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I Dare You To Find a Narrative In This Entry
From Aftenposten (which finally has both an RSS feed and select articles in English): Heirs to the Scandinavian thrones study the Arctic. If we have to live in a world with kings and queens, I think they ought to be doing stuff like this. Even though it's probably all an excuse to party under the midnight sun.
Speaking of monarchies, I just re-read The Hobbit for the first time in twenty years. I've never had any illusions about the fact that The Lord of the Rings has an inordinate amount of faith in demonstrably flawed monarchies, but I was particularly struck by how scornful Tolkien is of the Lakemen's attempt at democracy. He's very eager to remind us that the corrupt Master was elected by the townspeople, and to replace him with the restored monarchy under Bard. Which, I'm sorry, is the lamest name for a character ever. My next book will be about a guy named Druid and a woman named Amazon.
Speaking of being metaphorically struck by things, I recently watched Nosferatu, which was interesting for many reasons. Two have stayed with me, though, and one is that watching Nosferatu is a great cure for my insomnia. The other is that I wonder if the Ferengi were based on the Dracula of that film, because the resemblance is pretty fucking eerie.
Speaking of resemblances, I'm making another attempt at The Uses of Enchantment. Oh Bruno Bettelheim, I am almost entirely sympathetic to your arguments, but Freudian theory does not map onto every goddamn thing in the universe. Seriously. Also, fuck you for the "refrigerator mothers" thing.
Speaking of abrupt transitions, Deb Layne has posted the Polyphony 7 TOC. Howard Waldrop! Steve Rasnic Tem! And many other legends-to-be! Awesome.
Speaking of legends, I totally want this Lego Death Star set. Of course, it's $400 so I shall just continue to want. I think my life is lacking in Legos, currently.
Speaking of missing things, I flaked on the second episode of The Middleman last night. Hopefully they will replay it next Monday. I'm not 100% sold on this show, but the "'Barry Allen or Wally West?' 'Do you want me to leave?'" exchange pretty much made up for the gorilla suits. Also, Natalie Morales is so very cute. So kill me.
Speaking of me, there's no chance of getting through this entry without talking about the book. On the blog front, it's gotten some recent nice mentions from Nathan Blumenfeld, Barth Anderson, Deb Layne, and a fellow named Martin. Yay!
Speaking of happiness, the Twins seem to be back on track for the moment. They tend to beat up on the National League every year, so that's not a big shock; still, it was getting depressing there for a while. And, seriously, Delmon Young? WORST. OUTFIELDER. EVER. I don't care if he jacks one out of the park every once in a while, he's cost three times as many runs as he's driven in. Send him away until he learns how to catch the damn ball; they can't be out of options yet.
Speaking of failures, I was thinking about how the recent Buffy and Angel comics have been pretty good, and every Firefly/Serenity comic they've done has sucked ass. I don't know what that's about, but I'm open to theories.
Speaking of monarchies, I just re-read The Hobbit for the first time in twenty years. I've never had any illusions about the fact that The Lord of the Rings has an inordinate amount of faith in demonstrably flawed monarchies, but I was particularly struck by how scornful Tolkien is of the Lakemen's attempt at democracy. He's very eager to remind us that the corrupt Master was elected by the townspeople, and to replace him with the restored monarchy under Bard. Which, I'm sorry, is the lamest name for a character ever. My next book will be about a guy named Druid and a woman named Amazon.
Speaking of being metaphorically struck by things, I recently watched Nosferatu, which was interesting for many reasons. Two have stayed with me, though, and one is that watching Nosferatu is a great cure for my insomnia. The other is that I wonder if the Ferengi were based on the Dracula of that film, because the resemblance is pretty fucking eerie.
Speaking of resemblances, I'm making another attempt at The Uses of Enchantment. Oh Bruno Bettelheim, I am almost entirely sympathetic to your arguments, but Freudian theory does not map onto every goddamn thing in the universe. Seriously. Also, fuck you for the "refrigerator mothers" thing.
Speaking of abrupt transitions, Deb Layne has posted the Polyphony 7 TOC. Howard Waldrop! Steve Rasnic Tem! And many other legends-to-be! Awesome.
Speaking of legends, I totally want this Lego Death Star set. Of course, it's $400 so I shall just continue to want. I think my life is lacking in Legos, currently.
Speaking of missing things, I flaked on the second episode of The Middleman last night. Hopefully they will replay it next Monday. I'm not 100% sold on this show, but the "'Barry Allen or Wally West?' 'Do you want me to leave?'" exchange pretty much made up for the gorilla suits. Also, Natalie Morales is so very cute. So kill me.
