporters claim it is no such thing - either theory or controversial), directed one of the most incredibly moronic scientific thrillers in the past decade, The Core, in which completely made up metal protects completely flat characters from completely implausible disasters caused by evil (presumably conservative) governments.

5) Overall rating.  Creation is a shrill, black and white, overall rather incoherant and silly film featuring quite fine performances and quite annoying directing.  The Special Relationship is a uncomfortable, powerful, beautiful, mature film (if a bit overly compressed at times to fit the enormous issues and complexities of the subject) marked by brilliant performances and solid craftsmanship.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Tangled

So, after reading a lot of warmish reviews for Tangled, I think the reaction is really tinted by odd rememberies of the old Disney movies. I think the films always went for a "modern" or "contemporary" feel - we were just younger when we saw them, and we look back now and think they were as nostalgic as we are.  Additionally, to complain it lacks "great themes" is actually a plus for me, since Disney's idea of great themes is usually "great cliches" like "trust your heart," "believe in the good in people who are pretty," "be tolerant," "be mystical," or, best yet, "ignore history."  I'm perfectly fine with "be Rapunzel, and don't be a thief or a kidnapper."

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Warm enough (Downton Abbey fanfic)

Warning: spoilers for the entire series, both in the fic and the postscript.

"Are you warm enough?"

"I am when you're holding my hand."

As I approach, bearing the salver in my hand, carefully balanced, just so - slightly canted so that the letter remains in the proper position - I will right it just as I present it - I worry.

Yes, I am Carson - Mr Carson, butler of Downton Abbey (silly telephone - I can't get my answering voice down in my head) - and it is my job to worry.  About cooks and housemaids bickering over storeroom keys.  About a valet who has developed from a limping nuisance to a quiet pillar, holding everything around him still whilst holding secrets locked deep within his heart - and only a certain gold-haired head housemaid seems to be able to unlock them.  Intrepid girl, that.

Oh, yes, but my worries - they extend much farther than simple duties of housekeeping.  After all, a butler's job is not merely to behave with dignity (met an interesting footman the other day - Stevens by name - who was rather obsessed by the word), but also the well-being of the family.

And this family requires worrying about in that respect at this moment.  Lady Mary - I know in the eyes of the world she has committed evil.  No doubt she is often wrong - her comments to her sisters are not quite the thing.  But when I think back to when she was tiny, in white skirts and tugging at my sleeve and whispering, "Carson, why must I?"  I, of course, responded, "Because your father says so."  Even then, though, a minute fraction of my soul wished to say, "You don't have to, dear."  Today, her spirit seemed almost broken - and yet, I will do everything I can to ensure it rises again.

But before me - this noble man and his beautiful wife - once a desperate, impoverished aristocrat, callously seeking a foreign fortune, and his bride, a lonely, brash, love-starved, loving girl - they are the centre of our world.  Mine, at least.  And right now, they are such a fragile centre.  I look at the connection between them - the hands held over the blanket covering her reclining form - and realize it's almost as if they are clinging desperately as they plummet off a cliff.  They smile, the sunlight falls like airy rain about them, cheerily ignorant to the fact that they have just lost...

Well, it's not worth dwelling on.  Suffice to say I look at my employer and I am never more worried in my life.

Yet I have never been prouder to serve this family either.

"You're lordship, this has just arrived for you."

Postscript (I'm reluctant to entitle this "Author's note" out of fear of presumption - the piece is pretentious enough as it is :-): I just finished the lovely (if suffering from an overly overt dialogue style, and perhaps too little attention to the passage of time) first series of the period drama Downton Abbey.  I was really taken with many of the characters - from the noble Lord and Lady of the Abbey, to their spoiled yet still somehow loveable first daughter Mary (who I expected to hate, but ended up feeling very strongly for, as her character underwent rape (in my opinion), betrayal, and first real love), to the hardworking and utterly brimming with integrity servants - especially the lovely Bates and Anna, scullery maid Daisy, and of course, stalward butler Carson.

When I finished the series I really had the urge to write a piece about it - partly because of my intense admiration and emotional investment in the characters, and partially because I watched the series knowing about the miscarriage.  Such an event is incredibly traumatic (and bravo to the writer, director, and actors for the scene of the Earl weeping - I wish we'd gotten a similar scene of the Countess, but we can't have everything, and it probably would have been redundant), and I can't help but read an intense, glass-like fragility to their smiles and handholding in the final scene.

I toyed with making it from the Earl's perspective, but I felt it would be too maudlin.  So I went with the butler, who already had great sympathy from me because of a) his wonderfully rich deep voice; b) his incredible skill as an actor; c) his previous appearance in Andrew Davies' The Way We Live Now (adapted from the novel by Trollope).  Astute period drama/literature fans will note the Remains of the Day joke I threw in there.

I hope it's enjoyable - and now I've gone and made the postscript nearly as long as the fic itself.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

This really tickled my fancy

  
Download now or listen on posterous

Every Breath You Take- Scala Kolacny Brothers.mp3 (4138 KB)

So, while learning about ITV's quite exciting looking new period drama (that just finished over there, here's to hoping it comes over here soon), I saw a trailer that had the most bizzare combination in music underscoring the lovely period details and wonderful British acting (and accents - okay, so I'm a shallow Minnesotan who thinks English accents are very fun to listen to, relatively regardless of what they're saying).

It was the song "Every Breath You Take," classic creepy stalker rock by the Police.

Except sung by an angelic sounding children's choir with gorgeous piano accompaniment.

I s'pose it's all to say something about how servants are always watching or something.  Or how these people are all on television, being watched.  But it really made me laugh.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

A Weird Experience

Watching "Creation," the recent film about Darwin, his family, and his
writing, must be an experience rather oddly unique to myself. On the
one hand, as one of the strictest creationists I know, the philosophy
of the film is baffling. T. H. Huxley, "Darwin's Bulldog," who speaks
more strongly about the consequences of evolution for religion, is
clearly one of the biggest jerks in the entire story (played with
clear zest by Toby Jones). The reverend friend of the Darwin family
is both urbane and intelligent (if a bit crusty) and inclined to
punish children sadistically (played subtly by Jeremy Northam). The
various ideologies which come in for pillaging include
colonialism/imperialism, quack medicine (though I think they
overplayed this), religious intolerance, and violent atheism. I'm
rather confused. The theory of evolution is clearly fact for the
story's purposes, but coming from a century where it has basically won
the minds of most viewers, the evidence for it is not laid out in any
convincing manner, requiring the faith of the believers to connect the
dots of god/the director.

