Let's pretend we were on spring break
Apr. 2nd, 2013 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironicAm experiencing that unfortunate blogging state where you don't post for a while and then there are too many things to talk about, so you don't talk about any of them, repeat until something gives. Let us try to overcome the blockage through the magic of a "five things" format:
1. I am reading the Twilight series. No, really.
The strangest thing happened a week ago Friday. After renting and moderately enjoying the last Twilight movie—the usual mix of pleasure at seeing a girl's vampire fantasy realized on screen that I still identify with in several ways; uncertainty about the value vs. the dangers of how popular and therefore influential the franchise has become for impressionable girls; and cringing at the dialogue, acting, and mostly unhealthy or unrealistic/oversimplified relationships—ugh, even aside from the Edward-and-Bella issues, the way Bella treats her father makes my heart hurt—anyway, after eye-rolling at the scene in the flowery meadow where they swoon over the memories of the beginning of their love story, after "yeah, yeah, yeah"-ing my way through most of the credit sequence where they showed clips of each character from all of the movies in that Hollywood (usually comedy) way of reminding you who everyone was and why you loved or hated their defining characteristics, they did a thing where for Jacob, Edward, and Bella, the last three, there were also clips of book pages, glimpses of phrases from when (I assumed) the characters were introduced and had significant moments throughout the series. And—oh, it's such a testament to the way sentimentality works, because even though I hadn't been moved by 90+% of the movies, and even though I hadn't read a page of the books, those clips made me have a feeling. I know what it's like to love a book (or TV or movie) series with such fierceness, to be so immersed and then feel a deep sadness and nostalgia when the series comes to an end. And by golly, the Twilight credits-makers tugged those same heartstrings in me.
So I went and got the books from the library last weekend, both to see if they would evoke any more feelings, even if only a pale echo of what I used to feel for the Vampire Chronicles or, heck, even the Vampire Diaries books, and to finally form an opinion of my own about their merits, instead of relying on others' critiques. Upshot so far, IMO: They are at once as bad and not as bad as everyone says. I won't rehash other people's more thorough analyses of the problematic and unchallenged central relationship and the debate over whether the story can be read as feminist (example). There are huge flaws, but there are also aspects to sympathize with. It's not great, but it's not necessarily deserving of the scathing hatred directed at it. I was not surprised to confirm that Bella is largely a shell for readers to insert themselves into, but she really is hard to pin down, with her emotions and reactions hitting all over the map, content and even thrilled for Edward to control her life one minute and rebelling against his overbearing behavior the next. I was surprised to find that Edward had a sense of humor in the first book. It was disappointing to discover that there is very little in the books that didn't make it into the movies, especially plot-wise. Compare Twilight or New Moon to The Vampire Lestat or Queen of the Damned—half a school year of fighting with a boy or two vs. 500 to 2,000 years of the history of multiple vampires, in the same number of pages! I was hoping we'd get more about Carlisle, but no go. The whole family except him only came into being in the 1930s. And Bella's freakout over the idea of aging—she refuses to turn 19 and starts shrieking when Edward says she should at least live to 30—is nuts, even to this reader who once yearned to be scooped up by a vampire to circumvent human mortality. Random ableism. The expected cringeworthiness of giving the Quileute tribe a supernatural heritage. Other whitewashing.
TBD how the rest of the series goes. They're unchallenging, quick reads, but I paused a few chapters into book three and have only just resumed, because:
2. I watched seasons one and two of Girls.
Totally disagree with the critics who complain about Lena Dunham's self-indulgence and body. She's bright, talented, and very pretty. What's gross is not that a "13 pounds overweight" young woman gets to be naked frequently on screen and dares to write love scenes with more conventionally handsome actors, it's that so many people complain about it. Anyway, I found this to be an excellently done show. Flawed characters + top-notch writing --> interesting debates about privilege and race and egotism and a wasted generation. Like many people, I liked that, at least in the first season, the focus was on unidealized friendships among 20-something women (especially in a way that clicks for me the way Sex and the City, which Girls keeps getting compared to and comparing itself to, never did), and how the second season finale implied that the breakdown of those friendships leads to a breakdown of the friends themselves. Thoroughly enjoyed the (shouldn't have been) controversial Patrick Wilson episode. Thought the drunken rant from Thomas-John in his apartment was brilliant, the way it showed how you can scratch the surface of a decent-seeming, bland guy and find a whining asshole entitled misogynist man-boy. Startling and memorable. Meanwhile, it's too bad Donald Glover's character couldn't stick around longer.
