Today was a beautiful April day, and my neighbors were complaining about how bad the weather was -- oh my gosh, clouds in the sky. The fact that it is still February is not lost on me. I'm sort of amazed. I feel like I'm halfway through spring quarter already, and winter quarter isn't even over. It's pretty wonderful that a warm Saturday sitting outside and reading a new book (Last Watch; so happy it's out, so sad the series will be over) can make everything -- absolutely everything -- feel happy. Even a book about (possibly?) Armageddon.
I got to thinking, however, about my NaNoWriMo piece. It's fairly interesting, because I feel like I have too many characters that aren't important enough. In many instances this is a small deal and fixable (swapping out one new character for a reappearance of an old character, for example), but it's somewhat interesting to me because one of the main characters in this story is entirely new, which doesn't jive so much with it being a sequel and all. Of course, I like the character too much to do away with him entirely, but it got me to thinking, and my sense is that in order for the later story to flow the way I want it to, I need to edit the earlier story to make it more sequel-able. Since when writing the first one I was not thinking "You know what this needs? A sequel."
A good example that everyone knows about -- in book one of Harry Potter, Hagrid borrows Sirius Black's motorbike. It's a throwaway reference that no one pays attention to, and doesn't stand out particularly, but it introduces at least a name so that when Sirius becomes a main character in book 3, readers aren't up in arms saying "If Sirius was James' best friend, where was he the night that James died?" The character isn't really developed until book 3, but he exists in the world as of book 1. (Of course, Remus and Peter aren't mentioned, but the fact that one of them was makes the other two more believable, somehow; mentioning all three would have been overdoing it.)
My problem is that, since I first set out to only write one story, those references are conspicuously absent. I don't mention a character just for kicks, or on the off-chance that I would be writing a sequel. Most of the new characters in the piece I wrote in November I hadn't even thought of when I was writing the first story. So there are characters that logically should have been present in some of the events I describe in the first story, and aren't mentioned. Places and things that should have made an appearance, and didn't. Because I hadn't thought of them. Nothing contradictory, necessarily, but just strange -- the long lost brother or sister who is never mentioned until he conspicuously shows up. So I want to rewrite the first one, to add those elements -- nothing big, but enough to make it not seem strange that I'm bringing up these characters, places, and things in the second one. Also maybe change some names (that's a separate issue). But I know that I don't have the time to make the second one readable and the first one better at the same time. (I barely have enough time to get the second one readable on any sort of schedule). So I'm just sort of puzzling about what to do. The obvious solution, of course, being to go back and change the first one when I'm through with the second one. Which I might do. We'll see.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Andrew Bird!
Concert was last night. It was awesome. My brother's (and my) only disappointment was that he did not play "Not a Robot but a Ghost" from his latest album. But that's not much of a complaint, and those older songs that he did he did in new ways. ("Why" -- which I want to choreograph a silks act to as soon as I get good enough to do so, and a song titled "The Water Jet Cilice" but which I call "Serendipity" instead). He's very... affable on stage. And the crowd sort of just sways to the music, in part because it's not dance music so much. And by far the best part of his concerts, in my opinion, is that they don't sound like his albums. Which means that even if I can't see a thing because there are all of these tall people standing right in front of me, I still get a different experience than just listening to my mp3 player. (other than the tall people standing right in front of me, the smoky bar, and the volume)
He had the audience sing a part of "Tables and Chairs" -- instead of playing the melody on his violin and looping it, he just sort of held out his hands like a conductor and hoped that people would pick up. My brother and I did, of course (I always sing along with the violin at that part anyway), but I think much of the audience was sort of mystified. In part because he plays with rhythm so much in his concerts (less so in his albums) that even if you wanted to sing along with the vocals, it would be nigh impossible. And in part because instead of something like "You guys sing the chorus!" he instead said "You guys sing the melody to the instrumental interlude!" (actually, he didn't even say anything; he just stopped playing and singing and pretended to conduct us. I think it would have been cool in a really strange, eerie way if no one had sung at all -- just gone silent right then, and he's conducting, but there's no noise).
Also, some woman shouted out, about halfway through the concert, "We love you Andrew, welcome to San Fran... (cisco)". To which one guy standing near me responded: "You're not from around here, are you?" Because yeah; no one in the bay area calls San Francisco "San Fran". It's "San Francisco" or "SF" or "The City". Or, if there are some people, they're very rare. I can, of course, understand why she didn't want to shout San Francisco (it's rather long) or "The City" (it's rather vague). And maybe she just moved here, or something.
And we got free posters! Mine will be up on my wall as soon as I figure out where I want to put it. Possibly in the kitchen.
He had the audience sing a part of "Tables and Chairs" -- instead of playing the melody on his violin and looping it, he just sort of held out his hands like a conductor and hoped that people would pick up. My brother and I did, of course (I always sing along with the violin at that part anyway), but I think much of the audience was sort of mystified. In part because he plays with rhythm so much in his concerts (less so in his albums) that even if you wanted to sing along with the vocals, it would be nigh impossible. And in part because instead of something like "You guys sing the chorus!" he instead said "You guys sing the melody to the instrumental interlude!" (actually, he didn't even say anything; he just stopped playing and singing and pretended to conduct us. I think it would have been cool in a really strange, eerie way if no one had sung at all -- just gone silent right then, and he's conducting, but there's no noise).
Also, some woman shouted out, about halfway through the concert, "We love you Andrew, welcome to San Fran... (cisco)". To which one guy standing near me responded: "You're not from around here, are you?" Because yeah; no one in the bay area calls San Francisco "San Fran". It's "San Francisco" or "SF" or "The City". Or, if there are some people, they're very rare. I can, of course, understand why she didn't want to shout San Francisco (it's rather long) or "The City" (it's rather vague). And maybe she just moved here, or something.
And we got free posters! Mine will be up on my wall as soon as I figure out where I want to put it. Possibly in the kitchen.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
A plot, to go with my idea:
Thought this up last night. I'm pretty pleased; it's very goofy. Might post a rough draft up here, when/if I write it:
Imagine a world in which digital clocks really caught on; so that no one used analog clocks or watches anymore. In this world, because time appears to be quantized and discrete, peoples' perceptions of the world change fundamentally. Also, since velocity and thereby motion is based on limits and continuity, in a world with no continuous time motion becomes illusory -- you still think that you're moving, but really you're jumping from (stationary) place to (stationary) place in very small leaps. Basically, in this world, motion (and hence progress) is an illusion ala Xeno's paradox of the arrow.
This wouldn't be an issue, but it means that conceptually, this world is stalled out circa 1990. And so my hero will go back in time (using a tea kettle; you knew it was coming) and destroy (or ridicule) the digital watch in order to save continuity and progress.
Imagine a world in which digital clocks really caught on; so that no one used analog clocks or watches anymore. In this world, because time appears to be quantized and discrete, peoples' perceptions of the world change fundamentally. Also, since velocity and thereby motion is based on limits and continuity, in a world with no continuous time motion becomes illusory -- you still think that you're moving, but really you're jumping from (stationary) place to (stationary) place in very small leaps. Basically, in this world, motion (and hence progress) is an illusion ala Xeno's paradox of the arrow.
This wouldn't be an issue, but it means that conceptually, this world is stalled out circa 1990. And so my hero will go back in time (using a tea kettle; you knew it was coming) and destroy (or ridicule) the digital watch in order to save continuity and progress.
Monday, February 16, 2009
An Idea
A very goofy idea, in fact. Perhaps two, in the form of a conversation, because that's how they came to me.
"You've heard of time dilation?"
"It sounds familiar."
"It's the idea -- if you move fast enough, time moves differently. So you can go faster, and depending on how fast you go, you either move forward or backward in time."
"Is that the idea?"
"No -- everyone is working on that, just like everyone is working on wormholes. Everyone and their prehistoric ape cousin. But there are plenty of other ideas. For example; what if you stop moving?"
"What?"
"Time dilation; it works with acceleration, basically. But what if you slow down? Or stop?"
"You mean, like just sit around all day?"
"No! Even if I don't move a muscle, I'm still moving; the planet is spinning on its axis and traveling around the sun, and that in turn is torquing through the galaxy. And every molecule, every atom, every subatomic particle in my body is flitting around even faster than the earth is moving through the universe. I can't stop; can't break the inertia, can't go lower than ground state, but what if I could? If I could stop moving..."
"The world would move without you?"