The other half of me, the one that is constantly (and irritatingly)
analyzing style and skill, keeps cringing at the pointless use of
handheld camerawork, the rather unbelievable attention to avoiding
historical accuracy, the clumsy "important things are being said
importantly" dialogue, and the anvil-weighted ham-fisted metaphors.

I think this is a film I can truly label "incoherent," though it does
provide a touching look at the impact of a child's death on a family.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

A critical close reading of a review

I was reading one of my habitual blogs (blogs I check daily, of which there are about four), and came across a link to a review (http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2010/11/six_views_of_ne.shtml) with the following paragraph:

Of course, it's bad form to review a movie that might have been, but I can't help wishingNever Let Me Go were more carefully and deliberately a deconstruction of the sort of film associated most prominently with the Merchant Ivory production company. I don't know why this is, exactly—why I feel such antipathy toward such films as Howard's End and The Bostonians, among many others: films of quality that know themselves as films of quality, that fill their frames with the decor of quality, that garb their actors in the costumes of quality, that illuminate each scene with the light of quality (and not just Merchant Ivory films, either, for quality spreads, like a kudzu clone, to such twaddle as Atonement). Perhaps my aversion originates with an earlier Ishiguro adaptation, the Merchant Ivory productionRemains of the Day, which didn't merely narrow the source material, as Never Let Me Go has done, but mangled it, rendering its meanings into nonsense and sentiment.

I have three responses to this rather moronic series of assertions (albeit well written):

1) The vitriolic repetition of "quality" as an adjective of derision smacks of the sort of reverse snobbery which characterizes much of the literary criticism I abhor.  It's almost exactly what I'd expect a duke or snooty servant in the recent (and judgeing by the first episode, excellent) ITV series Downton Abbey to say of a hard working member of the working or middle classes.  And yet, because it's directed at just this sort of person - the kind that sees value in inherited traditions and order, in cleanness and structure - it's perfectly fine.  Certainly, traditions, inheritance, order, cleanness, and structure are often found cheek by jowl with exploitation, racism, nepotism, corruption, and other vile sins - but they are not transmuted versions of the same thing, just as hard working is not a transmutation of dirty, even though they are often found in conjunction.

2) The Remains of the Day, as adapted by Merchant-Ivory productions, is indeed a lesser work than the novel.  I find the adherence to screenwriting cliches, such as giving the protagonists' father misogyny and distance issues, annoying - and yet, the spare, cold style of filming matches Ishiguro's cold, spare prose style quite well.  The criticism here is completely out of proportion to the misdemeanors of the adaptation, which only commits the common folly of being a perfectly competent, lovely to look at adaptation of a greater novel.

3) The cut against Atonement is perhaps more justified, and yet seems even more thoughtless.  Though I find the film emotionally immature, disparaging the technical accomplishments of the film's visuals because they are an evolution of the "heritage" or "quality" film is akin to disparaging an author merely because they attempt at a distinctive style.  The attempt may end pretentiously - but that does not make the attempt itself unworthy, as the article contends.

All in all, I'd like to give a hearty "Badly done" to the reviewer.  One can be disapproving (and from what I hear, the film may deserve such disapprobation) of a member of a genre or style without making tastelessly offensive comments about the catagory itself.  Surely a reviewer for a science fiction site should know that better than most.

As a final note, I will say that I react so violently against this paragraph not merely because I found the films mentioned above (I've not yet seen Never Let Me Go) visually gorgeous, but also because this attitude tends to be the same as those who condemn the writing and adaptation of Jane Austen as trivial, relicts of a past which is happily dead, or just plain boring.  And that is an attitude I cannot but abhor with every fibre of my anglophilic (and orthographically silly) being.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Wow

My boss just came in to my workspace, and after giving me instructions, did a funny little dance to the tune of "It's your last day before a break" - I am amused and taken aback in equal measure.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Such stuff as dreams are made of

Sorry for the terribly obvious use of The Tempest, but what with my recent viewing of the trailer, my own experience as sound designer for my school's production, and the fact that I'm blogging about Inception, I felt it was okay.

After all, "terribly obvious" is my problem with the film.

(Oh, and yes, this post is spoilered out the wazoo.  Just to let you know.  If you don't want to know, do not read the blog.  I cannot emphasize this enough.  Just stop reading here if you don't want to be spoiled, because that's exactly what I'm going to do.)

Before I get to this point, I'd like to air my irritation at the air of "realism" which Nolan often wears (or perhaps is cast upon him - I don't necessarily want to blame him for something for which his fanboys are responsible).  To me, there is realism of presentation and realism of content.  The former is that, given the rules of the story's world (which may or may not be consistent with reality as we know it), the people and objects within the story behave consistently with what we know about reality.  The latter is that the events and people all could conceivably occur in the world as we know it.  The two are not related in any necessary way.  For instance, I could tell a story about talking fish which portrayed them as psychologically complex and interesting, "realistic" characters, despite the fact that fish don't talk or have personalities.  I could also tell a story about a boy and girl who meet and fall in love which contained no semblance of psychological, moral, or physical truth, despite their world resembling on a superficial level the one in which we all reside.  (Er, that is, Finding Nemo is more realistic than How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days).

Inception (and The Dark Knight/Batman Begins, and most of Nolan's work in general) is hailed by critics and the cast (I'm referring particularly to DiCaprio) as being "realistic" science fiction.  Except no one ever explains how a dream can be shared.  A dream isn't a virtual reality existing outside of heads.  Nor is it a fantasy dimension.  It's electrons in the brain.  And none of the chemical/wire-thingy briefcase handwaving Nolan pulls makes his dream sharing any more realistic than hyperspace, telekinesis, or artificial gravity.  There is no good reason for it other than "It lets me do cool things."

Now that that's out of the way, let me get to my point: the film's obviousness.

1) Hans Zimmer: I don't know if I've complained about him on this blog before, but I find his scores to be a combination of hideously stupid and moronically effective.  I do frequently listen to his score for Batman Begins, and enjoy occasionally listening to the Pirates of the Carribean scores, but generally feel kind of disgusted afterwards.  His limp melodies (unless helped by his everpresent ghostwriters or co-scorers), blaringly obvious harmonic progressions, ugly over-testosteroned electronic orchestration, and infuriatingly lazy repeated tricks combine to make his creative output generally feel like the same score, over and over and over again (though, to be fair, often his assigned movies are a similar lazy blend of messiness).  In Inception, he disappoints me not one whit - I hear no melodies, no interesting harmonies, no new tricks, nothing of any originality whatsoever.  It was like The Dark Knight, only with less sweetness from James Newton Howard.

