She Who Lurks By Day
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teenybuffalo's LiveJournal:
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| Friday, October 23rd, 2009 | | 1:24 pm |
Speaking of cats...
'Pangur Ban'
I and Pangur Ban my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.
Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill.
'Tis a merry task to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.
Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.
'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.
When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!
So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.
Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.
-- Anon
The website tells me that this was written on a copy of St. Paul's Epistles
by an Irish monk in the 8th century. Translation by Robin Flower. | | Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 | | 4:59 pm |
LINDAAAAA!
Hey, you guys, I've discovered a new vice! It's old-time radio, preferably horror and thrillers. They're short, melodramatic, and wonderful: horror hors d'oeuvres, the Gouda-stuffed mushrooms of sinister entertainment. You know how they call the Miss Marple books and various other British murder mysteries "cozy mayhem"--well, that's what these are, cozy mayhem in an adorable package. With tasteless advertising for Carter's Little Liver Pills and Camel cigarettes. They're perfect for the frayed nerves of a student, because all you have to do is listen. If you're feeling energetic, you can put one on while you're folding the laundry, but if you want to lie down for half an hour, an episode of "Lights Out" is the perfect reason. You just sit back and enjoy the sounds of Peter Lorre's latest maniac getting ready to murder his wife again.
I've only listened to a few, so far, but there's a vast fund of them here. You just e-mail them and ask for a password, they send you one, and then you can listen to any of the 500+ shows on their archive. I can see many enjoyable late-night revels in my future. The archive features shows with the voice talents of horror actors like Vincent Price, Claude Rains, Bela Lugosi, Margaret Hamilton, Charles Laughton, Peter and Boris, and many others.
The first one I listened to was "Cat Wife", with Boris Karloff and some woman who does a good cat impression. (It's on the Monster Club website, too, but I first ran across it here; you can hear the whole show without having to sign up for a password.) At first, I found it ridiculously bad. Every single element is so predictable you could guess the whole story from one detail, like reconstructing a skeleton from one tibia. Oh, and it also features some pretty unsubtle acting from Boris--he tears a passion to tatters as if he was Peter Lorre and he'd been directed to do a sobbing M-style breakdown. His character spends most of the time screaming, "Linda! NOOO! LINDA!!!!!" at his monster of a wife (in every possible sense of "monster"). I was so embarrassed that I gave up halfway, blushing hotly. But, in the usual way, I couldn't get along without knowing what happened at the end, so I went back and finished it and I'm glad I did. It actually is intended to be funny. I was relieved; I'd thought they meant the whole thing to be deadly grim and serious, and that I was laughing at something done in earnest. Whew! It's okay! But it's not entirely a laugh, even so. It's disturbing in a good way: they ring some interesting changes on a much-used theme, and create some weird mental images. Also, I was kinda flabbergasted by how much sex they could get away with on the radio. Early on, our hero and his wife are having a screaming fight, in the middle of which she stops and puts the moves on him. It's actually quite hot, in a worrying way. I suppose you could get away with more if there wasn't a visual--but that's the thing, radio creates its very own visuals if it's done right. ...Oh, boy, does it.
Then, the next day, the other students and I all drove over to Stonington to take a walking tour of the historic district. And one of the girls had her car stereo hooked up to her mp3 player: "You guys, this is my favorite song ever," she said. It was "What Kind of Cat Are You?" To top it all off, I went to a swing dance that night, and the DJ's third or fourth dance piece was "Stray Cat Strut". You know, "I got cat class and I got cat style". (Here is a video so that you may ogle the band's creative hair.) I'm haunted by catness... haunted, I tell you, haunted! At this dance, they had a big water cooler, with paper cups and a marker so that you could personalize your cup and save it for the rest of the evening. It was fate. I took a drink of water, then got a marker and wrote "LINDA!!!!!" on my cup. And went out and padded slinkily round the dance floor.
...Well, I keep amused. This is perfectly timed for Halloween, I realize, but really I like old-fashioned horror, ghosts, and mayhem at any time of the year. October is special in part because this is when the rest of the world joins me in my sense of the happily macabre. On that note, I need to decide on a costume for Halloween. Here are my options, so far:
--Ancient Mariner. Old coat, hat, boots, and work shirt and pants. Dark circles around eyes. White plushie albatross suspended from neck, cardboard crossbow. (Buy plushie albatross at aquarium gift shop.) Up-side: instant recognition by most people. Down-side: expensive plushie.