"Time would move without me."
"So, you'd be taken to the future."
"Perhaps. Even if I was, I'd be floating out, who knows where relative to the Earth's place in the expanding Universe. And I might not travel at all; I might just spontaneously decompose into dust."
"Is that what you're studying? How to do it safely?"
"Heh. Not quite. I'm studying tea kettles."
"Tea kettles?"
"Well, and pasta pots. Containers for heating and boiling water, basically."
"Um. What does that have to do with time travel?"
"Haven't you heard the phrase, 'A watched pot never boils'?"
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Literature
So, one of my Stanford friends is turning twenty-three soon, and to celebrate (I think this will become a birthday tradition) we had a ladies' brunch and watched a Chick Flick. Since this was the first time, we started with the paradigm: Pride and Prejudice. While three out of four of us knew the story incredibly well, the remaining woman had not seen, nor read, nor heard told, the story. (She thought that it was "A love story between a white woman and a black man in the deep south." I kid you not. Personally, I thought that Pride and Prejudice was required reading for every twelve year old girl, but I must be wrong).
Now, while this created problems when the three of us had to bite our tongues to stop the words "The perfidious Wickham!" from coming out of our mouths the first time he was on screen (and come on, you have to admit that perfidious is a very, very fun word to say), what was most remarkable about watching this movie with this woman was that she didn't like Mr. Darcy. It is usually a safe bet that any woman watching Pride and Prejudice will, by the end of the story, like Mr. Darcy. But my friend's response to the comment of "Man, Mr. Darcy is awesome," was not affirmation, and not even denial, but staunch disbelief. She argued that he could not have existed in Victorian England, and she much preferred works like "The Awakening" (which, as far as I can tell, follows roughly the same plot as Anna Karenina).
I don't really want to spend much time here picking apart that argument -- but it seemed to me that she was operating under several inaccuracies which she stalwartly did not accept: mostly, she assumed that Georgian England (i.e. the time of Pride and Prejudice) was the same as Victorian England. In fact, "The Awakening" was written in 1899, and "Pride and Prejudice" in 1813, and as such comparing the two eras as being synchronous is, in fact, roughly equivalent to drawing the same parallel between the aforementioned late Victorian era (circa 1900) and the mid 1980s.
The Georgian era was marked by social upheaval, unrest, and as tends to go hand-in-hand, relative social freedom. The other authors one associates with Austen (Bronte, Eliot) are also Victorians and, once again, not her actual contemporaries. On the other hand, the most famous novelist of the time was Walter Scott, who certainly had strong female characters. The most famous writer? Lord Byron (hah). And a few other well known personages who were actually Austen's contemporaries were, wait for it: Casanova, and the Marquis de Sade. I mean, I have trouble thinking that the era which gave us Casanova, Don Juan, and sadism was also known for its repressive social norms. The late Georgian period showed a lessening in restrictions in everything from class (trade and industry were becoming respectable) to undergarments, and those restrictions subsequently tightened right back up in the Victorian era. And although I told her several times that Pride and Prejudice was not Victorian but earlier, and that social mores were actually much less strict in Georgian/Regency society than they were in Victorian culture, she resolutely refused to believe me, and went on and on about how Elizabeth obviously should have killed herself because Darcy wouldn't actually fall in love with a liberated woman, being a product of Victorian society.
Why does that bother me? I mean, yes, it is one of my favorite books, but why should it matter to me what she thinks of it? Or if her opinions are legitimate or founded on false assumptions? Would I have found it easier to deal with if she had compared to an actual contemporary of Austen's, instead of someone writing some eighty years after her death? (And what would she have compared it to, Ivanhoe, which is itself historical fiction? Don Juan? Justine? That would have been a good one -- Darcy is not realistic because he is neither as depraved as de Sade, nor as womanizing as Don Juan.) But why should I care if my friend prefers Queen Victoria to Casanova? (Even if I find that rather odd?)
Except that wasn't entirely what she was saying -- instead, she was implying that Jane Austen failed at what Jane Austen was perhaps best at (creating realistic, three-dimensional, and compelling characters). She was saying Darcy wasn't realistic. Which rankles with me, because I think the strength of Austen's writing is in her characters. Not just the main characters, but even the very characters she satirizes: Mr. Collins, Lady Catherine, Lydia, and Mr and Mrs. Bennet. To say that even Mr. Darcy was unrealistic and impossible, and especially basing that statement on the social mores of the time (which I am fairly certain Jane Austen understood better than my biochemist friend), strikes me as the kind of ridiculous stubborn vanity as would make her, well, more akin to Lady Catherine than any other character in the movie we watched. And that is the sort of baseless condescension which I really dislike.
Now, while this created problems when the three of us had to bite our tongues to stop the words "The perfidious Wickham!" from coming out of our mouths the first time he was on screen (and come on, you have to admit that perfidious is a very, very fun word to say), what was most remarkable about watching this movie with this woman was that she didn't like Mr. Darcy. It is usually a safe bet that any woman watching Pride and Prejudice will, by the end of the story, like Mr. Darcy. But my friend's response to the comment of "Man, Mr. Darcy is awesome," was not affirmation, and not even denial, but staunch disbelief. She argued that he could not have existed in Victorian England, and she much preferred works like "The Awakening" (which, as far as I can tell, follows roughly the same plot as Anna Karenina).
I don't really want to spend much time here picking apart that argument -- but it seemed to me that she was operating under several inaccuracies which she stalwartly did not accept: mostly, she assumed that Georgian England (i.e. the time of Pride and Prejudice) was the same as Victorian England. In fact, "The Awakening" was written in 1899, and "Pride and Prejudice" in 1813, and as such comparing the two eras as being synchronous is, in fact, roughly equivalent to drawing the same parallel between the aforementioned late Victorian era (circa 1900) and the mid 1980s.
The Georgian era was marked by social upheaval, unrest, and as tends to go hand-in-hand, relative social freedom. The other authors one associates with Austen (Bronte, Eliot) are also Victorians and, once again, not her actual contemporaries. On the other hand, the most famous novelist of the time was Walter Scott, who certainly had strong female characters. The most famous writer? Lord Byron (hah). And a few other well known personages who were actually Austen's contemporaries were, wait for it: Casanova, and the Marquis de Sade. I mean, I have trouble thinking that the era which gave us Casanova, Don Juan, and sadism was also known for its repressive social norms. The late Georgian period showed a lessening in restrictions in everything from class (trade and industry were becoming respectable) to undergarments, and those restrictions subsequently tightened right back up in the Victorian era. And although I told her several times that Pride and Prejudice was not Victorian but earlier, and that social mores were actually much less strict in Georgian/Regency society than they were in Victorian culture, she resolutely refused to believe me, and went on and on about how Elizabeth obviously should have killed herself because Darcy wouldn't actually fall in love with a liberated woman, being a product of Victorian society.
Why does that bother me? I mean, yes, it is one of my favorite books, but why should it matter to me what she thinks of it? Or if her opinions are legitimate or founded on false assumptions? Would I have found it easier to deal with if she had compared to an actual contemporary of Austen's, instead of someone writing some eighty years after her death? (And what would she have compared it to, Ivanhoe, which is itself historical fiction? Don Juan? Justine? That would have been a good one -- Darcy is not realistic because he is neither as depraved as de Sade, nor as womanizing as Don Juan.) But why should I care if my friend prefers Queen Victoria to Casanova? (Even if I find that rather odd?)
Except that wasn't entirely what she was saying -- instead, she was implying that Jane Austen failed at what Jane Austen was perhaps best at (creating realistic, three-dimensional, and compelling characters). She was saying Darcy wasn't realistic. Which rankles with me, because I think the strength of Austen's writing is in her characters. Not just the main characters, but even the very characters she satirizes: Mr. Collins, Lady Catherine, Lydia, and Mr and Mrs. Bennet. To say that even Mr. Darcy was unrealistic and impossible, and especially basing that statement on the social mores of the time (which I am fairly certain Jane Austen understood better than my biochemist friend), strikes me as the kind of ridiculous stubborn vanity as would make her, well, more akin to Lady Catherine than any other character in the movie we watched. And that is the sort of baseless condescension which I really dislike.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Still Alive
I have been writing, lately. But I feel like I have been writing the same thing over and over again, and the thing I have been writing has not been particularly interesting. So until I have an idea with some (albeit small, I have few enough illusions on that count) degree of originality, I'm forbearing from posting. I would not want to become that crazy emo whiner who writes the same immature poem over and over, with slightly different cadence (second verse same as the first a little bit louder a little bit worse).