2) Dialogue: One of the things which really angered me about The Prestige was the pretentious dialogue, comparing life and storytelling to magic tricks in a repeated and hamfisted Michael Caine speech.  Here, Leonardo DiCaprio gets his version of the speech, this time comparing life and storytelling to dreams.  I'm getting a pattern - Nolan love to talk in metafictional ways about what he's doing, and he's very bad at it.

3) Which leads me to my next subpoint in obviousness: dreams do not equal story.  For me, a dream is completely unconscious, while a story must be primarily consciously created, though our unconscious aids us in both creating and interpreting it.  Neil Gaiman makes a similar comparison in his otherwise strong comic series The Sandman, and having seen and wrestled with Inception finally gave me my epiphany why I react so negatively to this concept. (This idea is discussed well here: http://wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2010/07/inception.html, and http://wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2010/07/inception-further-thoughts.html)

4) Emotional manipulations: many have complained about the ending, but I feel Nolan tends to play this kind of game even in the beginnings of his films - where he throws in a bit of a climax of the movie at the front end, and then jumps about.  It's like the Twilight books (and much as I enjoy those, I would never claim they are well written, so it's not a compliment) or J. J. Abrams (who I dislike more and more every time I watch something he's done).  This works in Memento (which I still believe is Nolan's best film) because that's the whole point of the film, but it feels lazy and out of place when done in this and other films Nolan's done.

5) Characters used for exposition rather than character: what it says on the tin.  I know the world is Deep and Complex, man, but seriously, do you have to make the dialogue explaining it so lifeless and personality-free?  And so boringly obvious?

6) Plot happens because it happens: which is also my biggest artistic (as opposed to moral) complaint against The Dark Knight (which is another post altogether).  Why don't they all wake up when the van rolls?  Why does a kick have two components, which is only stated when it's convenient?  How are dreams shared?  What is this mysterious sedative unknown to science which knocks you out all the way for years, but leaves your balance intact?  Why is there so much handwaving?  Answer: because it looks cool and/or sets up later plot/structural events.  My response: yes, but not cool enough to justify the holes you're leaving.

I will say, as a major point in the film's favor, that the acting (even Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page, both of whom I'm strongly predisposed to really dislike) was quite good, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt was particularly fine as the straightlaced security expert.  Just imagine him as Neo, and you understand a bit of what The Matrix might have been with someone who was a bit less, um, wooden.  Though honestly, The Matrix's dialogue makes Nolan's sledgehammers feel like tiny elfy hammers.  So it might not have made a difference.

Also, for all my complaining about the characters above, Arthur, Cobb, and Ariadne are quite likeable - loyal, smart, and caring.  I just wish they didn't act so stupid most of the time.

Nolan does seem to have an obsession with storytelling, particularly in Inception and The Prestige.  Unfortunately, his hamhandedness (particularly in dialogue) tends to really ruin any kind of profundity, and the movies come off as incredibly pretentious to me.  All in all, Inception was better than I expected, but still confirms me in my opinion that the third Batman film, and all future Nolan projects, will be approached with very low expectations indeed.

Now, I'm fairly sure that many people, if they ever read this blog (and I'm also aware that very very few people will read it) will consider Inception an amazing, awesome movie (as Orson Scott Card did here: http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2010-07-18.shtml, to my disappointment - but then, he also loved Star Trek, so I should really not be too surprised - I just remember that he also pointed me to/shares my love of some of my favorite films, including getting me to watch both Peter Pan and Serenity, and loving A Man For All Seasons and Jane Austen).  And they will see this blog as thinking way too hard about a story that's just awesome.  But I must say - a story is important to us because it shapes the way we look at the world (which is one thing I think Nolan was right in attempting to grasp the concept of Inception), and therefore we should respect the filmmaker who tries to challenge us to think about what he's saying.  I've attempted to give Mr. Nolan that respect while strongly disagreeing with his conclusions and methods.  His (and all stories, really) deserves better than a simple "way cool, made me think" response, whether we agree or not.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

A Parcel of reviewlets and news

So, here are several short reviews and bits of news from my weekend.

1) I finally finished The House on Durrow Street by Galen Beckett (pseudonym).  Two years ago, after reading Orson Scott Card's glowing review of The Magicians and Mrs. Quent, I was mildly excited about this sequel.  As the years passed, however, my enthusiasm cooled a bit, and I think that when the next book comes out in the series, I will be torn as to whether it's worth the time and energy to slog through it (it took me about two weeks to finish it, when I finished two other books in two days the week I started it).  Three things of note:

a) The writing is competent, but still nothing like Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.  Beckett's attempt to play with the styles, tropes, figures, and references of classic English literature and history are cute, such as the nice touch about the old king trying to get his young princess secured as his heir in a clear reference to the Victoria succession in 1820s England (though here the country is called "Altania," clearly a Regency/Victorian England clone).

b) While the first book owed its plot to a fairly naked rip of elements from Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, The Turn of the Screw, Jane Eyre, and Oliver Twist, this book turns to the pulpy gothic type novels of the end of the Victorian era - the Cthulu mythos seems to be a big inspiration.  At least, I assume it is, as I've not read them, but the plot is basically a carbon copy of the Mass Effect franchise, which from everything I've read is a carbon copy of the Cthulu stories.

c) Hints of political themes, such as character sexuality and anti-religious sentiments, which appeared in the first novel become rather annoying central to this volume.

All in all, it's a series I will probably continue to follow, but with considerably less enthusiasm.

2) Film Noirs: The Third Man is a real disappointment.  A grim and taut story, with amazing camerawork and a tour-de-force of a performance by Orson Welles (for all of 10 minutes - and he owns the film with that amount of time) - and the soundtrack sounds like a luau.  Though I'm told it's not a ukulele, but a zither.  A film major friend says it's an aesthetic choice, an exercise in contrast.  All I can say is that contrast should be like a spice - used to season a story, not deliberately thumb your nose at your audiences' emotional reactions.  Because I hated it.  Though Welles, the camerawork, and the ending (talk about romatic burn - so classic for film noir) are very, very nice, the music is horrific.