--Edna from Kate Chopin's "The Awakening", which we've been reading in class. Victorian bathing costume, soaked in seawater. Up-side: sexy (but almost anything looks sexy compared with the Ancient Mariner). Down-side: cold.
--Howard Blackburn, maritime disaster survivor, bar-owner in Gloucester, MA, and death-defying adventurer. Man's suit; fingers taped under hands; pasted-on mustache. Up-side: drag is funny and cute, plus Blackburn was a real and fascinating person. Down-side: can't use fingers all evening. | | Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 | | 9:36 pm |
Behold this walrus-tooth.
Guys! You guys! I'm in California. We've been here since Saturday, but we've been on the go constantly, and this is the first chance I've had to sit down at a computer. It's been wonderful. Today, we came to Bodega Bay from San Francisco. Yesterday was also a marvel to me. This is my first time on the West Coast, I've never been near San Francisco before save in movies, and we drove up the Marin Headlands in our little caravan of vans like a convoy of Brinks armored trucks. I saw the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, and the open sea for the first time to the tune of "Fat-Bottomed Girls" blasting from the stereo. It was a surreal moment, one of many such my recent life has gifted me with. After many adventures we wound up driving out of SF again, over the bridge, which is not actually yellow itself. The Golden Gate is the opening to the bay itself, where you go to become wealthy. The bridge is technically known as orange-vermilion, the color of old red brick. It goes well with the dull reddish hills and contrasts beautifully with the blue bay and golden sunlight. I am not ashamed to say that the last time I saw the bridge, it was in the third X-Men movie and Magneto was using it as a flying carpet to get all the baddies out to Alcatraz Island. Yes, we saw Alcatraz, too, but only from a distance, from a sail on the bay. It's covered in old, crumbling buildings and it looks like a fascinating place to spend some time, if only we had extra time out here. That's the thing about this trip; it's unsatisfyingly brief in each experience, but it's a good sampler for the future, when I come back here by myself or with one or two friends and do all the exploring I want to do. What I've seen of San Francisco, I love. Saw the sea-lions, heard them honking away, got so familiar with them that I even stopped going "WHOA! SEA LION!" and jumping up and down every time one appeared. That was the first few dozen sightings. When we hit town, it was uncharacteristically clear and bright, but when we left it was rolling up a good heavy San Francisco fog over the bridge and the foghorns were honking away. We're in Bodega Bay Marine Biology Labs tonight, and we walked upon the beach. I picked up abalone shells. This is the Pacific. I keep being reminded of that fact. Doc, our marine biology teacher, is exactly five feet tall and looks like a stern teddy bear. Tonight, he couldn't find an easy way round a table in the mess hall with people crowded around it, so he hopped up onto it and crawled the length of the table without cracking a smile. He only gets excited when you discover marine organisms and show them off to him; then he beams and practically capers with happiness. I think I may actually learn some science this trip, unlike our time on the Cramer. I'm setting my alarm clock for 5:30 a.m. tomorrow so that I can run over to the beach again and enjoy it for a little while, alone, before everyone else gets up at the relatively civilized hour of seven. | | Sunday, September 20th, 2009 | | 10:14 pm |
Woot!
Guys! You guys! I just went swing-dancing at the local social hall, and it was fantastic. I haven't danced for months, because first I was at home where I've become bored with all the local dances, and then I was here trying to get used to life at a new school. A couple of the other students went to this dance last week, and didn't really like it. But this week, I thought, what the heck, I need to get out of the house for a couple of hours, and threw on some nice clothes and headed over. Well, it was great. I must have danced eighteen or twenty times. Most of the guys were neat and extremely mannerly middle-aged and older dudes, and there were a couple of young fellows as well. All of them seemed to be having a good time. I certainly was. It turns out they hold this one every Sunday night, and there's a dance with a live band once a month as well. As my housemate said on our way back here, I know what I'm going to be doing on Sunday nights for the next three months. Life just got an order of magnitude better. | | Monday, September 14th, 2009 | | 8:51 am |
| | Friday, September 11th, 2009 | | 10:42 pm |
I'm back
Hope you all had a wonderful couple of weeks. I had a great time sailing, and I'm about as tired as I've ever been in my life. Lots of sleep tonight. Lots of laundry tomorrow.