However, things have been happening. (Happening!)
First (and most interesting): I went to the Jonathan Coulton Concert, which was amazing. I had a ton of fun, I ran into Yitz and some other Chicago people there. It was awesome! And JoCo (and Paul and Storm) signed my Half-Pony Half-Monkey Monster. Unfortunately, I did not have a camera and Yitz only had his cameraphone, so photographs are blurry. This one is my favorite:
Second: Saturday is the Edwardian Ball. I am working on my headpiece for the costume; the rest I scrounged up. So it is not as cool as potentially could be, but it's something, and it's already paid for, and it allows me to go to the Ball with impunity and observe the costumes there for ideas for next year. Krystal and Ruth are pretty much demanding photos, so I am borrowing a camera this time and they will be forthcoming. Hopefully the social dancing there will be in part swing (or salsa), since I am not terrible at those. Or (and perhaps moreso) hopefully someone there will be willing to give me a crash course in waltzing. After all, I cannot be 22 and not know how to waltz.
Third: My friends here are all into the dressing-up-sexily-and-going-to-dance-parties scene. Which is not really my scene, or has not been in the past. I am trying to get them into the costumes-and-doing-wacky-stunts scene, which is much more my kind of scene. But so far it has been wacky-stunts-when-Elizabeth-demands-and-otherwise-not. Caltrain dance is turning into something halfway in between (in part due to the choice of "Bye Bye Bye" as the song). But, you know, I have to be willing to meet them halfway. And choreography for that is... well... it's almost coming. I know half of one verse, and Krystal knows two thirds of that. So I should work on that, or put more energy into it, if I want it to actually happen. Otherwise, it'll be events like "Scantily clad night" and "Stoplight party", and Elizabeth feeling awkward in a little scrap of clothing while everyone else gets hit on by random (or not so random?) guys. And since I apparently have little or no choice in those two events anyway, I need to find outfits for them. Scantily clad night, of course, seems to be more "popping out of our attire night" than the former, so that will be much easier said than done for someone with as few curves as myself.
Fourth: Week two of Stanford Aerial Fabrics was much better than week one of Stanford Aerial Fabrics. I am basically playing TA, which is okay with me, and I was able to mess around a little bit at the end (and I sprinkled a few fun tricks throughout when no one else wanted to climb). And at San Fransisco Aerial Fabrics, I was informed that I could probably do five pull-ups all by myself. I am still dubious, but part of me is now eager to try. It's been so long since I could do more than one, and that with swinging to make it easier. But I am also stronger than I've been in a while. In other news, I can do a wheel-down now with some degree of smoothness! It's this move. Of course, I'm still slow, because doing it smoothly and quickly requires huge amounts of core strength and body control (you have to stay perfectly straight + hollow while pivoting around your waist). But Tuesday and Wednesday for the first time I was able to do it without being totally terrible. I need to get another leotard; that trick has a wonderful way of getting any shirt you wear stuck in it. Hooray!
Fifth: Rock climbing is more fun when you try to do routes; without that it presents not nearly the challenge of otherwise. On the other hand, routes tend to be designed with 6 foot guys in mind, and not five-foot girls. Which makes reaching things much more difficult. No, challenging.
However, things have been happening. (Happening!)
First (and most interesting): I went to the Jonathan Coulton Concert, which was amazing. I had a ton of fun, I ran into Yitz and some other Chicago people there. It was awesome! And JoCo (and Paul and Storm) signed my Half-Pony Half-Monkey Monster. Unfortunately, I did not have a camera and Yitz only had his cameraphone, so photographs are blurry. This one is my favorite:
Second: Saturday is the Edwardian Ball. I am working on my headpiece for the costume; the rest I scrounged up. So it is not as cool as potentially could be, but it's something, and it's already paid for, and it allows me to go to the Ball with impunity and observe the costumes there for ideas for next year. Krystal and Ruth are pretty much demanding photos, so I am borrowing a camera this time and they will be forthcoming. Hopefully the social dancing there will be in part swing (or salsa), since I am not terrible at those. Or (and perhaps moreso) hopefully someone there will be willing to give me a crash course in waltzing. After all, I cannot be 22 and not know how to waltz.
Third: My friends here are all into the dressing-up-sexily-and-going-to-dance-parties scene. Which is not really my scene, or has not been in the past. I am trying to get them into the costumes-and-doing-wacky-stunts scene, which is much more my kind of scene. But so far it has been wacky-stunts-when-Elizabeth-demands-and-otherwise-not. Caltrain dance is turning into something halfway in between (in part due to the choice of "Bye Bye Bye" as the song). But, you know, I have to be willing to meet them halfway. And choreography for that is... well... it's almost coming. I know half of one verse, and Krystal knows two thirds of that. So I should work on that, or put more energy into it, if I want it to actually happen. Otherwise, it'll be events like "Scantily clad night" and "Stoplight party", and Elizabeth feeling awkward in a little scrap of clothing while everyone else gets hit on by random (or not so random?) guys. And since I apparently have little or no choice in those two events anyway, I need to find outfits for them. Scantily clad night, of course, seems to be more "popping out of our attire night" than the former, so that will be much easier said than done for someone with as few curves as myself.
Fourth: Week two of Stanford Aerial Fabrics was much better than week one of Stanford Aerial Fabrics. I am basically playing TA, which is okay with me, and I was able to mess around a little bit at the end (and I sprinkled a few fun tricks throughout when no one else wanted to climb). And at San Fransisco Aerial Fabrics, I was informed that I could probably do five pull-ups all by myself. I am still dubious, but part of me is now eager to try. It's been so long since I could do more than one, and that with swinging to make it easier. But I am also stronger than I've been in a while. In other news, I can do a wheel-down now with some degree of smoothness! It's this move. Of course, I'm still slow, because doing it smoothly and quickly requires huge amounts of core strength and body control (you have to stay perfectly straight + hollow while pivoting around your waist). But Tuesday and Wednesday for the first time I was able to do it without being totally terrible. I need to get another leotard; that trick has a wonderful way of getting any shirt you wear stuck in it. Hooray!
Fifth: Rock climbing is more fun when you try to do routes; without that it presents not nearly the challenge of otherwise. On the other hand, routes tend to be designed with 6 foot guys in mind, and not five-foot girls. Which makes reaching things much more difficult. No, challenging.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Escapism in Literature
This is a response to an ongoing discussion on Duff's blog about fantastical literature and television and why we like it better (in exclusion of?) realistic stuff.
I can see two reasons for this, one personal and one artistic (aesthetic?). Personally, I spend all day reading papers that endeavor to precisely and accurately describe the workings of the world around us. I find some of them fascinating and exciting and wonderful, for their ideas and (very occasionally) for their precise style. Mostly for their ideas, though. I look at the world around me through a biologist's lens, and specifically through a geneticist's lens, and that's okay. It's better than okay. When I read fiction, (and when I write fiction), however, I do not do it to understand the world around me or express my views thereupon. At least, not with precision and accuracy. For me, that's what science does, what (good) anthropology does, what sociology does. But more and more, that's what science does. [Aside: There's a great line from Stoppard's latest play, where an aging Communist is going on about materialism and physicalism and the fact that we're all just very comlex automata, that we are our bodies, and his wife (who is dying of cancer) yells at him that her body is killing her and she needs to believe that there is more. She demands that he love her with something more than the body-as-mind-as-machine, and he replies, "But that's all that I have." Which pretty much just sums it up.] But basically, all day every day I strive for accuracy, and in my free time and in my recreation I want, instead, hyperbole. (And if it's hyperbole we're going for, then Duff's comment that Austen somehow gets around his need for fantasy makes sense to me.)