And for the record, the reason I don't freelance full time or take on a huge book project is that I would absolutely end up like Hannah did, give or take a few details, ha.
3. synn and I accidentally made The Challah That Ate Pennsylvania.
On break from the above, visited synn for a nice 24ish hours in which we took a long walk in the brief spring weather, watched some TV (including the first two episodes of Dollhouse; not sure what I think of it yet), ran errands, talked, and attempted to bake challah. We don't know what we did wrong—didn't punch down the rising dough hard enough, didn't knead it long enough, or just left it out too long between the last rising and the baking—but at the last moment the loaves grew and grew and I swear mine tried to eat its baking sheet as well as the one next to it. Eesh.
But they tasted fine, and lasted through many many sandwiches and French toast slices.
4. Went to an excellent Sigur Ros concert.
They didn't play Hjartað Hamast or Gong, which are my all-time favorite recordings by them, but (a) that wasn't a surprise, since they are out promoting their new album, and (b) it didn't matter, because they played an engrossing, intense hour-and-a-half show with a full band/orchestra (three strings, three horns, two percussionists, bassist, lead, possibly someone else I'm forgetting) and intriguing visuals consisting of a huge screen above and behind them, a set of little bulbs on sticks throughout the stage, and a stage-surrounding screen that came down during the second or third piece. The visuals were all nature-oriented—cells and tissue growing, embers, water, a rock face—with a few exceptions, like some inexplicable people in gas masks, and a charming story of figures on mountaintops with signaling lights that in the end rose into the sky—until the finale, when everything evolved (or devolved?) into static and digital noise. The standouts for me were the heavier pieces, Hrafntinna with the frying pan-looking percussion and Ný Batterí . Walls of noise, when they happened, always managed to stay on the aesthetically pleasing side of the line rather than the cover-your-ears one. The encore blew me away: Popplagið (Untitled #8) (it picks up at 7 mins, if you get bored); everything that's awesome about Sigur Ros, wrapped up in a 14-minute package. Standing ovation, well deserved.
5. Five things, five things, hm. Starships and Home showed at Muskrat Jamboree and apparently were well received, yay. Many thanks to those of you who texted or emailed or dropped comments to report on how the vidshow went. Starships'll be showing at VidUKon soon, which is also awesome. Meanwhile, someone is doing a really cool project that involves one of my vids; I got to see a draft today, and it's going to be exciting to talk about when it's out in the world.
Looking forward to the time, ever closer, when my brain decides to be productively creative again. Mayhap it will involve one of the "gift basket" mini cards at Kink Bingo. Or not, since work is busy and my mom will be visiting next week.
Either way, for now, it's National Poetry Month once again, which means it's... time to read more poetry. Reading poetry means reading slowly, means appreciating the aesthetics of language, the exquisite ways artists find of expressing the simplest, most ordinary experiences, or of articulating what had seemed to be ineffable. Means slowing down the brain. Taking time. Thinking. So different from the skimming and attention dividing that tends to dominate my days. I didn't used to be like that, when I was a teenager. (Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny in the metaphorical sense that my personal [d]evolution from measured, thoughtful and introspective to fragmented, rushed, digital- and social network-immersed reflects our culture's shift over the past couple of decades?) Poetry Months—and Septembers, when I remember the beginnings of school years—always make me wonder whether and how you can restore yourself.