*whomp* | | Monday, August 31st, 2009 | | 11:30 pm |
See you in a week and a half
Well, this is it. I have to finish packing and get a good night's sleep. If you want to take a look at this website, it'll hopefully keep a running tally of the Corwith Cramer's whereabouts and activities. The page hasn't been updated recently, but they'll probably start again when the voyage starts tomorrow. I'll bring both my one-use cameras, and try to take some good snapshots to post when I get back. Expect a massive posting blitz beginning sometime around September 12th. Fair winds, everybody! | | Thursday, August 27th, 2009 | | 5:57 pm |
Sailor Teeny: rigging run
I've just returned, my hands filthy, from a short session in rigging climbing. The vessel Joseph Conrad, one of the museum's properties, is currently moored at one of the Museum's piers, being used as a summer-camp ship. She's currently minus her topmasts. The masts remaining have one tier of rigging. That's high enough, though, when you're at the top. This was a chance for me to right an ancient wrong. I don't know if any of the other students have a history with uneasy sailing experiences, but I once worked on the Niagara (for a grand total of three weeks, in 2001) and had a lousy time. It was a combination of things: I was new while everyone else had at least some sail training, I got there early in the season so I got a lot of uprigging work and little reward in the form of actual sailing... The end result was that I only managed to go out for a single day-sail, and spent only a tiny amount of time above the deck in the rigging. While I was up there, I was terrified. My efforts to hide my terror were all pretty much failures. People laughed so hard they got stitches in their sides when they saw the look on my face. I'm still sore that I didn't get a chance to practice more and get comfortable in the rigging. Today, I volunteered to go first. A nice dude from the Seaport went up the shrouds with each of us in turn. (Shrouds are the vertical lines in rigging. The "rungs" are called ratlines. They murder your feet unless you wear thick-soled shoes.) I was scared, a little bit, and the rigging wiggled under us rhythmically as we climbed, but I just stared fixedly ahead of me. Good thing I wore sunglasses--people couldn't see my eyes. The view as you get higher is beautiful: the river, various small boats moored further down along the Seaport docks, the houses and woods on the opposite shore, and the town and the drawbridge in the distance. I went all the way up and touched the futtock-shrouds (little short shrouds for climbing up the outside of the platform called the top, and the cause for much mirth among the students. Futtock). Dave, the nice dude, kept me in conversation the whole time, kind of like how a doctor makes light small talk when he's doing something worrying. I answered tolerably calmly. All in all, it went very well. I returned safely to deck, unharmed, not visibly shaken, and a little dirty. Then I got to sit around comfortably and watch while everybody else took turns going up. They did well: nobody freaked out or froze or became visibly discomfited. I think we're going to make an OK crew. I've been having a great time shopping in town. Today, I bought a pair of gloves that I need, and a big white canvas sunhat that I manifestly do not need, just because I look badass in it. I hope my last check from work arrives in time for me to cash it before we go away next week--at this spendthrift rate, I'll need it. Oh, BTW, I called work to give them my forwarding address. It was nice to hear from work one more time. It was a great job, I enjoyed it, and now I'm glad to move on. That's one situation that I left in the most pleasant possible way. | | Thursday, August 20th, 2009 | | 11:22 pm |
Globetrotting
I got out my passport today and looked it over. It's from eight years ago, right before my short time on the Niagara. As it turned out, I didn't even need it, as I wasn't with the ship when it crossed into Canadian waters and the St. Lawrence River. I'm glad I got it, though. Several years after that, in 2004, I went to Scotland. The only stamp in my passport so far is from the nice security guards at Edinburgh Airport. This fall, I probably won't need it either, as we're not supposed to cross outside the three-mile line when working aboard ship. Still, it'll be nice to have it along just in case--and for luck. There's my photo on the inner lining. Beaming all over my face, looking pretty much as I do now, perhaps a little thinner and more carefree and optimistic. My hair is raked back unflatteringly from my face and the photographer exaggerated the size of my chin. I do have a big chin, but not as long as all that. Still, that's me, all right. It went to Scotland with me, and now it'll go on three college trips with me, and in the future I mean to take it all over the world. Getting into W-M made me look twice at other assumptions of mine. I've been assuming I can never do some really ambitious stuff I want to try, like all that world traveling I told you guys I wanted to do some day. Up till recently, I've been treating it as a fun pipe dream, speculating vaguely and never actually firming up any plans. But, you know? I made this work out, I can make that work out too. I ought to decide what exactly I want to do and where I want to go, and then set about making it all happen. Recently, I watched Maltese Falcon. I posted