The second reason is a more aesthetic choice on my part, because I agree that, to a certain extent, elements of the fantastic, or the hyperbolic, are in most of the works of fiction I would describe as the "best" works of fiction. I think that if we want something that accurately and precisely details real-life situations, it behooves us to read nonfiction. After all, the most accurate fascimiles of real-life are going to be straight-up nonfiction accounts. Memoirs and autobiographies, perhaps, in order to get into the emotional state of the main character. Point being that the strength of fiction is that you can describe things that never happened -- and hence things that could not, ever, happen. Every single work of fiction, when it really comes down to it, no matter how realistic, is, at base, a fantasy. Someone dreamed it up. And as such, I appreciate works of fiction that embrace this fact and turn it to their strength -- works of fiction that use the ability for hyperbole and fantastical elements, those which put themselves into the world of this-could-never-happen from the world of this-never-happened, and those which force us to look at the world we live in differently because of the fantasy and hyperbole they employ. I could go on all day about examples, because there are thousands upon thousands. One of my favorites, though (and the one that comes to mind immediately) is what Rushdie does in "The Enchantress of Florence". There is one thread of fantasy that runs through the story, and it is the magic of storytelling and creation. Through the hyperbole -- the Mughal Emperor creates two wives, one through his imagination alone and one through his imagination with the help of a storyteller -- we are forced to look at storytelling and creativity in a different way, and through the potency of the second wife (who becomes a part of the collective imagination and not just that of the Emperor) we are forced to think about the physical power of ideas. Sure, someone could write (most likely has written) an essay or a non-fiction account about the power of ideas and the act of creativity as creation (and in terms of realistic fiction with this theme, I could make an argument for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe" I think?), but with the hyperbole -- the emperor actually creates a /physical human being/ out of his imagination -- it stands in stronger contrast, and whereas "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe" left me with the feeling that this ability of humans to latch onto an idea and make it true (or as true as it can get) is a weakness that feeds into our need for societal approbation and our hypocrisy: that creation through ideas is essentially false and we are weak for falling for it; "The Enchantress of Florence" left me with the feeling that creativity was humankind's greatest strength. (Of course, that might very well have absolutely nothing to do with the form and absolutely everything to do with the writers.)
One final thing that Duff said -- "Yet for some reason, when I open the pages of some literary review, all the novels the critics rave about are precisely [realist works]. I think it has to do with the existential and narcissistic glorification of those critics, as they are reading about themselves."
I think you maybe have a point, but even if that is the case it is not the whole story. No critic would say that the authors you named are less than stellar. Nor would they say that about any one of a number of other truly fantastical writers. "Time Traveller's Wife" is a good example of a critically acclaimed new book that was deeply fantastical at base. As is Rushdie's latest, as is "The Adventures of Kavaleir and Klay" (sp?). On television, "Pushing Daisies" is hugely critically acclaimed -- but people aren't watching it, and so it is being cancelled. Critics are treating graphic novels with respect these days, and so saying that fantastical literature is not being taken seriously is I think somewhat disingenuous. It is entirely possible, instead, that the predominance of critically acclaimed realist versus fantastical literature has as much to do with what is being published, and what is being written, as what is being critiqued. Perhaps there is just more realist literature than fantastical, and as a result more good realist literature and more critically acclaimed realist literature.
I can see two reasons for this, one personal and one artistic (aesthetic?). Personally, I spend all day reading papers that endeavor to precisely and accurately describe the workings of the world around us. I find some of them fascinating and exciting and wonderful, for their ideas and (very occasionally) for their precise style. Mostly for their ideas, though. I look at the world around me through a biologist's lens, and specifically through a geneticist's lens, and that's okay. It's better than okay. When I read fiction, (and when I write fiction), however, I do not do it to understand the world around me or express my views thereupon. At least, not with precision and accuracy. For me, that's what science does, what (good) anthropology does, what sociology does. But more and more, that's what science does. [Aside: There's a great line from Stoppard's latest play, where an aging Communist is going on about materialism and physicalism and the fact that we're all just very comlex automata, that we are our bodies, and his wife (who is dying of cancer) yells at him that her body is killing her and she needs to believe that there is more. She demands that he love her with something more than the body-as-mind-as-machine, and he replies, "But that's all that I have." Which pretty much just sums it up.] But basically, all day every day I strive for accuracy, and in my free time and in my recreation I want, instead, hyperbole. (And if it's hyperbole we're going for, then Duff's comment that Austen somehow gets around his need for fantasy makes sense to me.)
The second reason is a more aesthetic choice on my part, because I agree that, to a certain extent, elements of the fantastic, or the hyperbolic, are in most of the works of fiction I would describe as the "best" works of fiction. I think that if we want something that accurately and precisely details real-life situations, it behooves us to read nonfiction. After all, the most accurate fascimiles of real-life are going to be straight-up nonfiction accounts. Memoirs and autobiographies, perhaps, in order to get into the emotional state of the main character. Point being that the strength of fiction is that you can describe things that never happened -- and hence things that could not, ever, happen. Every single work of fiction, when it really comes down to it, no matter how realistic, is, at base, a fantasy. Someone dreamed it up. And as such, I appreciate works of fiction that embrace this fact and turn it to their strength -- works of fiction that use the ability for hyperbole and fantastical elements, those which put themselves into the world of this-could-never-happen from the world of this-never-happened, and those which force us to look at the world we live in differently because of the fantasy and hyperbole they employ. I could go on all day about examples, because there are thousands upon thousands. One of my favorites, though (and the one that comes to mind immediately) is what Rushdie does in "The Enchantress of Florence". There is one thread of fantasy that runs through the story, and it is the magic of storytelling and creation. Through the hyperbole -- the Mughal Emperor creates two wives, one through his imagination alone and one through his imagination with the help of a storyteller -- we are forced to look at storytelling and creativity in a different way, and through the potency of the second wife (who becomes a part of the collective imagination and not just that of the Emperor) we are forced to think about the physical power of ideas. Sure, someone could write (most likely has written) an essay or a non-fiction account about the power of ideas and the act of creativity as creation (and in terms of realistic fiction with this theme, I could make an argument for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe" I think?), but with the hyperbole -- the emperor actually creates a /physical human being/ out of his imagination -- it stands in stronger contrast, and whereas "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe" left me with the feeling that this ability of humans to latch onto an idea and make it true (or as true as it can get) is a weakness that feeds into our need for societal approbation and our hypocrisy: that creation through ideas is essentially false and we are weak for falling for it; "The Enchantress of Florence" left me with the feeling that creativity was humankind's greatest strength. (Of course, that might very well have absolutely nothing to do with the form and absolutely everything to do with the writers.)
One final thing that Duff said -- "Yet for some reason, when I open the pages of some literary review, all the novels the critics rave about are precisely [realist works]. I think it has to do with the existential and narcissistic glorification of those critics, as they are reading about themselves."
I think you maybe have a point, but even if that is the case it is not the whole story. No critic would say that the authors you named are less than stellar. Nor would they say that about any one of a number of other truly fantastical writers. "Time Traveller's Wife" is a good example of a critically acclaimed new book that was deeply fantastical at base. As is Rushdie's latest, as is "The Adventures of Kavaleir and Klay" (sp?). On television, "Pushing Daisies" is hugely critically acclaimed -- but people aren't watching it, and so it is being cancelled. Critics are treating graphic novels with respect these days, and so saying that fantastical literature is not being taken seriously is I think somewhat disingenuous. It is entirely possible, instead, that the predominance of critically acclaimed realist versus fantastical literature has as much to do with what is being published, and what is being written, as what is being critiqued. Perhaps there is just more realist literature than fantastical, and as a result more good realist literature and more critically acclaimed realist literature.
Treasure (Scavenger) Hunt!
So I'm tipsy and keyed up and incapable of sleep for a little while longer, after just about twelve hours of planning for and seeing out my treasure hunt party. If I do say so myself, it went splendidly. Chlymate, the god of California Weather, smiled down upon the proceedings; it was something like 70 degrees and sunny out today, which was wonderful. It was also convenient since we were almost all outside, and it ended up taking about twice as long as I thought it would. A good time was had by all, however, so I cannot complain by any means. Highlights:
1) Unrelated, but the check-out guy at the grocery store this morning read my name off of my receipt (which I am still not used to, and it really disconcerts me, but I think they're instructed to do so for everyone with the special discount card -- I knew I should not have gotten it) and commented that it was both good and Irish. My response (standard in said situations): "Yeah, it'd be even better if I were Irish."
2) Waiting for people to show at the second location; we (Biff and I) knew people were at the first, having seen them go there. But no one was showing up. So we called them, and they said they were waiting for us. Us: "We're not going there. There's a clue in the vicinity."
Some thirty seconds later, there's a huge stampede of people. Apparently they all ran en masse into the library, cracking the librarian up. I can only imagine.
3) Discovering that the last clue, to a bus route, was impossible: either the bus route does not exist or it does not run on weekends. I had to go to the library, print off a hastily worded and poorly thought out clue, and substitute it in for the final clue for every team, all the while hoping that no one saw me so I wouldn't give away the location of any of the clues.
