( +4 )

Knitting. Homework. Considering term paper proposals. I haven't finished a book for weeks, though I've been drifting in the middles or almost-ends of Virginia Woolf's Orlando, Konrad Lorenz's King Solomon's Ring, Tanith Lee's The Book of the Dead (re-read, partly because I lost my first review of it), and Robert Stone's Bear and His Daughter for weeks, if not months. Arrrrrrgh I just want to finish something. (of course complaining about it will help!)

I also owe someone on devart an ACEO trade (not to mention some incredibly overdue art for stereophilic and silencestation), and I have some new Microns in sepia that I'm dying to break in... but tonight I must read papers about bee decision-making and immunology. :B Beeees.

Yes, I has an addiction. My lovely roommate modeled for me this time, which made things 100x easier, too. Click for 'em on Etsy

This semester has been weirdly busy, in part because I've been absurdly indecisive about classes, but I think I'm settled now. (Corollary: Sorry I haven't been keeping up with the f-list; I've been doing the whole reading-but-not-commenting thing.) So many good bio classes this semester! I haven't been back to lab yet, but I have been nibbling at my poetry thesis here and there (when I finally meet my adviser next Wednesday, I might ask her about sneaking in some fiction too), so overall things are looking... okayish. Although I am already massively in sleep debt. lol.

I've been reading from Steven Strogatz's Sync: How Order Emerges From Chaos In the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life, which is cool as all get out. I can see now why my roomie is so obsessed with science writing - I haven't really read anything beyond actual papers and the occasional NYT Science article. :X So reading whole chapters of stuff you're meant to actually understand without reams of background reading and side discussion is pretty refreshing. Makes me wish I were actually good at math, too. oh you rakish biological mathematicians, with your proofs and models!

Today I sat in on one of my roomie's classes (American Women Writers), for the purpose of listening to her professor lecture on Twilight. (She paused at one point and murmured, "This book makes my head hurt.") Fanfreakingtastic stuff. I promised fairnymph a while ago that I would try to pull together an essay on the eroticism of vampires, and the last 10 minutes of the lecture were basically that. *clings to her notes* It was all too glorious! I wonder if she's ever taught a vampire fiction course? xenophobia! class/race tension! queerness galore! Also glorious. Also also, it totally made my day that she referred to "fantasy literature" and "vampire literature."

Also also also, at the end of the class I was writing so quickly that I spelled Edward as "Edwad," which only seems appropriate.

I had previously mentioned a Big Project that was coming close to fruition - the moment has come to unveil it. :X For the past month and a bit, my partner-in-crime stuffu and I have been working quietly on TheBlackLetters.net, our joint literary blog and general celebration of all things bibliophilic.

As you probably know, we both read a lot, in pretty much every genre (although we're especially heavy on fantasy, sci-fi, and graphic novels), so we'll be filling up the blog with plenty of interesting material; we already have a good smattering of posts to give a taste of things to come. We'll mainly be featuring book reviews, but we'll also have reviews of bookstores and book and author events, fun literary links, and discussion and analysis. In the future we hope to feature author interviews and other such tidbits.


click me!

Take a look if you have the chance; we really appreciate any looks, links, or comments. Hopefully some of you will enjoy this! And thank you - this is our baby and we're way excited to send it out into the world. ;o;

Crrrrazy scanning went on at the end of the year, because doodling once again became one of my stress-release methods during paper-writing and exam time. :P



( DUMP - Some nudity )

My to-read list, now assiduously kept for almost 4 years, currently numbers somewhere upwards of 480 books. I noticed that Vega had started an a-to-z author personal reading challenge - something that I'd been vaguely considering for a year or so, so thought it would be fun to traverse my to-read list and pick out my 26.

( Emera's Personal A-to-Z Challenge )

I doubt that I'd do this in order, because I'm a bit picky about thematic/generic juxtaposition when I'm reading (e.g. "I'm tired of fantasy, I want to read contemporary fiction now" or "there must be moar cyberpunk!"), but we'll see if I can pull this off. Maybe I'll have time to work on it this summer. Maybe. XD If only I had an extra hour out of every 24 for each of my hobbies! (or, more realistically, if only I had better time-management skills...)

---------------------------------------------
Other summer-reading goals (wistful sigh)
- Finish the Riverside series
- Finish the Bean series
- Re-read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
---------------------------------------------
^ to be updated as more things come to me.