1. I am reading the Twilight series. No, really.
The strangest thing happened a week ago Friday. After renting and moderately enjoying the last Twilight movie—the usual mix of pleasure at seeing a girl's vampire fantasy realized on screen that I still identify with in several ways; uncertainty about the value vs. the dangers of how popular and therefore influential the franchise has become for impressionable girls; and cringing at the dialogue, acting, and mostly unhealthy or unrealistic/oversimplified relationships—ugh, even aside from the Edward-and-Bella issues, the way Bella treats her father makes my heart hurt—anyway, after eye-rolling at the scene in the flowery meadow where they swoon over the memories of the beginning of their love story, after "yeah, yeah, yeah"-ing my way through most of the credit sequence where they showed clips of each character from all of the movies in that Hollywood (usually comedy) way of reminding you who everyone was and why you loved or hated their defining characteristics, they did a thing where for Jacob, Edward, and Bella, the last three, there were also clips of book pages, glimpses of phrases from when (I assumed) the characters were introduced and had significant moments throughout the series. And—oh, it's such a testament to the way sentimentality works, because even though I hadn't been moved by 90+% of the movies, and even though I hadn't read a page of the books, those clips made me have a feeling. I know what it's like to love a book (or TV or movie) series with such fierceness, to be so immersed and then feel a deep sadness and nostalgia when the series comes to an end. And by golly, the Twilight credits-makers tugged those same heartstrings in me.
So I went and got the books from the library last weekend, both to see if they would evoke any more feelings, even if only a pale echo of what I used to feel for the Vampire Chronicles or, heck, even the Vampire Diaries books, and to finally form an opinion of my own about their merits, instead of relying on others' critiques. Upshot so far, IMO: They are at once as bad and not as bad as everyone says. I won't rehash other people's more thorough analyses of the problematic and unchallenged central relationship and the debate over whether the story can be read as feminist (example). There are huge flaws, but there are also aspects to sympathize with. It's not great, but it's not necessarily deserving of the scathing hatred directed at it. I was not surprised to confirm that Bella is largely a shell for readers to insert themselves into, but she really is hard to pin down, with her emotions and reactions hitting all over the map, content and even thrilled for Edward to control her life one minute and rebelling against his overbearing behavior the next. I was surprised to find that Edward had a sense of humor in the first book. It was disappointing to discover that there is very little in the books that didn't make it into the movies, especially plot-wise. Compare Twilight or New Moon to The Vampire Lestat or Queen of the Damned—half a school year of fighting with a boy or two vs. 500 to 2,000 years of the history of multiple vampires, in the same number of pages! I was hoping we'd get more about Carlisle, but no go. The whole family except him only came into being in the 1930s. And Bella's freakout over the idea of aging—she refuses to turn 19 and starts shrieking when Edward says she should at least live to 30—is nuts, even to this reader who once yearned to be scooped up by a vampire to circumvent human mortality. Random ableism. The expected cringeworthiness of giving the Quileute tribe a supernatural heritage. Other whitewashing.
TBD how the rest of the series goes. They're unchallenging, quick reads, but I paused a few chapters into book three and have only just resumed, because:
2. I watched seasons one and two of Girls.
Totally disagree with the critics who complain about Lena Dunham's self-indulgence and body. She's bright, talented, and very pretty. What's gross is not that a "13 pounds overweight" young woman gets to be naked frequently on screen and dares to write love scenes with more conventionally handsome actors, it's that so many people complain about it. Anyway, I found this to be an excellently done show. Flawed characters + top-notch writing --> interesting debates about privilege and race and egotism and a wasted generation. Like many people, I liked that, at least in the first season, the focus was on unidealized friendships among 20-something women (especially in a way that clicks for me the way Sex and the City, which Girls keeps getting compared to and comparing itself to, never did), and how the second season finale implied that the breakdown of those friendships leads to a breakdown of the friends themselves. Thoroughly enjoyed the (shouldn't have been) controversial Patrick Wilson episode. Thought the drunken rant from Thomas-John in his apartment was brilliant, the way it showed how you can scratch the surface of a decent-seeming, bland guy and find a whining asshole entitled misogynist man-boy. Startling and memorable. Meanwhile, it's too bad Donald Glover's character couldn't stick around longer.
And for the record, the reason I don't freelance full time or take on a huge book project is that I would absolutely end up like Hannah did, give or take a few details, ha.