4) The text messages I received from Alex (L.) about the clues: "Is this supposed to be possible?" and "[That] was a great clue."
5) Running into The A Team (eventual winners) just after they had figured out possibly the hardest clue in the hunt, and running with them to the location.
6) Accidentally calling Alex K. when I meant to call Alex L. to give a hint. Me: "I hear you need an origin." Him: "What?" Me: "What clue are you on?" Him: "Clue? What?" Me: "Oh, shit. I'm sorry. I have the wrong Alex." There are three Alexes in my phone book; it gets confusing. This is made only more awkward by the fact that even when I figured out I had the wrong Alex, I was not certain which wrong Alex I had. Oops.
7) Their apparent reaction to one clue, which was about 2 stories up on a wall: "Could Elizabeth climb that? Of course Elizabeth could climb that. But would she expect us to?" I didn't; there were stairs right behind it. And even if I likely could climb it, I would not have wanted to.
8) The look on everyone's face when they saw the (ghetto) trophy I had made this afternoon, complete with lemonade-jug top, tinfoil covering, and hand inscription of their names (I added that part after I found out who won, of course).
9) How close it ended up being. It all came down, in the end, to the last clue. While not great for certain reasons (such as the fact that the clue was both too obvious and too vague), it was great for competition's sake. Up until the last clue, I thought for sure The Red Team (the Geneticists) were going to win. They were way ahead. But they couldn't find the last clue, which allowed them to be overtaken by The A Team (half of the Biochemists).
I think I'd like to take part in one of these; to be honest, while I greatly enjoyed planning it and putting it on, I think the excitement of figuring out the clues and the competitive aspect of it would be really fun too. Then again, that means someone else would have to organize it. I hope I can trust Alex L. to do so -- he said he wanted to start thinking of clues. The best situation, of course, would be to organize some and participate in some. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
Next extravaganza: Choreographed Dance at the Caltrain Station. I'm making this my baby, although arguably the next extravaganza I'm attending is either the JoCo concert next week or the Edwardian Ball in two weeks. There are also other plans that will likely come to fruition before the Caltrain Dance, but it's the next on my horizon because it will take more energy and more organization. After all, we need as many people as possible, as well as a couple rehearsals so people know what they're doing.
1) Unrelated, but the check-out guy at the grocery store this morning read my name off of my receipt (which I am still not used to, and it really disconcerts me, but I think they're instructed to do so for everyone with the special discount card -- I knew I should not have gotten it) and commented that it was both good and Irish. My response (standard in said situations): "Yeah, it'd be even better if I were Irish."
2) Waiting for people to show at the second location; we (Biff and I) knew people were at the first, having seen them go there. But no one was showing up. So we called them, and they said they were waiting for us. Us: "We're not going there. There's a clue in the vicinity."
Some thirty seconds later, there's a huge stampede of people. Apparently they all ran en masse into the library, cracking the librarian up. I can only imagine.
3) Discovering that the last clue, to a bus route, was impossible: either the bus route does not exist or it does not run on weekends. I had to go to the library, print off a hastily worded and poorly thought out clue, and substitute it in for the final clue for every team, all the while hoping that no one saw me so I wouldn't give away the location of any of the clues.
4) The text messages I received from Alex (L.) about the clues: "Is this supposed to be possible?" and "[That] was a great clue."
5) Running into The A Team (eventual winners) just after they had figured out possibly the hardest clue in the hunt, and running with them to the location.
6) Accidentally calling Alex K. when I meant to call Alex L. to give a hint. Me: "I hear you need an origin." Him: "What?" Me: "What clue are you on?" Him: "Clue? What?" Me: "Oh, shit. I'm sorry. I have the wrong Alex." There are three Alexes in my phone book; it gets confusing. This is made only more awkward by the fact that even when I figured out I had the wrong Alex, I was not certain which wrong Alex I had. Oops.
7) Their apparent reaction to one clue, which was about 2 stories up on a wall: "Could Elizabeth climb that? Of course Elizabeth could climb that. But would she expect us to?" I didn't; there were stairs right behind it. And even if I likely could climb it, I would not have wanted to.
8) The look on everyone's face when they saw the (ghetto) trophy I had made this afternoon, complete with lemonade-jug top, tinfoil covering, and hand inscription of their names (I added that part after I found out who won, of course).
9) How close it ended up being. It all came down, in the end, to the last clue. While not great for certain reasons (such as the fact that the clue was both too obvious and too vague), it was great for competition's sake. Up until the last clue, I thought for sure The Red Team (the Geneticists) were going to win. They were way ahead. But they couldn't find the last clue, which allowed them to be overtaken by The A Team (half of the Biochemists).
I think I'd like to take part in one of these; to be honest, while I greatly enjoyed planning it and putting it on, I think the excitement of figuring out the clues and the competitive aspect of it would be really fun too. Then again, that means someone else would have to organize it. I hope I can trust Alex L. to do so -- he said he wanted to start thinking of clues. The best situation, of course, would be to organize some and participate in some. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
Next extravaganza: Choreographed Dance at the Caltrain Station. I'm making this my baby, although arguably the next extravaganza I'm attending is either the JoCo concert next week or the Edwardian Ball in two weeks. There are also other plans that will likely come to fruition before the Caltrain Dance, but it's the next on my horizon because it will take more energy and more organization. After all, we need as many people as possible, as well as a couple rehearsals so people know what they're doing.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
I'm Sorry, Chicago,
But San Francisco is my new favorite city ever.
You would still be in the running if you had something like this to spice up the mid-winter doldrums: www.edwardianball.com. I mean, You actually have midwinter doldrums badly in need of spicing. But do You warm up with a ridiculously wonderful celebration of costume, music, art, dance, steampunk, and circus? Not as far as I know.
Now if I could only convince my cohort to dress up, and buy tickets, and accompany me, it would be awesome! I am loath to take the Caltrain late at night, alone, in faux-victorian garb. Although I will if I have to.
You would still be in the running if you had something like this to spice up the mid-winter doldrums: www.edwardianball.com. I mean, You actually have midwinter doldrums badly in need of spicing. But do You warm up with a ridiculously wonderful celebration of costume, music, art, dance, steampunk, and circus? Not as far as I know.
Now if I could only convince my cohort to dress up, and buy tickets, and accompany me, it would be awesome! I am loath to take the Caltrain late at night, alone, in faux-victorian garb. Although I will if I have to.
Monday, January 05, 2009
Succubus
Inspired by It's four A.M. and I have work tomorrow but I have friends in Palo Alto and Playing Rock Band > Sleeping. I can almost do drums now!
“Have you looked at problem two?” Shelley asked.
“That’s easy,” Joanna chirped. “You just have to remember to account for phase; but otherwise it’s a simple pedigree.”
Shelley paused and stared at the eye-crossingly complicated pedigree. “What?” Joanna opened her mouth again, but Shelley held up a finger. “Last week you were as bad at this as me. Have you done nothing but study?”
“Oh. Er. I slept with the TA.”
“You cheated?”
“No, just slept with him. We didn’t talk science.”
Shelley blinked. “I was… unaware that’s how it worked.”
“Really? Huh. That’s how it’s always been for me.”
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Adrenaline Rush
Inspired by the word "Yegg", which means a safe-cracker. The continuation of the story would be, they hide, are not found, and steal nothing. I would have included that but I haven't figured out how they hide yet and it would likely have pushed it over 100 words.
“You said we wouldn’t be doing anything illegal!”
“I never said that. I said we wouldn’t be doing anything we couldn’t reasonably explain to the police.”
I stared at him. “And how would you reasonably explain this?” An alarm went off. “Because it appears you’ll get your chance.”
“I needed to get something out of the vault,” he answered calmly, and there was a crack as the lock broke and the door swung open on well oiled hinges. He stepped inside. “Calm down and get in here.”
He grinned winningly. “Life’s no fun without a bit of excitement,” he said.