about that already, come to think of it. Of course, I loved Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo, even with his hair in ring-a-lets like the girl in the song. I was still appalled by the stupidity of the villains, though. What kind of challenge is there for Spade in beating a bunch of weak-minded idiots like those clowns? No wonder I don't like Spade. If I'd been writing the script, Mary Astor's character would have ( Spoilers, I suppose. )I'm telling you, she would have Mary Sued all over the place. Why didn't they consult me?! I'd have made her something far better than a cardboard cutout. Anyway, my point in all this: my favorite moment in the movie might not look like much to anyone else. When Cairo is unconscious and Sam Spade is going through his stuff, he takes out Cairo's wallet, which is full of money, ID, theater tickets, and miscellaneous odd trinkets. And a passport. He pages through it, and you can read over his shoulder if you want to. I paused the DVD right there. The passport has a photo of Cairo looking shifty. Beside it on the information sheet, you can see: "Occupation: Traveler". The pages are all covered in stamps from all over the place, in various languages and alphabets. I loved that. Joel Cairo may be the Little Henchman that Could, but when I saw that passport I wanted to be him. I was full of a sudden strong longing to have a life that could fill up a passport. Now, I'm looking at those empty pages ahead of me, and thinking, "Let's get something down on you." I've got two years left to go before I need to renew my passport, after all. | | Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 | | 11:38 pm |
Truth in advertising
Lately I've been reading John Steinbeck's Cannery Row and The Pearl. I like his writing, but these aren't my favorite stories of his. He's condescending to his characters, and when that happens I can never feel comfortable, no matter how funny or lyrical or otherwise appealing the style may be. Granted, it's supposed to be a funny book, but it goes about its humor in entirely the wrong way, to my mind. The narrator of Cannery Row is always having a well-educated smirk about the bums and poets and down-and-outers in the cannery town, and inviting the reader to look down from an Olympian height and laugh at these characters' foibles. And he's the sort of narrator who would use the word "foibles". My opinion is not formed on The Pearl as I haven't finished it yet, but I have the awful feeling that it's going to lead me down the same slippery slope. I read Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea last year. It was a surprisingly enjoyable book, as Books You Have To Read go, but it gives me the sense that I'm invited to join an audience of intellectual elites in gazing upon the struggles of a poor peasant. It all makes me appreciate Rudyard Kipling more than I did. He may be a big fat classist and racist, but I can't remember a time when I've seen him laughing up his sleeve at his protagonist. Altogether, I liked the famous Steinbeck books better-- The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men. As I remember them, in both books he's writing about working-class characters (well, George and Lenny aren't even working when the story begins, they're drifting) and in both books he manages to give you a big helping of their lives and experiences, and even get in a few good laughs, without condescending to anybody. The humor came from different sources--from characterization, from the way he manages to show, not tell, his observation of human nature. I'm thinking of the part in Of Mice and Men where George starts making friends with the other guys and telling them about how he and Lenny are saving up to buy a place of their own. After that, every other guy on the ranch decides he wants in and starts asking shyly if he could be included, and George is too nice to tell them no, so he just expands their dream house to include a bunch more people. Now I want to watch the Of Mice and Men movie. It's got Lon Chaney, Jr. as Lenny, and I can't imagine a more perfect actor for the role. I like Lon. He wasn't that versatile an actor, but stick him in the right part, with a good director, and he's great. One thing I will say for Steinbeck: his titles have direct application to his texts. They may sound vague and poetic, but there is actual meaning in that poetry. You read Of Mice and Men, and it's about mice and men. You read The Grapes of Wrath, and, by God, it's about grapes and wrath. (Insert joke here about how I read Of Human Bondage and was bitterly disappointed.) | | Thursday, August 6th, 2009 | | 9:09 pm |
The Growlery is: OPEN
What annoys you? Is there some irritant in your life that isn't life-threatening but still bugs you no end? Is there a stupid little problem you would like to slap good and hard? You can tell me about it here, and I will sympathize. ( I do a little hatin' ) | | Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 | | 2:46 pm |
Some Gothic elements in Cloud