Speaking of me, there's no chance of getting through this entry without talking about the book. On the blog front, it's gotten some recent nice mentions from Nathan Blumenfeld, Barth Anderson, Deb Layne, and a fellow named Martin. Yay!
Speaking of happiness, the Twins seem to be back on track for the moment. They tend to beat up on the National League every year, so that's not a big shock; still, it was getting depressing there for a while. And, seriously, Delmon Young? WORST. OUTFIELDER. EVER. I don't care if he jacks one out of the park every once in a while, he's cost three times as many runs as he's driven in. Send him away until he learns how to catch the damn ball; they can't be out of options yet.
Speaking of failures, I was thinking about how the recent Buffy and Angel comics have been pretty good, and every Firefly/Serenity comic they've done has sucked ass. I don't know what that's about, but I'm open to theories.
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And Natalie Morales just...makes this show. Hilarious.
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Also, girls in shirts and suits and ties are a particular weakness of mine.
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I love her outfit except for her pants! Like, are they tights? Are they pants? The girl's in tants right now and it makes me crazy not knowing!
(Love her jacket, though. And her constant Picard-maneuvering of said jacket.)
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(I am not completely kidding about this. It would be nice to see you again, and secondarily it would be nice to see my books again, too. This whole me-not-driving thing: I find it inconvenient.)
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Anyway, if you have some ideas for how we could manage this hanging out thing, my e-mail's where it's always been. I've been sort of sheepishly admitting to people all weekend that I have great difficulty asking people to do social stuff when I can't do any of the work, and since I can't drive and can't cook...yah. Not really at my social best at the moment. But still interested in working around that stuff to see friends and cordial acquaintances and like that.
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Heh. By the time I read it in the eighties, it became apparent that Freudian theory mapped onto nothing in the universe. Difficult book to read because of that, and it didn't help when the revelations of Bettelheim's abuse to his pupils came out after his death.
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I guess I'm reading the book more or less as literary theory, and since fairy tales are ripe for interpretation via so many different systems at times the arguments don't seem that crazy. But then there are the times when he's arguing about how toads are the id, and I'm like, um no.
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Nosferatu
Re: Nosferatu
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I've had mixed feelings about his X-men stuff as well, but I've enjoyed reading it more than any of his other comics.
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legos and serenity comics
As far as the Serenity comics,
[I guess I should head this with "Vaguely Spoileriffic, But Only About Ongoing Themes/Recurring Stuff That Happens Over And Over Again In The Series"]
although the last one was kind of "eh, whatever," it actually really helped me come to terms with one of the running themes of the show. See, the thing I hated about Cowboy Bebop was that they never got a break, financially. If I'd originally seen Firefly on TV in the messed-up order shown, I'd have dumped it immediately. However, since I first saw it on DVD, I was inordinately happy that they actually got paid -- but it still irritated me that, after that, they seemed to always lose whatever they'd gotten. The comic made me feel a lot better about it, because being perpetually broke meant something to Mal.
Re: legos and serenity comics
What you've picked out about the difference between Firefly and Cowboy Bebop is actually my biggest problem with the most recent series. It was just too much for me to believe that he would not only get rid of all that cash, but that the crew would let him. If the characters never get a break, then you don't have to hit the reset button like that.
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But (as psych major) I could actually buy that Mal would want to stay broke for fear that, if the crew were rich, they'd leave him. After all, IIRC, it's not like he simply handed the money to someone else; it was stolen from them, and I could see how he wouldn't be as motivated to fight to get it back (although, yes, it was a rather ridiculous amount that was at stake.)
Re: serenity comics
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You mistyped, "how the recent Buffy comic has been pretty good and the recent Angel comic has been a horrible travesty that trampled over five years of good memories."
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I dunno, 7 or so? It wasn't anywhere near my bedtime, I can tell you that for sure.
There were aspects of it that I thought were interesting, but having a) seen various of the more interesting bits in clips over the years and b) already watched "Shadow of the Vampire," there wasn't much new about it. I will say that the quality of the DVD was pretty crappy, so a restored print might have been more enjoyable. But mostly I was trying to keep myself interested by tracking the differences between Stoker's Dracula and the adaptation.
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But damn... yeah, damn... I guess I am an even bigger film dork than I suspected.
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I think part of it is that I'm not very keyed into the silent film mode. I've seen a few of them, and I find them interesting for historical reasons, but I think that with film my sensibilities are pretty modernized and so I am hard to please.
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