Friday, January 02, 2009
Honesty and a good opening sentence
I have not been writing drabbles, because I have been playing Final Fantasy VII and revising my November's novel. This has taken up all of my time. Or at least, close to it. The rest has been taken up with wondering why I bother revising if I'm just writing for myself, and in fact why I bother posting anything online if I'm just writing for myself, and with the question of whether anyone can truly "just write for themselves" or if the very act of writing something down implies an audience. None of it matters, not really, but it's an interesting question and has got me thinking. Because the fact of the matter is that if I am posting things online, I must want people to read them. But I am too averse to self-promotion to advertise to my friends "Go here! Read this! I wrote it in November and I am proud!" and as such I feel like what I really want out of the internet is not simply a place where people will read, but where people will read anonymously. My acquaintances will not judge me for writing fluff if they never see the fluff that I write. Meanwhile someone, at least, is reading it. Hopefully. And my friends, well, my friends know me well enough to forgive my tendency to revel in fluff. Hopefully.
Also, a carton of schoolbooks finally found its way here from Chicago, so I am reunited with my Durkheim. Let the collective effervescence begin? (Weber was in the first batch, and I think I gave Marx away. I could make some comment here about the importance of the Protestant Ethic in getting through graduate school, and the importance of free sharing in Communism, but I won't. So there.)
And a drabble, because, well, I wrote one. Inspired by the word "Xanthous".
Also, a carton of schoolbooks finally found its way here from Chicago, so I am reunited with my Durkheim. Let the collective effervescence begin? (Weber was in the first batch, and I think I gave Marx away. I could make some comment here about the importance of the Protestant Ethic in getting through graduate school, and the importance of free sharing in Communism, but I won't. So there.)
And a drabble, because, well, I wrote one. Inspired by the word "Xanthous".
Suzie was not a coward. It wasn’t cowardly to know which battles could be won and which couldn’t. It wasn’t cowardly to choose your fights.
It wasn’t even cowardly, her mother had told her, to be frightened, and to scream, when the threat warranted. And Suzie was not frightened, and she hadn’t screamed.
“This isn’t something I’ll fight.”
“You’d rather just give up?”
“I’d rather move on. I’m leaving.”
“You can’t just leave because she said some nasty things!”
“I can’t just listen to her either!”
“She’d back down if you stood your ground.”
“I can’t,” Suzie said, and left.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
The Bane of all my Resolutions
I was cleaning my room at my parents' house when I discovered, much to my joy, the missing disc to Final Fantasy VII (for Windows). I had thought it was gone forever. So had my brother. He's now jealous (he no longer runs a Windows machine, and therefore cannot even steal it from me). And I have just left Midgar for the world at large, having decided to save it from Sephiroth. It's pretty wonderful. And the boss music is now stuck in my head.
Also there are lots of minigames that I don't remember; I am more used to FFVIII or FFX (neither of which have I beaten -- my brother is an absurd backseat gamer and that took much of the fun away from video games), which are much more straightforward. I think I like the small varieties of gameplay, although I have to admit that I am terrible at just about all of them (just like I'm terrible at most video games).
I had all of these really good resolutions planned, too, but I think in the short term I won't even keep a resolution of "Don't spend every waking moment playing FFVII". So I might have to revise those. We shall see.
Also there are lots of minigames that I don't remember; I am more used to FFVIII or FFX (neither of which have I beaten -- my brother is an absurd backseat gamer and that took much of the fun away from video games), which are much more straightforward. I think I like the small varieties of gameplay, although I have to admit that I am terrible at just about all of them (just like I'm terrible at most video games).
I had all of these really good resolutions planned, too, but I think in the short term I won't even keep a resolution of "Don't spend every waking moment playing FFVII". So I might have to revise those. We shall see.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Paltry
A drabble, inspired by the word Paltry:
Also had an adventure trying to get a custom calendar made for my mother. Ritz Camera stores appear to have problems employing non-obnoxious people, and also keeping their printers working. Two stores later, we still had not found a place that could print the calendar anytime in the known future. Which was not the result my mother and I expected, or desired. Especially since my father had received an e-mail telling him not that they had gotten his order, but that the calendar was printed and ready for pickup. Which was quite something in our opinions.
“Don’t touch that!” the shout rang out across the room. “Don’t you dare!”Saw "Frost/Nixon" today. It was really well done, and sparked a conversation about corruption in government and what Nixon did other than Watergate and whether (to simplify horribly) he was just a total slimeball and a crook or an overall decent president who did some really stupid corrupt things at the end of his tenure and got caught. (Diplomacy with China and Russia? Founding the EPA? wha?)
Jacob stared quizzically at his niece and the decorated paper plate in his hand. Most of the glitter had worn off, the bright colors faded. “What?”
“Put it down, now.”
Jacob set it down, still confused. Annie glared up at him. “That is the special-est award I have ever gotten. It is one of a kind. No one can touch it.”
Jacob stared up at the large mass-produced trophies that adorned the shelves, and the paper plate covered in tempera paint, and thought that maybe he understood.
Also had an adventure trying to get a custom calendar made for my mother. Ritz Camera stores appear to have problems employing non-obnoxious people, and also keeping their printers working. Two stores later, we still had not found a place that could print the calendar anytime in the known future. Which was not the result my mother and I expected, or desired. Especially since my father had received an e-mail telling him not that they had gotten his order, but that the calendar was printed and ready for pickup. Which was quite something in our opinions.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Oblique
A drabble, perhaps part of a longer piece and obliquely inspired by the word "Oblique":
Christmas was quiet; no one in my family could sleep last night (as in, everyone was awake at 4 AM), so we didn't do too much today. But I did have time to watch four Doctor Who Christmas Specials (all of the new ones, for those who know or care). I have to say, the newest one (The Next Doctor) is probably my favorite; vying with The Christmas Invasion. I would lean towards saying I like the new one better, largely because some of the themes that they've been playing with -- humans almost as clever, and therefore almost as powerful, as the Doctor, for one, and the Doctor's central loneliness, for another -- are done nicely in The Next Doctor and not even touched in The Christmas Invasion. And I like those themes.
“So, what do you do?” he asked, leaning too close for Sarah’s comfort.To a certain extent, my stubborn angry determination has defeated my writer's block. At least, this drabble was quicker than the last one. So that's good. Also, I've started going over November's Novel and will be posting it starting Jan. 1, with posts every week. It would be nice to be regularly posting something longer than 100 words, again.
She coughed lightly. “You’re psychic. Why don’t you tell me?”
He paused; perhaps offended. “Clever.” No such luck. “You work with Janice.” That wasn’t a surprising insight. “So, HR.” He grinned. “Impressed?”
“Forgive me if I’m not,” she said bluntly.
He smirked. “You have a useless degree in Philosophy from Cornell. You work long hours, without thanks. You don’t go out; haven’t since last year. Janice talked you into this and abandoned you, ‘for your own good’.”
He paused; she stared.
“No, Janice did not tell me.”
Christmas was quiet; no one in my family could sleep last night (as in, everyone was awake at 4 AM), so we didn't do too much today. But I did have time to watch four Doctor Who Christmas Specials (all of the new ones, for those who know or care). I have to say, the newest one (The Next Doctor) is probably my favorite; vying with The Christmas Invasion. I would lean towards saying I like the new one better, largely because some of the themes that they've been playing with -- humans almost as clever, and therefore almost as powerful, as the Doctor, for one, and the Doctor's central loneliness, for another -- are done nicely in The Next Doctor and not even touched in The Christmas Invasion. And I like those themes.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Christmastime
Merry Christmas to everyone I have not caught on the telephone! Merry Christmas, Happy Channukah, Happy New Year, Winter Solstice, Holidays, etcetera, etcetera, and so forth! Pretty much, I love you all, and miss most of you (those of you I haven't seen today), and hope that you are having a wonderful holiday season.
I'm sitting in the living room; the rest of the family has gone to sleep after watcing Wall-E (to Kevin from Santa), while tomorrow's dinner boils and bubbles away on the stove (I was bored and overambitious -- yes, it is past eleven here). I have at least an hour's worth of cook time left, and not much of anything to do. I cleaned up the living room (all wrapping paper is gone); I even got my brother to help. And now I'm back to my standard state this break: boredom.
I have not been posting largely because I have not felt like I had anything to write; I have been trying to write this break and have not had much success at all (2 pages of beginning to nothing in particular doesn't count). I think the creative deficit is finally hitting me (last night and this afternoon especially), which spurred the decision to cook, certainly. It was something to do, at least, but it didn't really make me feel like I had brought anything new into the world -- except a batch of pasta sauce that is still incomplete and could have been done hours ago if I had done it the way mom always does it instead of adding too much liquid. And a loaf of cornbread which turned out nicely.