What's worse - a talented writer with an enormous oeuvre that you know you'll never have the time to read all of (especially if said writer is obscure enough to have numerous works out of print... ahem Tanith Lee), or a talented writer with a frustratingly tiny oeuvre (ahem Ellen Kushner)?

*dives back into papers*

It's 80 degrees out today, why am I still knitting? BECAUSE I CAN. Oh geez, it's so sticky and unseasonal, yet delightful. I'd rather be working on papers endlessly when the weather is good, even if I can't precisely enjoy the weather directly. It's less depressing to wake up to a sunny sky.

I finished this week a longlonglongtime knitting goal: a pair of convertible gloves/mittens! "Glitten" is such an awkward/kind of ugly word, but it's faster than saying "convertible gloves/mittens," unfortunately. Thought it might be fun to post a start-to-finish run of progress photos for the left one, though most have been lurking on my Flickr already, and I've posted one before.


YAY.

( Read more... )

I feel like I take too many photos. But then, that's why I have a Flickr paid account, right?

So excited for Who Killed Amanda Palmer. Dead Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman shorts, oh boy!!

Back to writing and reading papers...

First posted June 06, 2005.

( Oh boy oh boy )

This is what happens when I have two paying jobs again. (though of course all were bought used and/or with the application of copious coupons.) This all happened within the last... mm, 29 days.

( Read more... )

The Dr. Who scarf is still drying, haha.

Almost forgot... Maledicte fanarts for stuffu!

Gilly, Maledicte's irresistibly, haplessly loyal butler-type. (labeled for your convenience?) And I don't even like blondes.
I should have done his ponytail-ribbon black! for contrast. and accuracy. Whoops.

( more, warning for one nude )

"[Engaged reading involves an] image-building process whose significance lies in the fact that image-building eliminates the subject-object division essential for all perception, so that when we 'awaken' to the real world, this division seems all the more accentuated... so that we can view our own world as a thing 'freshly understood'" (Wolfgang Iser, The Act of Reading).

So well-said.

And for something completely different, a little video I took of a frenzied squirrel trying to chase flocks of the newly-returned starlings and robins out of his territory. NO BIRDS ON THIS GRASS.

I did a little stress-shopping today, which consisted of buying my French texts (ugghhhh, inflated prices), checking the used book sale at the public library (for once, they DIDN'T have eighteen books that I wanted - I considered a mass-market of Mercedes Lackey's The Black Swan, even though I wasn't that impressed when I read it - but that was it, really), and getting a new notebook at Morning Glory (see above). My current journal is over halfway full, although that doesn't really mean anything considering that I have, I think, five more completely untouched ones... but I've really been craving stationery. XD

( Two more )

I also eyed several pastel notebooks covered in glitter and cavorting chibi seals making "puuu~~" noises and playing trumpets, but I decided that my self-respect probably couldn't handle it. :P

Pwned by Neil Gaiman

and how! Beyond the amusing comparison to Leonard Cohen, check out the exchange in the comments in which someone argues with (the real) Neil Gaiman about how his (Neil's) last name is pronounced. Also someone named Laura who just as brilliantly says "lol ur naem is gayman" also to the Real Neil. whoops. Cue many profuse apologies. What cynical fools the Internet makes of us, and how useful Google is.

Also, quoth Neil: "...people who work in SF and Comic stores always know everything, but they are mostly wrong." Yep.

It's funny how the art styles of artists who befriend each other sometimes seem to converge. I was browsing YamiNoMalik's gallery at the same time as klar's, and some of YnM's recent linework and oC work is so similar to klar's that I had to stop and check which gallery I was actually looking at. It's all the brown! Her style is more, um, prickly? though. and she actually uses colors other than brown, haha.

Another pair of artist-friends whose work I've been liking:
bluealaris (such kickass watercolors)
lokelani

Also just found AlistairCuttlebrink, who has some really cute stuff; in particular I like The Imperial Brat. The facial expression of the one on the left makes me laugh so hard.

Yikes, why am I so cynical lately?

Has everyone checked out the Coraline movie website yet? It's a little time-consuming, but it's breathtakingly beautiful, which really gives me hope that the movie will be a great experience - different from the book, but great. It seems more colorful and brash than the book, which I always think of as a ghostly, wispy, monochrome kind of thing, figuratively and literally slender, with the same quiet, deeply-buried sense of wonder as Stardust (which I like better, for the record).

