aaronace

• 11:49 Cookies for breakfast! I blame @nikkicook! (Thank you @nikkicook) MMmmmnomnom. #
• 11:50 @timx13 OMG @ the great batwingy spirit of buggery! #

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Until recently, I had never read Hamlet. I have still never seen a production of the play: not on stage, not on film. And yet, I am pretty familiar with this particular Shakespearean work. Somehow, throughout twenty-eight years of life, I have accrued knowledge of this play. I knew many lines before reading it (and was surprised by how many more I knew that I hadn't known came from Hamlet). I knew the story and the characters and had no trouble following Stephen Greenblatt's book-length analysis Hamlet in Purgatory before reading the text of the play itself.

I have no idea how this happened. Well, I know how I picked up the lines - Shakespeare's material gets recycled in everything from other works of literature to television shows to magnets and aprons and t-shirts. But where and when did I hear the story of Hamlet in the first place? When did I first learn who Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are? Was it really from seeing part of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildernstern Are Dead performed at a high school forensics competition? How did I first pick up the tragedy of Ophelia, come to associate her with wilting flowers and pale limbs, drowned?

My mother tells me she told me the story as a child, although I don't really remember this. However, I fully believe my mother was that awesome (and bizarre); after all, suitable bedtime fare was William Blake's The Tyger right alongside Puff the Magic Dragon.

I am incredibly excited about getting to discuss this play under Dr. H, whose knowledge of and enthusiasm for Shakespeare are quite something to experience.

I am almost as excited about the Hamlet-themed event I am planning to celebrate (hopefully) surviving the rest of this semester. See, I am the kind of geek who likes to do things like read books, discuss them with her husband (and other interested parties), and then watch film adaptations or appropriations of those works with a fully themed menu. (The most spectacular occasion of this has been history-themed: Andy and I had an "Axis Friday" a few years ago where we discussed World War II, watched Letters from Iwo Jima and Downfall, and ate German and Japanese food. Not at the same time. We also had an Italian wine at some point during the day. Last December, we had a themed event for Moby Dick, but I fell down on the New England menu.)

So, this December, I'm planning to watch a film production of Hamlet (and also Rosencrantz and Guildernstern Are Dead) and am periodically working on a suitable Danish menu. If any of you know Danish food, suggestions are certainly welcome. Yes, I'd like for breakfast, lunch, and dinner all to be thematically appropriate.

...yes, these are the kinds of things that keep me sane when two term papers are threatening to eat me. Why do you ask?

To wit, a poll! You're not necessarily deciding this for me, dear LJ Flist, but I do value your opinions.

Poll #1483771 What a piece of work is Hamlet.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4

Which film adaptation of Hamlet should Deborah and Andy watch?

If not any of the above adaptations, which version of Hamlet should we watch?

Tickybox?

For those whose tickybox needs were not met, feel free to ticky on here:

And let's close this with some funny: one foul-mouthed illustration and a pretty accurate summation of Hamlet behind the cut!

( Cut-tag, thy name is Clicky! )

Fun times. By the way, I'm on GoodReads! If you are too, you should swing by and say hello.


P.S. Regarding the choice of film adaptation in the poll... this is a question of which Hamlet should I watch first because I fully intend to watch several as time goes by.

Bath

9x12", Ink on Bristol, $75 at kandeart.com

Finally decided I love UNIX more than I hate the Aqua interface (and for the record, I hate it), and just bought a 15" Macbook Pro. For $350. Screw you, Apple Tax.

I decided to hurl myself off overhangs today, on the theory that if I not getting lighter, I had bloody better well start getting stronger. So, two attempts at a 5.8 on the 45-foot wall (second time I made about 30 feet of it, but you know, the damned thing is so overhung that when you come off you don't get back on) and then I sent an overhung 5.7 I've done before. As a reward, I decided I was going to do something I had never tried, which I thought was probably too hard for me. A 5.8 in the front corner, with a little roof over it.

Reader, I sent it.

I expected it to be brutal and crimpy and awful at the bottom, but really it was lovely--all balance and technique, and moving your feet around, and your hands are mostly just there to give you things to balance on. Apparently, I climb better than I realized, because I just floated up it.

I fell off scads trying to get over the roof, though. Don't worry. *g*

Going back tomorrow. We'll see if I have any juice.

So far this year, I've snaffled up precisely 102 books from start to finish. Just for giggles, I've been tracking my reading habits for the last couple of years on Goodreads, and did some poking at what was in there.

Of the 102 books so far, the largest chunk is fantasy, at 24. This is followed by 13 horror novels and twelve each in the graphic novel and mystery department. No surprises here; the book reviewing certainly pumps up the genre fiction numbers, especially considering Green Man Review's focus. As for the mysteries, 11 out of the 13 (and all 6 thrillers on top of it) were read either on the way to Montreal, in Montreal, or on the way home from Montreal. The periods of intense reading activity coincide with plane trips and hours spent in airports, though the DS has cut slightly into that time.

On the other end of the spectrum, it was a mild surprise to have read more art books (3) than biographies (1), and I feel bad that history and science (6 each) were matched by the "Paranormal" category. Then again, the paranormal stuff is research for an in-progress novel project, so I have an excuse there. That being said, I expect that the history numbers were kept down by the solid month I spent on one Shelby Foote, and there are a fair number of science books in the "started but not quite finished" pile that may yet get added to the list.

The best book I've read this year? Probably Ninety Degrees North by Fergus Fleming, an immensely readable account of the various attempts to reach the North Pole. Honorable mentions go to the scientific history Coming of Age in the Milky Way (also largely read in Montreal), and George Being George, a marvelous oral biography of legendary gadabout George Plimpton. Best fiction? Gentlemen of the Road was enjoyable but a hair slight, while the Scott Lynch Gentlemen Bastard books were a hoot but not quite what I was looking for as "best". So that probably takes it to Terry Bisson's In the Upper Room and Other Unlikely Stories.