It's been forever since I had an idea for a story, basically, and I'm really beginning to feel it. The drabble below is my attempt at forcing myself to re-enter the fray, even if I feel like I'm rusty and out of shape and have run out of any unique ideas. Honestly, I'm not; I'm burned out intelletcually after finals week and out of practice with writing after my Nano-inspired break. I just need to get back into it. Which is, perhaps, easier said than done.
Perhaps that can be a New Year's resolution. That and a few other things, like "Excersize outside of Silks class" and "Ask more questions" (this is my favorite).
On NPR today a TV critic listed his top 10 TV shows of 2008. Making the list was Pushing Daisies (ABC, I hate you for cancelling one of the few good shows on television) and Doctor Horrible (Yes, even though it was not on television -- it was so awesome they bent the rules).
Drabble: Made Up, inspired by the word "Narcissism"
I'm sitting in the living room; the rest of the family has gone to sleep after watcing Wall-E (to Kevin from Santa), while tomorrow's dinner boils and bubbles away on the stove (I was bored and overambitious -- yes, it is past eleven here). I have at least an hour's worth of cook time left, and not much of anything to do. I cleaned up the living room (all wrapping paper is gone); I even got my brother to help. And now I'm back to my standard state this break: boredom.
I have not been posting largely because I have not felt like I had anything to write; I have been trying to write this break and have not had much success at all (2 pages of beginning to nothing in particular doesn't count). I think the creative deficit is finally hitting me (last night and this afternoon especially), which spurred the decision to cook, certainly. It was something to do, at least, but it didn't really make me feel like I had brought anything new into the world -- except a batch of pasta sauce that is still incomplete and could have been done hours ago if I had done it the way mom always does it instead of adding too much liquid. And a loaf of cornbread which turned out nicely.
It's been forever since I had an idea for a story, basically, and I'm really beginning to feel it. The drabble below is my attempt at forcing myself to re-enter the fray, even if I feel like I'm rusty and out of shape and have run out of any unique ideas. Honestly, I'm not; I'm burned out intelletcually after finals week and out of practice with writing after my Nano-inspired break. I just need to get back into it. Which is, perhaps, easier said than done.
Perhaps that can be a New Year's resolution. That and a few other things, like "Excersize outside of Silks class" and "Ask more questions" (this is my favorite).
On NPR today a TV critic listed his top 10 TV shows of 2008. Making the list was Pushing Daisies (ABC, I hate you for cancelling one of the few good shows on television) and Doctor Horrible (Yes, even though it was not on television -- it was so awesome they bent the rules).
Drabble: Made Up, inspired by the word "Narcissism"
Juliette primped for the mirror. She smiled at it winningly. Her mother called something from downstairs, but she disregarded it, adjusting her hair infinitesimally.On a completely unrelated note, I am glad the Doctor Who Christmas Special shows in the UK tomorrow; this means I might be able to see it sometime in the next century. (Boo to BBC America for showing the last three Christmas Specials here tomorrow, and not the new one!) And you know you've gone into Doctor Who withdrawal when you start dreaming about the Doctor. I was Martha (I was not "his companion", I was specifically Martha). There were plant-people. I woke up before discovering what their intentions were, but the Doctor was not the least bit afraid. Last night was a big night for dreaming; there was also something about Chicago, but much more of that has faded away since waking.
She looked lovely.
Her date was, of course, waiting. She checked her appearance one last time, making sure nothing had gone awry. No, still beautiful. She almost cried at the beauty of her own visage, but she stopped for the sake of her mascara. She stood, carefully, and turned for the steps.
When she got to the front door, he was gone.
“Where is he?”
“It’s been two hours. Did you expect him to wait forever?”
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
I Found My Heart in San Fransisco?
Har har har.
But somewhat more seriously, as I was walking (slowly, slowly) up from aerial class today towards the MUNI stop, breathing in the cold fog and breathing out slightly warmer fog, considering eating the chocolates I had been given for christmas as dinner (they were delicious), I had one of those movie-homecoming moments. You know, the last scene of the movie that goes with the epilog of the heroine having found a home and a new life and going off to change the world? It just felt comfortable and right. Which is pretty awesome, since I didn't really feel at home in Chicago until the end of my second year or something like that. I think, in part, it is related to the fact that I am doing things that force me out into the city more often than I was in Undergraduate, and also because everyone here is super friendly. Like, whoah.
On the other hand, I went to a stretching class today. Trust me when I say it was seriously hard core. No intro to yoga class, this. As in, they nicknamed it contorture. It appealed to a somewhat older audience than the aerial class I usually take, I think, although I am uncertain as to why -- flexibility goes before strength does, at least as far as I knew.
I'm going to start by saying I am not a contortionist. There are people who are bendy, naturally, and there are people who build muscle mass naturally. I am fairly squarely in the latter category, given my gender and age. When I was a gymnast, I hated it when my coaches would push me into stretches, because it hurt. And I was still not as flexible as my little brother, no matter how much my coaches pushed and pulled and stretched. Now I am perhaps a little more flexible than my little brother (he stopped stretching, I didn't), but I have discovered that it still hurts. And, if I thought that the pushing my gymnastics or diving coaches would do was bad, it was mostly because I had never trained with contortionists. Ouch.
Ouch.
Ouch!
The moment when I realized that I simply cannot do this ever again was when I couldn't breathe because the coach was compressing my lungs against a balance beam (pulling my shoulders back), while critiquing me that I should stop holding my breath and just relax (oh right because that is a perfectly natural thing to do when your arms are being torn out of their sockets); "See? When I said that you stretched farther!" he said as I almost passed out. I should have perhaps said the safe word (you know a class is going to be bad when there's a safe word. It was "Papaya") but I would have felt like a wimp, and my stubborn determination in the face of pain in general serves me well (I will not say whether it served me well in that situation or not, I have not decided yet). Also I couldn't really choke anything out (no air, and all) and settled instead for shaking my head madly.
When I do aerial stuff, I feel challenged and pushed but not that I am trying to get my body to do something it absolutely positively was not made to do. This time, I felt like saying "No, I cannot do that, I have organs there."
I was unaware, up until today, that one could stretch so much one felt sore the next day. I'm worried that tomorrow I might not be able to walk. And this class came highly recommended, too!
I'm also wondering if stretching out my pike and not so much my bridge for years in diving has made my arch worse than the rest of me, which is another explanation for why I was thinking "this class is maybe pretty okay even though it hurts like none other, and it would be super useful to get more flexible" until they started stretching out our backs, when it turned into "O God O God I am in pain and I cannot breathe haallllppp!"
As if to make matters worse, a dancer dropped in to the aerial class who would have been a great contortionist. Part of me is really jealous of people who can bend like that, in part because I think that their poses look so much cooler and prettier than the ones I can do. This is only made worse after 1.5 hours spent undergoing huge amounts of pain in order to... not bend that much. I mean, really. Even just being able to do the splits would be nice. On the other hand, she couldn't really do a straddle-up, or climb the silks. And I think I would be much more disappointed if instead of being able to climb to the top of the silks (or ropes or lampposts or trees or what have you) I could, I dunno, put my leg behind my head, or kiss my foot without bending my knees.
Time for a hot shower and sleep. And fingers crossed that I can get out of bed tomorrow! It will be lucky if I can.
But somewhat more seriously, as I was walking (slowly, slowly) up from aerial class today towards the MUNI stop, breathing in the cold fog and breathing out slightly warmer fog, considering eating the chocolates I had been given for christmas as dinner (they were delicious), I had one of those movie-homecoming moments. You know, the last scene of the movie that goes with the epilog of the heroine having found a home and a new life and going off to change the world? It just felt comfortable and right. Which is pretty awesome, since I didn't really feel at home in Chicago until the end of my second year or something like that. I think, in part, it is related to the fact that I am doing things that force me out into the city more often than I was in Undergraduate, and also because everyone here is super friendly. Like, whoah.
On the other hand, I went to a stretching class today. Trust me when I say it was seriously hard core. No intro to yoga class, this. As in, they nicknamed it contorture. It appealed to a somewhat older audience than the aerial class I usually take, I think, although I am uncertain as to why -- flexibility goes before strength does, at least as far as I knew.