It's hot and humid here in Massachusetts, and the crows are standing around on people's lawns with their beaks open, panting to keep themselves cool. Time for a little escapism. At the reading on Monday night, I was talking with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) nineweaving , and I mentioned that I read her books, most of all, for their plot and the characterization that feeds the plot. I associate them with Gothic fiction because they give me the same sense of intrigue and enjoyment of strong, bizarre imagery that I get from the kind of novels I refer to as "Gothic". Nine was a little surprised, and asked me to go into it in more detail, and then something else came up and we both got distracted. Here's my attempt to explain what I meant more clearly. If I claim the Cloud cycle as Gothic fiction, first of all I'm going to have to define what I mean by "Gothic". That's a task that may be beyond me. All I can say for sure is, "I know it when I see it!" Here is a list of fiction, in no particular order, that I call Gothic. Old-dark-house mysteries, family sagas, ghost stories, crime fiction--they all have certain elements in common. ( Everyone is invited to add to this list if they feel I've overlooked something. )I'm going to set down a list of Gothic elements, in no particular order, and see how many correspondences I can find with characters, plots and scenes in the Cloud series. ( Comparisons. Cut for massive spoilers for entire Cloud & Ashes series. )Whew! And I've only scratched the surface! One of the fun things about the Cloud series is the number of ways in which you can read it. I don't mean this entry to say that when you look at Unleaving, you're going to instantly start comparing it to Wuthering Heights. There is honestly nothing out there that's more than a little like the Cloud series. I love the series for what it is, not for the ways in which I can compare the stories to other books. But the comparisons are there, too, at the back of my mind; they just seem so natural that I'd never thought to remark on them before. | | Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 | | 11:47 pm |
The crow and her marrow, they quarrel for the glass
Yesterday, I had a very satisfying evening out. I drove to Connecticut for nineweaving 's reading from her new book, Cloud & Ashes. It was nice to see that there was a good big crowd there, very relaxed and happy and enjoying the reading. Nine, as always, read wonderfully well. The way I initially became involved in her world was when I heard her read aloud at Boskone a few years ago, and I think a lot of other people would say the same. Cloud & Ashes contains a short story, "Jack Daw's Pack", a novella, A Crowd of Bone, and a novel, Unleaving. Are you aware of Cloud? If not, you can get started here. I became a fan right after A Crowd of Bone came out, and that's really the story that won my heart and left me wanting more. 'od's 'ooks, it's been made free online! More on this next time. In the meantime, here's your limerick at last, Nine! I devoured a volume of heft And left half my brain in its weft. The songs of Apollo Are a hard act to follow, So I made like a tree and unleft. | | Monday, July 27th, 2009 | | 1:56 pm |
| | Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 | | 4:55 pm |
Edith Piaf: the other pink meat
The second set of French classes are a little more difficult than the first. Whereas in the introductory session we were all starting out with almost equal inexperience, this time around all the other students have had at least a couple of years of French in school, or they've been speaking a few words of it all their lives. On the other hand, it makes me really work at my homework assignments, because, hey, I want to keep up. So far, I'm still fumbling. But I know I can get better at this, if I devote some time to it every day. It's nothing like taking a school course; there is no axe hanging over us ready to fall when we take the final, so the only thing making us learn is our own motivation. And I think I've got enough motivation to learn to speak fluently. It's fun, like learning a secret code as a child or Morse Code as a grown woman. Suddenly you have this whole new way to express yourself, and certain people are in the conspiracy with you as you learn. Perhaps you've had this feeling before, but it's entirely new to me. I was too harsh about my fellow students in the last class, by the way. As the last couple of days of 9-to-5 fumbling beginners' French wore on, we actually had a pretty good time together. One nice thing was that we all went out and got lunch together every day, which more or less forced us to get to know each other. Unfortunately, none of them are continuing with the intermediate class. Still, the participants are a rather nice bunch. This evening looks like an uneventful one, thankfully. Earlier today I had a nasty attack of cramps, which doesn't often happen to me. I'm feeling much better now (in fact I'm at the "skipping through a field of wildflowers in soft focus" stage of recovery) but I'm unusually tired. If anybody has recommendations of French-language movies that might help me improve my listening comprehension--or simply be fun to watch--I'd be delighted to hear them. The subject line comes from a mistake in French class. Someone mispronounced the title of the Edith Piaf biopic "La Vie En Rose", so it sounded like "La Viand Rose"... well, trust me, it was a hoot at the time. I've been listening to a little music to help me with my comprehension, too. All right, what I did first and foremost was find a YouTube clip of the Battle of the Anthems from Casablanca and listen to it over and over. I know that sung French is different from spoken French, but really, any familiarity is good, this early in the game. | | Friday, July 17th, 2009 | | 11:50 am |
Out, you dream-sickness carrion!