3. synn and I accidentally made The Challah That Ate Pennsylvania.
On break from the above, visited synn for a nice 24ish hours in which we took a long walk in the brief spring weather, watched some TV (including the first two episodes of Dollhouse; not sure what I think of it yet), ran errands, talked, and attempted to bake challah. We don't know what we did wrong—didn't punch down the rising dough hard enough, didn't knead it long enough, or just left it out too long between the last rising and the baking—but at the last moment the loaves grew and grew and I swear mine tried to eat its baking sheet as well as the one next to it. Eesh.
But they tasted fine, and lasted through many many sandwiches and French toast slices.
4. Went to an excellent Sigur Ros concert.
They didn't play Hjartað Hamast or Gong, which are my all-time favorite recordings by them, but (a) that wasn't a surprise, since they are out promoting their new album, and (b) it didn't matter, because they played an engrossing, intense hour-and-a-half show with a full band/orchestra (three strings, three horns, two percussionists, bassist, lead, possibly someone else I'm forgetting) and intriguing visuals consisting of a huge screen above and behind them, a set of little bulbs on sticks throughout the stage, and a stage-surrounding screen that came down during the second or third piece. The visuals were all nature-oriented—cells and tissue growing, embers, water, a rock face—with a few exceptions, like some inexplicable people in gas masks, and a charming story of figures on mountaintops with signaling lights that in the end rose into the sky—until the finale, when everything evolved (or devolved?) into static and digital noise. The standouts for me were the heavier pieces, Hrafntinna with the frying pan-looking percussion and Ný Batterí . Walls of noise, when they happened, always managed to stay on the aesthetically pleasing side of the line rather than the cover-your-ears one. The encore blew me away: Popplagið (Untitled #8) (it picks up at 7 mins, if you get bored); everything that's awesome about Sigur Ros, wrapped up in a 14-minute package. Standing ovation, well deserved.
5. Five things, five things, hm. Starships and Home showed at Muskrat Jamboree and apparently were well received, yay. Many thanks to those of you who texted or emailed or dropped comments to report on how the vidshow went. Starships'll be showing at VidUKon soon, which is also awesome. Meanwhile, someone is doing a really cool project that involves one of my vids; I got to see a draft today, and it's going to be exciting to talk about when it's out in the world.
Looking forward to the time, ever closer, when my brain decides to be productively creative again. Mayhap it will involve one of the "gift basket" mini cards at Kink Bingo. Or not, since work is busy and my mom will be visiting next week.
Either way, for now, it's National Poetry Month once again, which means it's... time to read more poetry. Reading poetry means reading slowly, means appreciating the aesthetics of language, the exquisite ways artists find of expressing the simplest, most ordinary experiences, or of articulating what had seemed to be ineffable. Means slowing down the brain. Taking time. Thinking. So different from the skimming and attention dividing that tends to dominate my days. I didn't used to be like that, when I was a teenager. (Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny in the metaphorical sense that my personal [d]evolution from measured, thoughtful and introspective to fragmented, rushed, digital- and social network-immersed reflects our culture's shift over the past couple of decades?) Poetry Months—and Septembers, when I remember the beginnings of school years—always make me wonder whether and how you can restore yourself.
no subject
Date: Apr. 3rd, 2013 12:39 am (UTC)I love this sentence, this idea, this question. <3
no subject
Date: Apr. 3rd, 2013 01:32 am (UTC)I used to call these thoughts, this question, Operation Resensitization. (Here is the first time I tried to articulate it - http://bironic.livejournal.com/1432.html - back when about three friends read this LJ, heh.) Have you pondered similar questions, including in relation to poetry?
(Who even has or allows themselves the time to parse stuff like this on LJ/DW these days?)