3) Screwball Noirs: The Thin Man - delightful, if a bit silly.  What happens when you combine the energy and romantic interaction of Adam's Rib or Bringing Up Baby with the dark and sinister world of The Third Man or The Big Sleep.  And throw in some rather bad secondary acting, first-rate performances by the two leads, a dog I could have done without, and a whole lot of drinking (made me go out and make juice cocktails) (yes, I'm suggestible.  Sue me ;-), and you have a very fun film.

4) Risk party - this Saturday, a friend of mine and I finally threw the party we'd been planning all semester (and had been percolating in my mind when we had a similar party last semester, playing Lord of the Rings Risk).  Normally, I don't like Risk, being very bad at it.  But I very much enjoy the role-playing elements offered by the variant editions, such as Risk 2210 (a truly delightful hard science fiction game with incredibly well thought through rules), Star Wars: The Clone Wars Risk, Lord of the Rings Risk, and the brand new Risk Reinvention from 2009.  All of them tend to be more strategic than slugging matches of troop buildups (which is what most games of Risk seem to end in when I watch or play, and bores/horrifies me from a military perspective).  So, we got together about 12-15 people, got together around 10 am, and played Risk until 6.  Well, the Lord of the Rings game was still going at that time, but I assume they cut it off sometime soon after.  I hope.  We managed to play one round of Risk Reinvention, one round of Clone Wars Risk (which I won through a series of very lucky die rolls during the pivotal execution of Order 66 - sorry Joseph and Bruce - you had me dead to rights), and two rounds of Risk 2210.  My buddy's mom hosted the party, and allowed me to help make one of three delicious soup/stews I feasted upon this weekend (Friday - another friend's sister's pork stew; Saturday - my Risk party friend's mom's delicious sausage/beef broth/tortellini soup; Sunday - yet another friend's mom's heartbreakingly lovely beer-beef stew - sweet and savory and rich - to make your heart melt from your tongue's bliss - wow, talk about purple prose - but it was just sooo tasty).  I brought four loaves of bread, there was pop, and much food and drink was consumed by all.  Perhaps a bit more people than I'm fully comfortable with, but tis my own fault, and I am glad to have the problem of more friends than I know what to do with than not enough.

Oh, and I also had the nerdy pleasure of making up a soundtrack for the games: Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, The Clone Wars, and Republic Commando scores for the Clone Wars Risk, the three Lord of the Rings and Dragon Age: Origins scores for Lord of the Rings Risk, and Mass Effect 1 and 2 and Firefly and Serenity scores for Risk 2210.  I thought it was awesome, especially as the Lord of the Rings music kept getting epic during intense battles, and when I called Order 66, Revenge of the Sith started up the dark defeat battle music.  Providentially appropriate - even the trivial things. :-)

5) Renaissance Festival, part deux (because I went with a girl of French descent): my first experience at the Maryland RennFest was a large disappointment, despite the valiant efforts of the friend who invited me.  The truncated time, rather impolite behavior of our ride, and my own high expectations combined with ignorance of what to do at the Festival resulted in a rather sad day (though my buddy did take me home, feed me, and let me win at Catan Cities and Knights afterwards - so the evening ended in joy for me - oh, and I bought Beauty and the Beast for 15 bucks that night too).  This time, though, I woke up at 7:30 today, got gas, and drove down to Maryland, joining a party of five lovely young ladies (I'm not sure, but I think most of them are younger than I), who all had been to the Festival before.  After bedecking me with a nice fluffy shirt, vest, and cavalier hat, we set off.  One of the ladies let me swish about her cloak for the day, making me even happier.  Starting the day off by spending several seconds in the stocks for Heresy (oh, yiss, I deny that Transubstantiation alright :-), and quickly moving on to knife throwing (freaking two young ladies out by flipping the very dull knives about in my hands and catching them by their blades before I threw them - oh, and I got two to stick, which is better than I thought I'd do) and axe throwing (which I didn't get any to stick, but it was okay because it was all very exciting, wearing a stupid hat and throwing a five pound stick), the day began extremely well.  We then wandered about the grounds, seeing elephants, jousting, juggling, whilst munching on the loaf of bread and sticks of cheese and three water bottles I'd brought (I have foresight, I say - plus, I didn't want to spend another seven bucks on the turkey leg that was tasty but waaaay overpriced - not to mention the two bucks for a medium fountain drink).  And, of course, speaking most wretchedly forsoothly - I fear we muchly murdered the Queen's good English.  After much anticking, great conversation, and being generally tired out, we capped the day off with two very funny parodies of Shakespeare by the Shakespeare Scum players.  Quite a good show.  All in all, a wonderful time.  And now, instead of being rather saddened about the whole RennFest, I'm looking forward to going again, perhaps next time to the one in Minnesota with friends and family!

Well, that's my weekend.  Disparate, social, and silly silly silly.  But oh so much fun.  And full of delicious soup.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Vampires, Wulfs, and Catholic Jews...yeah, not sure about that last myself

Review of "Insatiable," by Meg Cabot (author of "The Princess Diaries" and buddy of Tamora Pierce - the latter is the reason I gave her a chance, not the former)

So, I like things to come in threes.  And so this is the second of three planned reviews of new books I'm writing this week (or, at least, I'm hoping to write a third this week, if I can finish the book - "The House on Durrow Street" by "Galen Becket" (pseud.) - the first of which was "I Shall Wear Midnight" by Terry Pratchett (not pseud.)).  So far, Meg Cabot's first-to-be-read-by-me novel (definitely for adults, given the rather hard-PG-13/soft-R rating it should carry for sexuality and violence, though not language) is my favorite of the three.  Where "I Shall Wear Midnight" was over-preachy, tiredly repetetive of the author's favorite "evil religion" cliches, and not very funny, and "The House on Durrow Street" is proving to be unfortunately political and rather unpromising (read "I'm trying to find another word that's reminiscent of dull but isn't because it's actually interesting in a way that makes me think it will disappoint me") (goodness I'm in a paranthetical mood), "Insatiable" is a funny, competently-written, well-structured, nicely characterized, sadly politically predictable, and brilliantly satirical take on the modern craze for romanticized vampires.  It's also very, very appropriate for me particularly given that:

1) today I finished "Dracula" for the first time, and also read "Insatiable" from cover to cover;

2) Hate vampires, but love "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (the tv series, NOT the comics that are coming out for the past two years) and enjoy the "Twilight" series (books and films);

3) really love the writing of Cabot's good buddy Tamora Pierce, who writes feminist fantasy lit which allows me to understand the workings behind both the critique of "Twilight" and "True Blood" exposited by Cabot and the positioning and construction of the heroine.