I haven't been getting enough sleep lately. It's just my own bad planning. Consequently, I've been waking up with dreamsickness the last couple of mornings. It's the feeling that I haven't had enough dreaming/nightmare time during the course of the six hours I spent in bed, and the dreams will consequently follow me around for half an hour or so, making reality seem less vivid than the images in my head. They're mostly things that wouldn't sound like much if I told them here. Flying; going to the opera in Boston with people around me in the audience whom I desperately wanted to avoid; wandering in a garden. They were all full of strong emotions that, in the way of dreams, had nothing obvious to do with the images. The only disturbing one was where I was being chased in broad daylight by a guy I know from gaming. Needless to say, the guy in real life isn't at all scary. I like being around him. The other thing that made the dream so disturbing was that he was wearing a giant mask of a monster's head, gray, with long gaping jaws and fangs. He looked like one of the shinigami from Death Note, which is odd in that I haven't watched Death Note aside from a very funny AMV that lignota showed me once. The important part of this is that I made a weird discovery during the overcrowded dreams of the last few nights. When writers talk about their muse, do they mean what I mean by the word? What I've always meant by "muse" is the creative, well-hidden part of your mind that comes up with good ideas, after which you write them down and work them out on paper. The word gets flung around so much, though, that I try to avoid using it. In fact, I've always thought it sounded a trifle affected, or like a religious belief sneaking around disguised as a psychological concept. Well, I have a muse. He looks like Colin Clive. Yeah. I know. I watch too many movies. But it really does seem to be the case. It was rather an awkward set of interviews. Several times, during the last few nights of sleep, I've found myself talking to a tall, skinny guy--in the most recent installment, we were sitting at a table in a sidewalk cafe--who looked like this guy: British, cranky, overly caffeinated, conceited, and yet kind of shy. (Okay, Dr. Frankenstein isn't quite the image I have in mind, but it'll do. I just spent half an hour looking for a picture of Colin Clive as Stephen Orlac, since that was exactly how he looked, but I can't find a single decent one. Oh, internets, you have failed me. It was an enjoyable waste of half an hour, though.) Anyway, he had invited me to the cafe to very politely chew me out. I sat there and ate a croissant while he told me that he had been coming up with all kinds of good stuff lately, so why wasn't I writing any of it down? I made feeble bleating noises of self-justification and said that I'd been busy. He wasn't having any of that. He insisted that I was letting down my end of the bargain. "We are a team, after all. Aren't we?" "Yes! Oh, yes, of course we are!" "Mmhmm. Well, then." I think I have to get some writing in today. | | Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 | | 7:40 pm |
The collage meme
I'm starting this meme, see. Here are the rules: 1. In your own journal, list a series of objects, images, creatures or concepts which you feel yourself to resemble. There must be at least ten entries on the list. The more the merrier. The purpose of this meme is to try to define yourself, to do a little navel-gazing just for fun, and to come up with some stuff that makes you go "Hmm..." 2. You get extra credit if the entries aren't all people or human characters with whom you identify. Those are fine, but there should also be some abstract concepts or inanimate objects on the list. 3. Linking to pictures of some of the entries is also good. This all started when redcolumbine and I were talking and she said, "Who would you pick to play you in a movie of your life?" I couldn't think of an actress. There aren't any who are complicated-looking enough to do a good impression of me as I see myself. Mind you, I probably look a lot less complex than I actually am. At any rate, the question made me think. I feel a certain similarity towards a lot of images, not all of them human. ( My list ) | | Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 | | 11:20 pm |
Really fun bad movies: "Passage to Marseille"
Seeing as how it's Bastille Day (and the posh shop downtown has a tasteless poster of a guillotine in its front window), it's a good time to post about Passage to Marseille, that heartwarming WWII movie about a hardy band of Free French ex-convict airmen. Despite featuring Humphrey Bogart, it's obscure enough that I can't find it for rent anywhere. I watched it off of YouTube a couple of weeks ago, one night when I couldn't get to sleep. ( Teh plotz )Every bloody trope and cliche that could be rammed into this movie with a shoehorn is present, alive and well. Right down to the |||| |||| |||| marks on Matrac's cell wall when he's in solitary confinement. Even the bad lines are kinda fun. Humphrey Bogart has a sublimely badly-written speech, mumbled to himself as he paces his cell like a wild beast in torment. It consists of variations on the theme of, "My country is a rathole, the dirty rats sold me out, I hate France, gahhh!", repeated to an absurd degree. It made me want to write a filk to the tune of that song from "Kiss Me Kate". Let's see... I hate France!