(/projection)
♥
no subject
Date: Apr. 3rd, 2013 11:15 am (UTC)I don't know that it's possible to become who one was 10 years ago (nor that such a thing is even desirable -- I tend to assume that we grow and mature based on our experiences, and that that's a good thing) but I do think resensitization is possible. I think it can be difficult, but it can be done. Set an intention to read more poems, slowly, instead of lots of news feeds with continuous partial attention. Spend a week reading in the evenings instead of dicking around on the internet or watching tv. (er, these may be the things I need to do, but not necessarily your list -- I don't mean this as a prescription, necessarily, just some ideas.) When I used to be able to take a week to go on retreat, and spend all day learning / meditating / praying / singing (and there was no internet or cell service there), I always came home feeling thoroughly restored and resensitized, which was both wonderful and difficult. But it's worth it, I think. Even if one can only do it a little bit.
More soon! Preschool time.
no subject
Date: Apr. 4th, 2013 01:48 am (UTC)>> Yes. Oh, how the brain rebels. I remember getting antsy when shows had commercial breaks because it disrupted my attention. Now I can hardly watch a thing for 10 minutes without feeling an itch to do something concurrently. (Unless the media is really good. :) )
Spend a week reading in the evenings instead of dicking around on the internet or watching tv.
>> At least I have that going for me lately!
When I used to be able to take a week to go on retreat...
>> That is really the ultimate in brain-resetting, at least for this full-time worker who doesn't get to enjoy an academic calendar. Taking time off. Especially if it's a real break and not a jam-packed trip somewhere.
More soon! Preschool time.
>> Case in point, eh?
no subject
Date: Apr. 3rd, 2013 01:39 am (UTC)And I really appreciate your review of "Girls" as I'd heard it took place in that mythical all-Caucasian NYC of so many shows and movies, so I'm really glad to find that's not the case.
Mmmm, huuuuuge challah...
no subject
Date: Apr. 3rd, 2013 01:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Apr. 3rd, 2013 02:40 am (UTC)...so here I am?
in any case, I'm commenting now because I was really overwhelmed by this:
Poetry Months—and Septembers, when I remember the beginnings of school years—always make me wonder whether and how you can restore yourself.
actually, I was really overwhelmed by the whole paragraph discussing the idea of resensitizing and slowing down, mostly because the sentiment you expressed really resonates with me. I think about this all the time; I can recall a younger me that had more patience, more focus, more sensitivity (in the "awareness of the world" way--and also probably in the "my feelings are easily hurt" way), and much longer spans of attention, and I very much attribute the degradation of all those things to my evolving (and increasingly more inextricable) relationship with the internet. I don't yet know how to restore all these things that (I think) I've eroded--and I'm certain that in some ways everything looks rosier in nostalgic hindsight (i.e. my capabilities for dealing with the world/my own life/anything probably weren't as great as I imagine them to be)--but I do think that putting active effort into "slowing down" (whatever that may mean) and peeling myself away from the internet from time to time is at least a means to a live that, I hope, is a little more mindful?
...really, all that rambling is to say: thanks for saying all this? I have no good answers, but it's nice to have the "hey, slow down" reminder echoed in places outside of my head.
no subject
Date: Apr. 4th, 2013 01:45 am (UTC)Yes, yes, and yes to your description of reflection on a past self, and possible reasons for slipping down from how you remember yourself even while realizing that the memory is likely rose-tinted, and suspecting that internet habits are a culprit, and for using the word mindful. There are strengths I've found in the fall - a thicker skin, an ability to be more extroverted and self-assured in social and professional environments, adaptability to workplace stressors like triaging a billion emails - and there are environmental factors that work to keep me that way, i.e. the aforementioned workplace, and disruptive experiences that can't be undone, like the emotional repercussions of my parents divorcing - but like you say, I suspect there are ways to reintegrate some of the strengths of the past as well, the slowing down when you can and the tentative lowering of walls when it's safe. Or maybe it's easier said...
no subject
Date: Apr. 4th, 2013 01:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Apr. 4th, 2013 01:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Apr. 4th, 2013 01:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Apr. 4th, 2013 02:36 am (UTC)"Fog" by Mark Doty is one of my favorites so far: http://world.std.com/~wij/hiv-neg/Chapter23.html
no subject
Date: May. 3rd, 2013 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: May. 3rd, 2013 02:42 am (UTC)