The first is appropriate since "Insatiable" features as it's "hero" (vampire lover dude prince of darkness dragon transmorpher thing) is Dracula's son  He is also a really, really funny, subtle, and well-done satire on Edward Cullen - neither completely idiotic and contempt-driven, as too many "Twilight" parodies lazily present, nor merely silly, but someone who has the guilt complex of an Angel (from Buffy, not the Victorian female icon, silly) and yet is incredibly possessive, jealous, protective, etc - and still isn't whlly evil, as he hates the killing and parasitism his kind inflicts, and orders all vampires to cease when he rules them.  I was very impressed at Cabot's complex presentation, while still convulsed with laughter at her so-accurate skewering.  This, my Twi-hater friends, is how it really should be done.

The second allows me to appreciate not only that very skewering (vampires are indeed misogynist monsters), but also the interesting parody of the vampire slayer idea and the book's very clear take on Bella Swan.  The former are mostly non-Catholics hired by the Pope (there are, so far, one gay guy, one Jewish agnostic, and one atheistic hedonist) to kill vampires.  And the last of those three is named Alaric Wulf.  Yup.  And I'm ashamed that I only caught the implications (by which I mean Jacob Black-plications) of the last ten pages from the end.  I have much shame at this fact.  Anyway, back to the book's Bella (here called Meena Harper, with a brother named Jon(athan) - both take-offs on the husband and wife of Bram Stoker's novel) has the same type of selfless hero-complex that Bella does, but without the radical insecurity.  Additionally, she has Sookie Stackhouse's psychic gifts (though they're rather more limited, only allowing her to see how a person will die if they don't heed her advice) (or maybe those are stolen from Alice Cullen?).  All of this (plus the portrayal of the vampire hero, as mentioned above) is done affectionately but firmly, rather than the mean-spirited, shallow, and ephemeral parodies and spoofs which I've read and seen so far of the current obsession with vampires.

About the third I think I've basically summed up everything already.  So I'll only add this: My professor, in our class discussion today, called "Dracula" (and I quote): "a cheesy piece of literature."  Which statement I agree with exactly.  It's the Dan Brown or Michael Crichton airport bestseller of 1897 - with it's nerdy technology (telegraphs! phonograph journals!) and wacky technology (blood transfusions from anyone to anyone!) and crazy ideas about how the world works (indulgences for future sin! non-Catholics using holy water and the Host!) - not to mention the rather mediocre prose style.  Ugh.  I don't want to hear how the Texan dude said something laconically ever again.  Makes me glad he died.  Now he's seriously laconic.  I mean, if someone's laconic, don't tell me that when he's babbling on at the mouth.  Just have him, you know, not say stuff.

So there you have it folks - this is a Twilight satire I can recommend to both my Twilight-loving and hating friends.  And that is no mean feat.

And I type all this while listening to my complete score collection from the Twilight films.  Oh, yes.  I have no shame about this whatsoever.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Midnight falls

A review of "I Shall Wear Midnight," a YA Fantasy/humor book by Terry Pratchett.

After three fairly major conversations, a long day of work and then socializing (in which I was sleepy in a meeting, trounced at Risk, and fed tasty noodle dishes), I don't have the energy to really do a step-by-step, prepared blog post (starting with the research/brainstorming phase, moving to the drafting phase, then rereading and recasting and rewriting, and finally getting to the blog).  So instead, I'm going to limit myself to three bullet points (which I shall, just because, represent with numbers).

1) Pratchett's moral philosophy is a curious combination of exciting and infuriating to me.  On the one hand, I adore his Tiffany Aching series (of which this is the fourth, and possibly the final book) for presenting the witch/magician as a public servant - someone who has special powers which not only do not make her special, but actually one who serves others without much reward.  Unlike Star Wars or Harry Potter (the former I like, the latter I don't), Tiffany Aching is not an elite Jedi or wizard who looks down on the Muggles of the world who can't become invisible or hear what people are thinking.  Instead, she tirelessly (but realistically - often feeling quite grumpy or complaining or making mistakes) tries to make peoples' lives just a little better.  And here we get to a niggling moral problem I have with the book.  Because Tiffany does not merely make peoples' lives minutely better, she also makes their deaths minutely less worse.  Which I am all for - I am incredibly grateful for the grace of anesthetic.  However (and here I may be reading into the series based on outside knowledge), I feel like Pratchett is here using a YA book to lay emotional groundwork for the legitimacy of euthenasia, which is a cause he has celebrated in the past two years since being diagnosed with Alzheimers.  My own complicated feelings on his personal position leading to moral positions I cannot sympathize with lead me to a complicated feeling on the book.  He paints real pictures, yes, but is he being fair?  My own reaction is that no, he is not, but how much can I blame him?  This lack of condoning or condemning does not lead to my appreciating the book as appropriate for recommendation, however.

2) Tiffany's series, being about a witch, naturally deals with Pratchett's own take on witchcraft in history.  Being a staunch atheistic humanist, he a) does not believe that witches ever really existed as people who used demonic power; b) thinks that anyone who did so was evil; c) nonetheless likes using ancient tropes and figures to construct his fantasy/science fiction satires.  As a result, he presents witches as scientists - people of extraordinary common sense who see what others cannot because they are too busy living.  But since he believes that witches never existed, he uses the witches of his series (who really do use magic, though not evil) to lambast people who represent religion, without seeming to realize that he is being contradictory by presenting a the figure of a witch as a critique to their persecutors, gifting the witch with the very powers which would be the ultimate proof of those persecutors' beliefs, and assuming that such powers never exist in our own "real" world all simultaneously.

3) As Abigail Nussanbaum noted in her review of the last book in the series, "Wintersmith" (http://wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2006/11/wintersmith-by-terry-pratchett.html), the plots of Pratchett's novels have been growing steadily more and more recycled.  While I was not nearly as critical of "Winstersmith" as she was, I do think the critique is fairly aimed at "I Shall Wear Midnight," who features a villain being a historical story/person being animated by collective belief into a force of pure evil (naturally connected to religion) which tries to possess people and make them hurt each other.  Which is exactly the same as not only "Thud!" (one of my very favorite Discworld novels ever), "Men At Arms," "Moving Pictures," "Soul Music," and a few other books in the 30-plus series, but also the second book in the Tiffany Aching sub-series.  When you start recycling plots from books in the very same-subseries (which is only four books long), I think that even my tolerance for non-originality is starting to fray.