I'm going to start by saying I am not a contortionist. There are people who are bendy, naturally, and there are people who build muscle mass naturally. I am fairly squarely in the latter category, given my gender and age. When I was a gymnast, I hated it when my coaches would push me into stretches, because it hurt. And I was still not as flexible as my little brother, no matter how much my coaches pushed and pulled and stretched. Now I am perhaps a little more flexible than my little brother (he stopped stretching, I didn't), but I have discovered that it still hurts. And, if I thought that the pushing my gymnastics or diving coaches would do was bad, it was mostly because I had never trained with contortionists. Ouch.
Ouch.
Ouch!
The moment when I realized that I simply cannot do this ever again was when I couldn't breathe because the coach was compressing my lungs against a balance beam (pulling my shoulders back), while critiquing me that I should stop holding my breath and just relax (oh right because that is a perfectly natural thing to do when your arms are being torn out of their sockets); "See? When I said that you stretched farther!" he said as I almost passed out. I should have perhaps said the safe word (you know a class is going to be bad when there's a safe word. It was "Papaya") but I would have felt like a wimp, and my stubborn determination in the face of pain in general serves me well (I will not say whether it served me well in that situation or not, I have not decided yet). Also I couldn't really choke anything out (no air, and all) and settled instead for shaking my head madly.
When I do aerial stuff, I feel challenged and pushed but not that I am trying to get my body to do something it absolutely positively was not made to do. This time, I felt like saying "No, I cannot do that, I have organs there."
I was unaware, up until today, that one could stretch so much one felt sore the next day. I'm worried that tomorrow I might not be able to walk. And this class came highly recommended, too!
I'm also wondering if stretching out my pike and not so much my bridge for years in diving has made my arch worse than the rest of me, which is another explanation for why I was thinking "this class is maybe pretty okay even though it hurts like none other, and it would be super useful to get more flexible" until they started stretching out our backs, when it turned into "O God O God I am in pain and I cannot breathe haallllppp!"
As if to make matters worse, a dancer dropped in to the aerial class who would have been a great contortionist. Part of me is really jealous of people who can bend like that, in part because I think that their poses look so much cooler and prettier than the ones I can do. This is only made worse after 1.5 hours spent undergoing huge amounts of pain in order to... not bend that much. I mean, really. Even just being able to do the splits would be nice. On the other hand, she couldn't really do a straddle-up, or climb the silks. And I think I would be much more disappointed if instead of being able to climb to the top of the silks (or ropes or lampposts or trees or what have you) I could, I dunno, put my leg behind my head, or kiss my foot without bending my knees.
Time for a hot shower and sleep. And fingers crossed that I can get out of bed tomorrow! It will be lucky if I can.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Things
1. There is, somewhere in my neighborhood, someone with a horn that plays La Cucaracha. Or rather, something that sounds an awful lot like a horn that plays La Cucaracha. I hear it every morning -- yawny childish brass honking cheerily.
2. My PI for my first rotation lives in a redwood forest. She invited the lab to her home for a Christmas party, and we went on a hike to get to her house. Better yet, she has a slackwire in her backyard. For her five year old daughter. A slackwire! Which is, in my opinion, possibly the most awesome thing ever. I climbed on it, but did not feel comfortable letting go of the balance ropes.
3. My cheesecake was a success! It was tasty, but next time I will 1) put more sugar and more lime in (the filling was a bit bland for my tastes), 2) use unsalted butter + salt on the crust for better control, and 3) possibly try the method where you put the spring-form pan in a dish of water to bake, thus making it cook slower.
4. After close contact with a Saint Bernard and the rain, I smelled like a wet dog. The dog was pretty much the sweetest animal ever. I really like Newfoundlands and Saint Bernards, I've decided, even more than I like big Labradors. Their mellowness is nice. I might like them better if I wasn't allergic, however.
5. Watching the fog come in over the redwood-covered mountains is amazing. Absolutely amazing.
Tomorrow is the latke party; I'm about as prepared as I want to be at this point (cookie dough in the fridge, etc). I just have to hope I don't burn the potatoes. *fingers crossed*
2. My PI for my first rotation lives in a redwood forest. She invited the lab to her home for a Christmas party, and we went on a hike to get to her house. Better yet, she has a slackwire in her backyard. For her five year old daughter. A slackwire! Which is, in my opinion, possibly the most awesome thing ever. I climbed on it, but did not feel comfortable letting go of the balance ropes.
3. My cheesecake was a success! It was tasty, but next time I will 1) put more sugar and more lime in (the filling was a bit bland for my tastes), 2) use unsalted butter + salt on the crust for better control, and 3) possibly try the method where you put the spring-form pan in a dish of water to bake, thus making it cook slower.
4. After close contact with a Saint Bernard and the rain, I smelled like a wet dog. The dog was pretty much the sweetest animal ever. I really like Newfoundlands and Saint Bernards, I've decided, even more than I like big Labradors. Their mellowness is nice. I might like them better if I wasn't allergic, however.
5. Watching the fog come in over the redwood-covered mountains is amazing. Absolutely amazing.
Tomorrow is the latke party; I'm about as prepared as I want to be at this point (cookie dough in the fridge, etc). I just have to hope I don't burn the potatoes. *fingers crossed*
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Excitement!
First, a drabble, inspired by the word "elocute":
Second: my silks instructor today (I celebrated by going to the city for lessons. This was not an abnormal activity for me, but it was celebratory anyway.) looked at me at the beginning of class and said "You know lots of tricks. You should start trying to tie them together. Your job for today is to make a phrase of two or three tricks." Which was happy (I know lots of tricks!) but terrifying (What do I know about stringing them together?) But I did it, and at the end of class she had everyone (which meant both of my classmates and herself, so not many people) watch while I did my little phrase. It was probably terrible, but I didn't fall down -- I actually came out of the last trick gracefully (which is a big deal for me) and so I was happy with it, especially for the first time. Chris (a classmate) had the same duty, and while his had a lot more cool tricks, he got tired halfway through and it was sloppy afterward. On the other hand, he has a lot of dance experience so he probably has a better idea on where to start with this "choreography" thing.
She feared becoming the teacher from Charlie Brown – standing in the front of the room, pontificating, while all anyone could hear was “wah wah wah”. She could envision her students’ eyes glazing over, the boy in the back of the room falling asleep, the two girls in the corner passing notes.I have many reasons to celebrate today. First (and most important): I am done with my first quarter of graduate school! W00! I finished up my last final today, hand it in tomorrow at 10 AM, and so that leaves me with a week or so more time to really dedicate myself to my rotation lab before I go on vacation and start my next rotation. This is pretty thrilling to me.
That was, if anyone asked her, why she chose to speak so clearly. Sharp consonants and round vowels would keep her from fading into the ignominy of incomprehensibility.
But she couldn’t explain all that to Johnny when he asked, “Why do you use your teacher’s voice all the time?”
Second: my silks instructor today (I celebrated by going to the city for lessons. This was not an abnormal activity for me, but it was celebratory anyway.) looked at me at the beginning of class and said "You know lots of tricks. You should start trying to tie them together. Your job for today is to make a phrase of two or three tricks." Which was happy (I know lots of tricks!) but terrifying (What do I know about stringing them together?) But I did it, and at the end of class she had everyone (which meant both of my classmates and herself, so not many people) watch while I did my little phrase. It was probably terrible, but I didn't fall down -- I actually came out of the last trick gracefully (which is a big deal for me) and so I was happy with it, especially for the first time. Chris (a classmate) had the same duty, and while his had a lot more cool tricks, he got tired halfway through and it was sloppy afterward. On the other hand, he has a lot of dance experience so he probably has a better idea on where to start with this "choreography" thing.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Friendliness
First, a drabble, inspired by the word "Sentinel":
They said it was impossible to get past the sentinel; that no one had ever reached the castle unknown. But Daniel had his ways. He was better than the others.Also, my mother laughed at me when I said I was surprised that strangers on the street have conversations with me. She pointed out that I once lent my phone to a (probable) drug dealer on Michigan Avenue. In my defense, I did not think he was a drug dealer, just a man without a phone. (Although it is a good story). She also laughed at my assertion that I was a cynical, east-coast, city-type and not a friendly California type. However, I stand by my assertions and my surprise.
He was not, however, as good as the girl he tripped over in his way through the forest. “Sorry!” she yelped, smiling warmly and moving out of his way. “Are you going to the castle?”
Daniel nodded instinctively. He realized too late that he should be keeping his secrets.
“Marvellous!” she said, cheerily. “I am too!”
“Why?” he asked.
“To tell the king you’re here,” she chirped. “I’m the sentinel.”
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