The movie, by contrast, seems more overtly playful, with its saturated nighttime color palette and curious, lively soundtrack. But generally, this is a transformation that I appreciate. (The one thing I really don't like is all of the advertising with Coraline smiling cockily, arms crossed. bleh.) I think everyone agrees that Stardust turned out as a fun movie with successful but not stupid mass appeal, and I did enjoy it, but every time I think about how hectic and action-stuffed it was I tend to feel a headache coming on. A lot of me still wishes that it had come out as a strange, small film with the kind of lyrical melancholy that I love about The Last Unicorn. I think TLU and Stardust (I mean the books here) have a lot in common - they're both wistfully funny, very fantastical works that are deeply rooted in reality. Good stuff.

Anyway, at least so far, I find the changes to Coraline a little truer to the feel of the book than were those for Stardust, maybe because the painstaking process of the film-making itself implicitly demands that the movie be a labor of love. It remains to be seen whether the movie will be as scary as the book. I think it might be a little more conventionally scary, but because the playfulness seems to bring it in a more Disney Alice in Wonderland direction (that is, weird-scary rather than eerie-scary... I think...), I think it still has a lot of potential. And regardless, it's going to be an aesthetic treat, like The Corpse Bride! Anyway again, I actually do have a headache right now, so this is all rather imprecisely written. So don't take me at my word for any of it exactly. wahhhh head hurty.

I do have to say that I have fangasms every time I think about the fact that *everything* in the movie - every single prop and character - is hand-made, not CGI. but of course in these jaded times, everyone will assume it's CGI.

Check out one of the special clips about the making of the movie: Micro-knitting!

Just thought it would be fun to do lists of all the movies and books read in 2008.

( Movies of 2008 )


( Books (and comics) of 2008 )

Will gladly provide summaries/details on anything if anyone wants more information.

( More on gender perception and pronouns, and some other stuff )

And now for something COMPLETELY different: sneak peek at Tim Burton’s Alice! I want to eat her and her wardrobe, both.

I find it weirdly endearing when directors have obvious muses (Burton + Johnny Depp, Woody Allen + Scarlett Johanssen), in an "I see what you did there!" kind of way.

Also, I have Maledicte fanart lying around, among other things, but lately I just sit around and read and write and try to write papers and study biochem, so I haven't had the chance to draw some OTHER stuff (like commissions and gifts ~_~), or scan anything. I've been retreating from life, or something. I really just have too many hobbies - if I devote attention to any of them in particular, the others slip. I think if I could split myself into three people, I would be much more successful in life.

Also also, this icon is now almost unseasonable, but stuffu gets a kick out of it, so I'll try to get some last-minute mileage out of it.

I complained recently about not having anything of substance in my LJ anymore, so in remorse, I here put forth a chunk of my huge review... thing...? of Lane Robins' Maledicte. It is, however, rife with spoilers, and when I say huge, I mean huge. The full file is 5 pages in Word right now, and so far I've only written out a portion of what I really want to. This is only a portion of the portion. :P Also, some NSFW content, just so I'm covering my bases.

General thoughts first: I found Maledicte very intelligently written. Robins clearly puts thought into plot, character development, and emotional development. This sounds like faint praise, but when so much genre work DOES lack thought (e.g. sacrificing structure and believability for style or invention), it’s pretty refreshing to read something that is sturdily and carefully written and psychologically convincing.

Here follows the madness...

( literary analysis is FUN! )

I spent rather a large (but not exorbitant, I would hasten to add) amount of money today on new books from Labyrinth - the first time I've done so in a while, by my standards. I really wanted to take advantage of the 20% general discount that I got for buying SO MANY FREAKING EXPENSIVE TEXTBOOKS, so. They've also moved in their used book section, which is... acceptable, I suppose. I'm used to the really ridiculous markdowns at the public library's book sale ($.50 for unmarked paperbacks, $2-4 for hardcovers or trade editions), so Labyrinth's prices are comparatively steep for me. XD

In any case, I got a complete hardcover edition of all of Yeats' poems, a signed copy of Robert Hass' newest collection (the Pulitzer prize-winning one, hoo hoo), and the copy of Metamorphoses that I've been craving for a while. (it's this one: I love it for the charming sheep-horned lady on the cover)

Also, Carly and I discussed today the possibility of learning all of the Pokérap (the only part that we remembered was from "CHARMELEON... Wartortle" onwards) and performing it with someone beatboxing for us. This seems to me like a good use of my time, indeed.