Overall rating: decent but disappointing.  Combines the annoying thinness and arbitrariness of the early books with the philosophical/political moral hammers of the later books without the freshness of the former or the depth of the latter.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Regarding television projects, Claire Foy related

I finally got a chance to watch Going Postal, the new adaptation from Terry Pratchett's very popular Discworld series of British fantasy/satire.  On the whole, I thought it was a pleasant 3 hours of miniseries, with standout performances from costume drama regulars Charles Dance and, of course, Claire Foy.  Some points of interest:

1) Claire Foy, in a role nearly the polar opposite of Amy Dorrit, plays the love interest/co-protagonist Adora Belle Dearhart in a classic film noir femme fatale style, with stern black dress, extremely cool double bun hair, long cigarette holder, and occasionally either a smile or a riding crop (but not both simultaneously).

2) The direction and scriptwriting is a huge step up from the previous two adaptations in this series, Hogfather and The Colour of Magic, probably because they got a new writing team and director (Jon Jones, who did quite solid work in 2007's Northanger Abbey).  The previous director seemed to think that every line called for a silent reaction shot, with the end result being a 90-minute story with 90 minutes of reaction shots.

3) The adaptation, for all the "here's how the world works for the uninitiated" expository dialogue, really felt "for Discworld fans primarily."  There wasn't enough affection or tension built up for me, so that I felt if I hadn't read and loved the book, I wouldn't have cared as much about the story or characters (other than Claire Foy, of course).  That being said, I think it's hilarious to watch a literary fandom discover the world of film adaptation for the first time.  People on the message boards and newletters are complaining that "they left this/that/the other out" and "the casting was all wrong."  As someone whose fandoms have been adapted since the 1940s, at the very latest, I laugh at these quibbles.  I think the real problem with the adaptation was not a lack of respect for the original material.  In the first place, Pratchett's books require a fair amount of alteration to work in visual terms - there is so much worldbuilding in the narration, not to mention character backstory and thought processes.  Furthermore, the whimsical nature of the stories and themes lends itself well to the kind of restructuring that goes on in even the most slavish of adaptations.  The real problem was an intermittently leaden script (oh, what I wouldn't give for Andrew Davies to script one of these - I think he'd have a field day).

4) With David Suchet as the villainous capitalist Reacher Gilt, I was caught by the similarities of the plot to The Way We Live Now (starring Suchet in a nearly identical, if more civilized, role) and Little Dorrit.  However, I was disappointed that the subtlety and intelligence of the character had been ditched for bumbling viciousness.  I prefer my villainous capitalists to have minions to do their dirty work - I think it makes them more believable and imposing,  Additionally, as this particular Discworld story was deliberately satirizing the Victorian postal system (the book even uses the old-fashioned chapter summaries), the Dickensian/Trollopeian world, now with added magic! was a lot of fun.

All this to say, it's gone of my list of DVDs to buy (mostly because it's Claire Foy and Dickensian and decently directed), and I hope it's available here in the states soon (it won't be out even in the UK on DVD till August, and no word on the US release).

In other news, the second issue of five in Marvel's comic book adaptation of Sense and Sensibility is out this morning, and I walked to the comic store to get my copy.  Well worth it, though I was afraid Marianne's rain would overwhelm me and cause my poor paper book much distress.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

On Jane Austen, in comparison with bestsellers and blockbusters

People say nothing happens in Jane Austen's novels, or that what does
happen is predictable or trivial (or as a subset of the former, the
same events half a dozen times). However, when compared to the
soulless parasitism employed by original and complex high-concept
bestsellers such as Jasper Fforde's works, or the exciting-event rich
plots of blockbusters directed by the likes of Michael Bay or the
Wachowskis, the true core of Jane Austen's genius appears. The
characters do not have new or exciting lives - but they have lives
which are utterly driven by their characters, which characters are not
only believable, but admirable and loveable. All actions flow from
character and yet demonstrate intensely moral, true, and beautiful
themes, instead of relying on my sick attempts to imbue shallow shells
of character with value, depth, and meaning. In Jane Austen, I see
people as they are - fallen and foolish, but retaining the most
important aspects of being human - the image and love of God.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Ian Miller wants to chat

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Ian Miller wants to stay in better touch using some of Google's coolest new
products.

If you already have Gmail or Google Talk, visit:
http://mail.google.com/mail/b-85c3e4d87-073c4169d6-13aa9def93dcb83a
You'll need to click this link to be able to chat with Ian Miller.

To get Gmail - a free email account from Google with over 2,800 megabytes of
storage - and chat with Ian Miller, visit:
http://mail.google.com/mail/a-85c3e4d87-073c4169d6-13aa9def93dcb83a

Gmail offers:
- Instant messaging right inside Gmail
- Powerful spam protection
- Built-in search for finding your messages and a helpful way of organizing
emails into "conversations"
- No pop-up ads or untargeted banners - just text ads and related information
that are relevant to the content of your messages

All this, and its yours for free. But wait, there's more! By opening a Gmail
account, you also get access to Google Talk, Google's instant messaging
service:

http://www.google.com/talk/

Google Talk offers:
- Web-based chat that you can use anywhere, without a download
- A contact list that's synchronized with your Gmail account
- Free, high quality PC-to-PC voice calls when you download the Google Talk
client

We're working hard to add new features and make improvements, so we might also
ask for your comments and suggestions periodically. We appreciate your help in
making our products even better!

Thanks,
The Google Team

To learn more about Gmail and Google Talk, visit:
http://mail.google.com/mail/help/about.html
http://www.google.com/talk/about.html

(If clicking the URLs in this message does not work, copy and paste them into
the address bar of your browser).

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Three flawed directors who still make me love film

(Note: these directors and movies are not films I qualify as the best of all time.  They are films that, at three in the morning, make me joyful that film was invented so that such beauty could come into the world, fallen though it is)

Brad Bird: his visual sensibilities (found in his character and production design), commitment to quality both in technical (the textures, details, and smoothness of his animation), writing (the sheer intelligence and connectedness of his scripts, no matter how zany or improbable his concepts), and powerful characterizations in The Iron Giant, Ratatouille, and above all, The Incredibles.