Disappointments? Not many. The End League: Ballad of Big Nothing definitely tops the list - it's God-awful - but luckily this year was mostly clunker-free. Maybe throw ominously Mage-like The Traveler on there as well, along with the rather confused Red Sky File (a semi-paranormal romance that spends most of its length arguing against the paranormal - by way of its lycanthropic viewpoint character), but really, the question "Why am I still reading this?" has been asked a blessedly few times. Either I've gotten more tolerant in my old age, or I've gotten better about my selections. Honestly, either one works for me.

(Addendum - make it 103)

First two in a series, sepia ink art marker on watercolor paper.



( Atropa Belladonna behind cut! )

I want to see this episode of The Twilight Zone. My reasons are threefold:

1. I have never seen it, which at this point is unusual; I've seen most episodes at least once. Apparently, this one is so controversial that it's not included in US syndication.
2. George Takei is one of the stars.
3. From the description, I'm kind of confused about what's going on in the plot, so I want to see the subtleties of the acting to figure it out.

My thoughts, they are so deep! But as I've talked about before, I love this freaking show so much that it's ridiculous. EXCEPT THAT ONE WITH THE DOPPELGANGER, IT SCARES ME. And also most of the hour-long episodes. And maybe some others.

And it's probably pretty telling that when I look at this still of Billy Mumy sending someone to the cornfield, all I want to do is pinch his adorable freckled cheeks. Which would probably lead to me getting exploded or turned into a wheel of cheese, but come on, SO CUTE.

http://scifiwire.com/2009/11/eastwicks-canceled-so-why.php

Considering its sad, sad ratings, no one should be surprised to hear that ABC has decided not to order any more episodes of Eastwick, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

But even though that decision effectively cancels the series, ABC has nevertheless said it will air all 13 episodes of the witchy show's original order, and Eastwick remains on the schedule through November.

It may be a shortened week because of my trip, but it's going to be a GOOD one work wise because I'm getting to spend it drawing. I'll be working on no fewer than three separate cartooning assignments, which really makes me smile!

Anything that doesn't fall under NDA will eventually make it onto Doodle-A-Day.com.

What time I'm NOT spending sketching is so far being devoted to Super Genius Games work ... which ALSO makes me happy. We have a whole BUNCH of interesting things going on ... and we may even be able to talk about a few of them soon!

This was yesterday

• 16:47 Hair is now purple with minimal purpling of my hands and face. #

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Poll #1483748
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 25

Which is worse to be ear-wormed by?

I may have to break out I Don't Like Mondays or, god help me, Joe Hill.

While I was melting butter for the muffins (Chaz's blueberry muffin recipe, modified for orange-cranberry-walnut whole wheat muffins (1) (2)) the microwave attempted to immolate itself.

This is not a tragedy, as said microwave was left behind by the last inhabitants of this residence, and it's old enough that it has rotary dials and wood-grain.

But I am glad I didn't bother cleaning it today.

---

(1)If it's good with orange extract, it will be REALLY good with orange extract, Cointreau, orange juice, and bitter orange peel. Right?

(2) Yuppie wand blender is good for pulverising the cranberries into the yogurt. I thought they would be a bit much, whole.

As I enjoyed John Gaskin's 2001 collection The Dark Companion, I recently decided to treat myself to his second collection of ghost stories, The Long Retreating Day (Tartarus Press, 2006.) Having read two very favourable reviews (one at Highlandersbooks and one from Mario Guslandi) I came to the book with high hopes. The fact that this edition benefits from one of Tartarus' most successful examples of jacket design didn't hurt either! However, while I enjoyed the book, I'm afraid my admiration for Gaskin's work is a bit more qualified than that of the above gentlemen. It's short collection - only ten stories - so I'm going to be lazy and just write mini-reviews of each one!

( The Long-Continuing Bookwaffle )

So there you have it: a short but generally satisfying collection, but not, I thought, massively indebted to M R James. It's possible that the old-fashioned political views of Gaskins' heroes has convinced some readers that he is the spiritual heir of James, since the latter held many opinions that now appear far from forward-thinking, and also boasted a fear of new academic disciplines and administrative shake-ups that bordered on the phobia (if some of his letters are anything to go by!) If so, then these readers are forgetting an important thing about James: his insistence on situating his stories firmly in the present. James' heroes are doubtless sexist, classist, racist and any other 'ist you'd care to think of, but those prejudices were widespread at the time the stories were written, and the narrators' political views never intrude on the plot. Of course, it could just be a question of Gaskin's choice of antiquarian settings, which I suppose could be lazily described as 'Jamesian'. But if Gaskin is Jamesian in basic content, his style is far more expansive and leisurely. He is also concerned with developing characters and pondering the 'twilight' of life and those 'borderlands' between our world and the supernatural realm - making him quite similar to Hugh Walpole in some ways - and his use of pagan horror brings to mind Blackwood, E.F. Benson and Buchan more than anyone else.

Sadly, The Long-Retreating Day is now out of print (I got my copy second-hand from Cold Tonnage), and no mass market publisher has yet stepped forward to spread Gaskin's writing across the Horror sections of our nation's chain bookshops. This is a great pity, as for all his odd flashes of quaintness he is an accessible author whose works everybody should be able to enjoy. But until then he's doomed to remain one of those not-very-well-kept secrets between book bores I'm afraid! Though the paperback Dark Companions may be more widely available...