Originally posted Dec. 10, 2006.

Amazon wishlist - nice editions of Shakespeare, preferably antique - the rest of Lang's colored fairy books - Becket ou L'Honneur de Dieu, Anouilh - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Tom Stoppard - Sandman - Endless Nights - Eleanour Sinclair Rohde's works - any other picture books or childhood fantasy series I've forgotten - Digger collections - Black Dogs - OOTS collections - The Belgariad & Malloreon - Outside Over There, Maurice Sendak - Story of the Stone - poss hardcovers of Darkangel trilogy? - Fahrenheit 451 - Gneil: Black Orchid, Smoke and Mirrors - East of the Sun and West of the Moon Peter Beagle - Last Unicorn, Deluxe Edition - Last Unicorn, Lost Version Robin Hobb: Tawny Man trilogy From Amazon.co.uk: L23.65 for the first two = $33.63 = 16.82/ea. From Abebooks: - madrossabooks: 55.35 for paperback Tawny Man, Ship of Magic = 13.88/ea. - seattle goodwill: 57.33 for hardcover Fool's Errand, Golden Fool, Ship of Destiny = 19.11 ea. - fromthebookcellar: 12.49 hc Fool's Fate Paperback Hardcover Trade Fool's Errand 0006486010 0002247267 Golden Fool 0007160399 0002247275 Fool's Fate 0006486037 0002247283 0007110588 LIVESHIP Ship of Magic Mad Ship Ship of Destiny AUTHORS ALWAYS OF INTEREST - Peter S. Beagle - Ursula LeGuin - Tanith Lee - Patricia McKillip - Robin McKinley - Meredith Ann Pierce MANGA SERIES - Angel Sanctuary: all but 1, 2, 5 [/20] - Battle Angel Alita, Last Order: [/12] - Chrno Crusade: 5 - Demon Diary: 2-7 - Fullmetal Alchemist - Gunslinger Girl: [/9, currently] - Inu-Yasha: 7 onwards - Mermaid Saga: 1 [/3] - Paradise Kiss: all but 4 [/5] - Ranma 1/2: all but 1-10, 14, 19 [/38]

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles Dealing with Dragons (1990) Searching for Dragons (1991) Calling on Dragons (1993) X Talking to Dragons (1995) The Book of Enchantments X Dragon Chronicles Dragon's Milk (1989) Flight of the Dragon Kyn (1993) X* Sign of the Dove (1996) Pit Dragons Dragon's Blood (1982) X Heart's Blood (1984) A Sending of Dragons (1987) X Dragon's Heart Darkangel Trilogy, Signed Hardcovers The Darkangel A Gathering of Gargoyles The Pearl of the Soul of the World Firebringer Trilogy, Signed Hardcovers Birrth of the Firebringer Dark Moon The Son of Summer Stars The Song of the Lioness Alanna: The First Adventure In the Hand of the Goddess Woman who Rides like a Man X Lioness Rampant X Circle of Magic Sandry's Book X Tris's Book Daja's Book Briar's Book The Circle Opens Magic Steps X The Immortals Wild Magic Wolf-Speaker Emperor Mage X The Realms of the Gods X Sword and Sorceress I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X X XI X XII XIII X XIV XV

DONE - Secret Books of Paradys, vol. 2 - Cry to Heaven - 100 Vicious Little Vampire Stories - Battle Angel Alita: COMPLETE - Unicorn Sonata - Preacher: Salvation, All Hell's A-Coming

Apparently in the original theatre production of Les Liaisons dangereuses, Alan Rickman was Valmont. Swoon. Holy cow. My brain is exploding trying to conceive of that much talent and sex appeal packed into one literary incarnation. Oh wow. The - the layeriness! of awesome! it overwhelms!

...wow.

IN any case, I hope that when we watch the Frears version of the film this semester, it won't be the dubbed version again. I want to know what John Malkovich's voice actually sounds like! XD;



...Valmont. Alan Rickman. siiiiiiiiigh.