M. Night Shyamalan: I believe his scriptwriting developed uphill until Signs, then started a rapid downward turn which steepens every movie afterwards (we'll see about Last Airbender).  However, in The Village, despite the horrifyingly grating writing and screechingly artificial direction (especially of poor William Hurt, who I hated for years after I saw the film until I finally saw him in things he was natural in, such as Dark City or Jane Eyre), there are two things in this gaspingly flawed movie that yet make me love film: Ivy's character and love for Lucius (due mostly to the incredible Bryce Dallas Howard), and the framing, colors, textures (oh, the textures - I feel the images as much as see them) of the cinematography.

Joe Wright: his direction and conceptions of his characters are profoundly immature; his interviews and personal behavior careening from loutish to priggishly arrogant.  His films also are deteriorating (The Soloist and Atonement were interesting, but mostly in their failures, I believe).  However, his ability to capture beauty, isolation, clarity, and incredibly powerful extended takes stays with my heart when I think of why I care about the medium so deeply.

  
Download now or listen on posterous

02 Mr. Huph Will See You Now.wma (1503 KB)

05 Will You Help Me by James Newton Howard  
Download now or listen on posterous

5. Will You Help Me.mp3 (1460 KB)

Liz On Top Of The World by Pride & Prejudice  
Download now or listen on posterous

09-liz_on_top_of_the_world_192_lame_cbr_ex.mp3 (1979 KB)

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Rage

This.

On repeat.

All.  The.  Way.  Up.

Oh, and apparently reading Georgette Heyer as a guy is gender-bending?  It made my professor happy.

Also, not sure if I like Rage or Fury better.  Ire is good, but not raw sounding enough. Irate isn't an abstract quality.  Iration isn't a word.  Wrath.  That's a good one.

And the internet hates me.  That's fine.  I hate it reciprocally.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Shudder...ugh!

I  love rain.  Well, not so much while driving or biking, or while trying to get to class, but the smell just before, the wandering about in it (either very nice and moody or cheerful and happy - think of either any rain/cry scene in a movie or "Singing in the Rain" and that's me).

But walking after dark after rain...when the worms are all on the sidewalk, and you think they're sticks but they move...and then the light catches them and they're all slimy.

Just...ugh...

DO NOT WANT!!!!!

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Burning Lightwell

2010

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

So

yeah

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

A brilliant video

Found this on Orson Scott Card's blog today (www.hatrack.com):

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

A day at the Peiffers!

So: 10:30 am - leave to cook lunch (Korean BBQ burgers and rice) - tons of fun - marinate and form burgers, make rice, get the charcoal coaling, shoot airsoft guns at trees

12:30ish - eat eat eat yay yum mmm full!

2pm - Zach Malone and Joseph Rossell arrive and we all play Lord of the Rings Risk (unfortunately, the incomplete 2002 version, but still a lot of fun)

6:30pm - short break for chicken nugget and fries dinner

8:00pm - Zach and Aaron, the forced of Good, crush Joseph and I, the forces of Orcness and Wraithness and Trollness.  Much weeping and gnashing of teeth - but we put up a good fight.  Just a few unfortunate things occurred - from die rolls, to card shuffles, to beginning placements - not sure there is a lot we could have done about it.  Lots of fun.

8-10pm - discussion over cake and ice cream about BBC costume dramas and other literary movies - much fun had comparing actors (Rosamund Pike from P&P 2005 and Wives and Daughters especially praised).

10pm (nowish) Home, James!  To blog!

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

I love goo gone

Static by Thomas Newman  
Download now or listen on posterous

35 Static.mp3 (2415 KB)

Just remembered to avail myselfs of this wonderful yellow solvent for the unsightley stickiness on the bottom of my new water bottle.  Said bottom of bottle is now beautifully white and pretty.  Sort of like my floors, which I just cleaned, and my dishes, likewise.

Music is to fit mood, which is wistful.  And hungry (will probably fix that once I've walked to campus and back).

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Meme from Dickensblog!

(picture: Claire Foy, titular star of "Little Dorrit (2008)")

Normally I don't do these.  But I felt like it today!

Which Dickens character are you secretly in love with?

No secret - it's Amy Dorrit (Little Dorrit)!  Though I'm also a big fan of Bella Wilfer (Our Mutual Friend).

Which Dickens character would you most like to be?

Hmmm - probably Arthur Clennam (Little Dorrit), or perhaps John Jarndyce (Bleak House).

Which Dickens character do you think most resembles you?

Perhaps Nicholas Nickleby, wandering aimlessly through life and losing his temper at perceive injustices.  Or Scrooge, misanthrope extraordinaire (with a somewhat sympathetic backstory, and a redemption).

Which Dickens book have you read the most times?

A Christmas Carol.  Someday, though, I hope it will be Little Dorrit (but it takes a bit more time).

How old were you when you read your first Dickens book?

Probably about 8 or 10.

What is the worst Dickens book you've read?

I am really not a fan of A Tale of Two Cities, though I really should reread it, as I read it before I fell in love with Dickens as an author.

What is the best Dickens book you've read?

Little Dorrit, without hesitation.  I adore the love story, and the double climax structure.  Though I have to say, despite its characterizational flaws, I recently read and loved Hard Times.

What Dickens book would you most like to see made into a new movie and/or miniseries?

Dunno - I tend to read the books when the miniseries gets my attention.  I'm not really thrilled with any of the Oliver Twist adaptations, but there has been too many of them recently.  Though I wish Andrew Davies' Dombey and Son project hadn't gotten canned - it might have gotten me to read the book sooner.

What Dickens book would you least like to see made into a new movie and/or miniseries?

A Tale of Two Cities.  Because I just don't care.  Or Little Dorrit - because it just got made absolutely heartbreakingly beautifully, and I can't imagine it being done better, so it would only get worse.

What is the most difficult Dickens book you've read?

Dunno.  I'm still stuck in the middle of Nicholas Nickleby, Bleak House, and Our Mutual Friend - but not because they're difficulty, because I have school readings.

What is your desert island Dickens book?

Little Dorrit.  Again, without hesitation.  Sorry to be such a scratched record, but that's what is true for me.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Update on "Ironically" substitute

I've now decided that "paradoxically" can be used in addition to "incongruously" as a substitute for the much abused "ironically."  Paradox and incongruity are more accurately describing the "outcome being opposite to the desire of the outcome-ee" than "ironically" - which is a verbal phenomenon in which the intent of the speaker is opposite of the literal or denotative meaning of the words said (most obvious example being sarcasm).

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Rrrr

So, the whole exercise thing?  It isn't my knee that has been affected this time: it's my stupid neck.  Yay for not being able to move past about 40 degrees in either direction, and feeling like an old, old, stiff, creaky person with aches and pains.  I'm only 23, yo!