Philippe Petain can kiss me on the pants!
It may belong to Germany but it's no longer my land.
They hung me out to dry and packed me off to Devil's Island,
They jumped in bed with fascists, which has made them yet more vile, and
I-I-I-I hay-ay-ay-ate France!
Send help please!
They feed us on baguettes and moldy cheese!
We spend our nights in killing fleas and days in cutting lumber,
We've been dehumanized, I have no name, I have a number,
And worst of all I have to wear a silly stripy jumper,
Oh send help please!
NB: opinions expressed in this short character comedy piece are not necessarily those of the author, who has great respect for the French and owns several stripy pullovers herself. | | 10:58 pm |
What I wouldn't give for a glass of ice water or a cigarette
Back a few years ago, I vaguely remember saying that I didn't understand the whole concept of smoking. It didn't make sense to me why someone would take it up in the first place, or, having taken it up, would then keep on smoking (aside from addiction, that is). That was then. Here we are several years later, my life has become an order of magnitude more intense, and coincidentally I've been watching a lot of old movies in which the characters are constantly lighting up. (As my father says, "Smoking: the easy way to act.") Practically every guy and a lot of the women are seen inhaling smoke most of the time. And you know what? Finally I get the idea. It's a release. It's a small, portable version of the way I reflexively go into the kitchen and make tea when I'm feeling overwhelmed. Never in a million years would I take up smoking, but I wish I had a habit that would take its place. As someone on here said recently, if they made a cigarette that didn't give you health problems, I would go for it. Nothing terribly worrying has happened lately, I hasten to add. I'm just making yet another set of big decisions. While my body's talking or typing, my mind is sneaking off around the corner to huddle in its trench coat and chain-smoke. It looks like I'm not going to attend the study-away program at Mystic Seaport this fall. It's too bad; I was very much interested in going. But I can't afford it. I came very close to being able to do it--they accepted me, and I've even been offered scholarship money. But the only way I could have gone would have been if they pulled out all the stops and gave me a full scholarship. I'm interested in going, but not when it would make me run myself into umpteen thousands in student loans for one semester. So that's the end of the story. I'm disappointed, but not badly, and I feel all right about my decision. I'll be going to Miskatonic again this fall, and I have to figure out what I'll be taking there. The bright side is that they have some enticing courses on offer. The junior-year writing seminar is focused on "America and the Sea", so I'll still be getting my maritime fix. Also, I can go on working at the bird store this fall, and I'm pretty happy about that, too. Perhaps Robin will let me pick up more hours. | | Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 | | 10:09 pm |
Awwwwwwww!
I just walked into the video store to return some overdues, and there at the counter was my favorite video store clerk. He and I have known each other slightly since I was a teenager, when we once acted in a play together. Let's call him Georgie, as that was his character in the play. He's always fun to be around. I've rather restrained myself from talking about movies with him, though, since, let's face it, he works in the store, so I figure he must have had it up to here with people telling him all about their favorite movies all day long. Well, I walk in tonight, and there's Georgie at the counter. He smiles at me and goes, "Hi, Teeny", while he's counting change at the register. He's wearing a T-shirt with Dr. Gogol on it. Okay, this would probably not interest anyone but me, but I was delighted. It wasn't even one of the creepy-looking movie stills. It was more like this 'un. I just about went into a tizzy. We both enthused about how great Mad Love is, and we both went, "Whoa! The only other person I know who's ever watched that movie!" He'd been given the shirt by one of their suppliers, and he liked to wear it occasionally, though no one else particularly noted it. Then I chatted away with him and the lady cashier, talking sixteen to the dozen all about how much I loved Peter Lorre, and all the film noir I'd gotten into watching on account of him, and how I was working my way through all the old black-and-white horror I could find. Georgie is into quite old horror, it turns out--I would have figured that out long ago if I'd ever taken the time to talk to him about it--and we stood there going, "Oh wow! How about 'The Walking Dead'! Have you ever seen 'Dracula's Daughter'?" It was great. Then I came home, watered my cobra lily, fed my white cockatoo, and sat down at the parlor organ to play through Suite For Rainswept Nights And Large Floppy Rubber Bats. |
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