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

I'm crazy!!!

Yup - basketball and fencing and walking like a fiend.  I am just waiting for my knee to snap.  Oh, boy.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Hmmm

On Google Buzz when I view a profile, it says of (name redacted) "You are following (name redacted).  Unfollow!!!!!!  (name recacted) is also following you.  Block (name redacted)!!!!!!" (Emphasis and punctuation added ;-).

But seriously, it seems awfully sad that the options to cut someone out of your life are so gleefully supplied next to the indicators that they are important to you.  Like someone who came up to you and said, "Hey, you're friends with (name redacted), right?  Why don't you stop being friends with that loser?"  (chuckling evilly)  "Or perhaps you could stop (name redacted) having contact with you ever and lock (name redacted) in the dungeon of the cold shoulder!!!!!" (full fledged evil laugh represented by some variation on "Muahahahahaha," as my littlest sister likes to do).

(Redactor's note: the author of the above wants to inform the one or two people who are still reading his pathetic ramblings that italics, which the fine redactor of this piece has substituted for the uncouth all caps of his original intent, are not nearly as satisfying to the soul.  The redactor, in all modesty, wishes to note that while italics are indeed less expressive, they are also more specifically less expressive of offensiveness and little wit.  Take that, author of the piece.)

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Challenge

Can you name a movie you enjoyed thoroughly (that's 3-5 on a 5 star scale, with 1 being "hated", 3 being "enjoyable but fluffy/OK", and 5 being "loved deeply and passionately") and would watch again today from the following time frames (movies only, not television movies or miniseries, as much as I love those):

1. the last two yearsf (2008-2010)?

2. five years ago (2001-2005)?

3. ten years ago (1991-2000)?

4. twenty years ago (1981-1990)?

5. thirty years ago (1970-1980)?

6. fifty years ago (1960-1970)?

The point of the challenge will be revealed within a couple of days. :-)

My own answers:

1. Gran Torino (2008)

2. The Incredibles (2004)

3. Twelfth Night (1996)

4. The Princess Bride (1987)

5. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

6. A Man For All Seasons (1966)

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

PIZZA!

Tonight: around 8 pizzas were made, four of which I made, two of which I both made the crust and topped it (homemade crust, peppers, onions, and pepperoni, store-bought base, sausage, chicken, and pepperoni, store-bought base, sausage and onions, and pepperoni, and homemade crust and pepperoni).  The others were, as I recall, a pepperoni and onions and garlic and sundried tomatoes on a nonrising homemade crust, a chicken pizza (as in, shaped like a chicken, with chicken, corn, peppers, and who knows what else - oh, and no cheese) on homemade crust (that I made but did not roll), store-bought crust having to be cut in half because it was stretched into the shape of the USA with peppers and onions on one half, the same plus pepperoni on the other, another store-bought crust with pretty much the same on it, and a sad pizza that didn't get taken out in time (sorry, Hannah!) with pepperoni and peppers and maybe onions and garlic.  Let's see, I think that's eight.  There might have been more.

I love making pizza.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Tell me, Doctor, what ails me

"Well, madam, I'm afraid the news is bad."

"What do I have, Doctor?  Is it serious?"

"What you have is invariably fatal."

"Oh, no!  What is it? Is there any hope?"

"I think not.  You have a serious case of...Victorian Novel Disease.  Your death serves narrative function."

"Noooooooooooooooooooo!"

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

A quote I thought was good:

George Bernard Shaw, on Keat's bad lines:

"Even his worst lines...have nothing minor about them; they are not poor would-be lines: they are brazenly infamous, like Shakespear's" (sic).

Seriously?  I want to be brazenly infamous!  Unluckily, I'm most likely to be merely irritatingly pedantic.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Emma and Gwen (and more of that RL)

  
Download now or listen on posterous

The Collapse of Laputa Version 4 - Choir.mp3 (2017 KB)

So, my favorite actress is Romola Garai, who has played both Gwendolen Harleth in Daniel Deronda, and Emma Woodhouse in Emma.  When I first watched Daniel Deronda, I thought "That Gwen would make a fantastic Emma - she's spoiled, beautiful, intelligent, talented but doesn't develop her talent and submit to anything requiring patience or industry, and must mature by the end of the story."  Imagine my delight (no, I really skipped from the computer store in the mall I worked back to my job from which I was on my break the day I found out that she'd been cast) when my fancy proved prophetic, and Romola played Emma absolutely brilliantly in the recent BBC miniseries.  However, despite the fact that those two performances inspired me to do a paper this semester exploring the influence of Austen's Emma on Eliot's Gwen, while rewatching bits of Emma the other night, I realized something.  Romola is a classical English actor - and despite the fact that she doesn't radically change her looks from performance to performance, she creates entirely different characters with subtle facial expressions and all the other aspects that go into making a performance.

I want to take a film class, just so I can use technical terms to talk about what I now only have English terms and my own fumblings about in the field to say.  Even disregarding the manic quality of Romola's performance as Emma contrasted with the reserve in her Gwen, there's a brittleness to Gwen that Emma is totally lacking.  While Gwen shows some moments of pleasure, in singing and hunting, there's always a sense of guilt, or unease, or just plain unhappiness.  Emma, on the other hand, radiates vigor, happiness, fun, joy, purity, and love (even in her most immature, cruel, or foolish moments).  There are expressions Romola has as Gwen you can never see in her Emma, and vice versa.  I desperately want to be able to describe such things in terms that are precise and disciplined - discussing the way director Tom Hooper's use of classical framing, low angles, wide lenses, and set pieces of astonishing splendour and clarity (which would give way to rather annoying handheld jerkiness and muddiness in the later, more acclaimed John Adams), or the actor choices of Romola's posture, body language, positioning, head tilts, and quirks of mouth and eye differentiate the characters. But for now, I just say this:

I am in even more awe of her skill and depth as an actress than ever before.

And now for the RL - a very nice update on that, this time :-)

A nice in my class remembered I loved slippers (and bare feet), and that I had worn a hole in my old pair.  So tonight in class she gave me a nice pair, just because she wanted to!  Normally people are not my favorite thing in the world (actually, normally they're my least favorite thing in the world), but today reminds me that people are sometimes the way God shows love.

And today I woke up at 7:30am and drove out to have free pancakes at IHOP.  Wonderful, tasty, and delicious.

All in all, a good day.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone