| if only I weren't still waking up tired |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|07:03 am] |
Last night I came home from class with the intention of getting some reading and chores done.
Instead, Mr. Darcy sat me down with a bowl of chili and Pirates of the Caribbean. I woke up in time to watch the big finale. Mr. Darcy makes a great pillow, too.
...yeah. I probably needed that. |
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| I Read, I Cried, I Lolled |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|07:56 am] |
 Reader, get thee to a bookery and acquire a copy of Soulless, by Gail Carriger. Finished reading it last night, and I recommend it wholeheartedly. The book is by turns gripping, amusing, delightful, and wonderful. Like a wanton woman, it kept me awake until all hours of the night. Just ask my wife, who was shocked to find me--me!--awake and reading in the bedroom at eleven o'clock on a work night!
Soulless blends many genres, but the thing that got to me most was the way that Gail skillfully wove humor through every aspect of it. Humor is such an individual thing, and I often dislike ostensibly funny works, but the way it was woven into every part of the book makes Soulless one that I shall hold onto with the expectation of multiple re-readings. Like a good friend, a book worth re-reading can carry one away from the cares of the world and fill you up with happiness, and I'm happy to have another to add to my stable. I look forward to the next volume in the Parasol Protectorate.
On a writerly level, I want to say that I was thoroughly impressed by the author's deft hand at world-building of the "in-cluing" variety. The way she deposits tantalizing details that suggest whole worlds of import is nothing less than admirable. From the first page, one is surrounded by a world several steps removed from our own, with said differences carefully portrayed. Gail notes P.G. Wodehouse among her influences, and I do believe he would approve. |
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| Life |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|10:03 pm] |
Continues apace, because what else would it be doing? :)
Anyhoo, the Fellow came home. This is a good thing, but he ships overseas on Thursday (boo!). At least it is only for 10-12 days. Also, he got orders, which one typically gets every four years in the military. He's being stationed on the East Coast next summer. At this point, the table is blank, with nothing on it or off it, and we're just going to see what happens.
Last, remember the little exercise kick that we've been on? The Fellow and I were wrestling the other day and he was all, "You are ungodly strong! What were you doing while I was gone?!" Score one for the librarian. |
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| How to draw the light escaping from a skull |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|10:13 am] |
I'm still here checking the posts a couple of times a week. Most of my writing is for books and artist statements. Trying to do some postcards and letters but not getting a whole lot out.
I'm currently struggling to write a short series of how-to-draw essays to accompany little books of my notebook ink drawings. Actually, the writing part was pretty easy for the first one, as it's really just what I ramble about if folks ask me about my process. What is difficult is building the books into a printable form with the resources I have access too.
I began by building the book on the blurb software, thinking I'd just put it online on demand. However, while blurb was fine for the portfolio book We will be rich for the rest of our lives, it does not feel suitable for a small black and white book. I would like to see the book printed in a very simplified format at first, either by myself at IPRC or Atelier Meridian or in collaboration with Publication Studios (or another friend who does some printing). Unfortunately, the blurb software doesn't allow my to convert the book to a pdf or print anything but a marked proof outside of the blurb website. I dont' have InDesign or Quark on my pc. I have Scibus, but it is clumsy and it crashes. I don't have working cd drive nor do i own a thumbdrive. I email the jpegs to myself and spent Saturday afternoon at the IPRC rebuilding the little book on InDesign only to see the disasterous picture file compressions when I printed out a rough. Bleh. So I am temporarily stuck on the project.
It also struck me this morning that the jpegs i emailed to the Singer Gallery in Denver for an upcoming show may have arrived much smaller than I sent them. I hadn't thought about this danger for sometime and I feel awful - yet emailed jpegs coming from Denver to me have been fine, so perhaps my method of importing the ink drawing jpegs into InDesign from my email was faulty.
I've been prepping canvasses, reading history books, and going on explorations out here on the penninsula. I've found plenty to work with and am planning the new paintings, some to show here in the spring and some to ship to Denver as I go.
Afternoon Edit:
Whaddaya know: thank you ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) lli the resolution in InDesign is all in how you attach the picture files! And hey - I actually get to listen to eltoro on the computer today!
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| the weekend, by rimrunner |
[Nov. 8th, 2009|07:45 pm] |
I made a new friend, and Mr. Darcy rearranged the furniture.
The altar now has a teeny-tiny new addition and one of the downstairs rooms has been converted to working/game-playing/guest space. (Unholy Co-Conspirators: we can now hook up someone's laptop to a new very large screen for note-taking and plotting purposes. Next time, I'll do the typing.)
More later. |
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| Drive-By Linking |
[Nov. 8th, 2009|07:16 am] |
Matt Staggs posted a number of good links Friday on Booklife.
1) Interview with Paul Constant, Books Editor at Seattle's The Stranger. Good interview, and with someone I've been curious about for some time. Choice quote:
There's nothing wrong with pulp. If literature can't manage to drag a reader away from trashy romance novels, that's certainly not the reader's fault. It's literature's fault.
Much of interest in the interview, including plenty of genre-v.-lit contrast, and not necessarily what you might think, given the above quote. Some interesting comments.
2) How to Write a Great Novel. Whoa. Collection of info/inspiration from many famous authors, and they have some interesting ideas about how to get into characters' heads, among other things. Check it out.
| Reading
Soulless, by Gail Carriger
B&N | Amazon
| | Writing
Skull-Hame
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| Because I Feel Preachy Today... |
[Nov. 7th, 2009|08:00 am] |
From Skull-Hame:
It was enough to make Mother Nature weep. Creatures that had once been human--had known the land--roamed across Cascadia, eating forest and shitting pavement. They reflexively cried "freedom," claimed a right to the soil, unhearing the claims of the voiceless, unseeing the wastelands of Southern California and the Rust Belt and Metropolis to the east, where combs dripped poisoned honey and streets ran black with earthblood. And yet, even as the storied matriarch of the great breasts and green hair rubbed streaming eyes, insurgents rose up.
Busy day today: I have to go in for an outreach event and do my best Vanna White for hundreds and hundreds of people. Dress unfortunately at cleaners.
Also, Amazon has picked a sterling list of books for its top 10 in F/SF this year. I note a number of lovely titles there, about some of which I've waxed enthusiastic previously. Note, however, the presence of one Jesse Bullington, whose not-even-released-yet The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart secured a spot. Why is it so good? More on that another day. |
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| The Alchemy of Stone |
[Nov. 6th, 2009|06:51 am] |
 This morning I was reading Ekaterina Sedia's squirrel_monkey review of Jesse Bullington's mr_earbrass forthcoming book, and I thought "woo! Great review!" Both nice folks, who deserve all the best on many counts, and this seems like as appropriate a time as any to tell you about reading Ekaterina Sedia's The Alchemy of Stone. I've been sitting on this post for something like a year now, trying to figure out what to say, so here goes...
The Alchemy of Stone is the sort of book that makes me wish I had pursued a Ph.D. in English, or perhaps comparative literature. It's a rich, interesting read, and it hasn't left my mind for long since the day I finished reading it. An in some ways unfortunate side effect of genre publication is that it often tends to move works out of the field of view of the people who are trained to write about it, and in this case, there's a lot to say.
This novel follows the life of Mattie, an intelligent automaton living in the city of Ayona who is not quite free of her creator's designs and desires. Loharri, said creator, is a member of one of three competing factions within the city: gargoyles, Alchemists, and Mechanics. There is a clash between the factions, eventually resulting in revolution, disaster, and death for many.
That's a summary of the book that could be had by reading the back of it, and it's not a very thorough depiction of the underlying themes and currents of the book. In no particular order, The Alchemy of Stone deals with: the struggles of women in a male-dominated society, the role of women in science, the effect of war and revolution on average folks, the outcome of sacrifice, love that falls apart, how the identity of women changes, and how it is changed for them. The cover quote for the first paperback edition of the book is from The Guardian, and says "Sedia is pushing the boundaries of fantasy writing." While I think that speculative fiction has often encompassed radical works, I would say that it's a great quote because it points the reader toward a way to think about her work.
Fiction is always about something, to one degree or another, but The Alchemy of Stone is one of those books that takes that aboutness and turns it into the stuff of plot, character, and exposition, but without doing so in a leaden fashion. In a less skilled or thoughtful author, this could have resulted in didacticism, but Sedia turned out instead a fascinating meditation on the roots and outcomes of conflict, and what they mean for people, most especially for women.
One of the mental games I've played while thinking about the book is wondering how to represent it most effectively to readers. I've sometimes recommended it as "a good read," sometimes as "a good read for a woman in the sciences," and sometimes as "really thoughtful steampunk," which were all useful if they got people to read the book. The reviews and descriptions I read tended to focus on the Steampunk! aspect of it, or on the conflict between the factions -- which strikes me as a disservice to the heart of the book, converting a well-written story into what might as well be Zombies vs. Ninjas vs. Pirates. No. A thousand times no.
Sometimes novels wind up being good books in spite of their authors' lack of serious intentions, but The Alchemy of Stone strikes me as decidedly not that. It feels like a serious novel, written with heart and mind and trying to build a world that will support more than a swordfights, gun battles, or trite romance. At this point I have to admit that there are some gosh-wow cool bits in the book, SFnal details that made my inner geek go "ooh!" But you're going to have to read the book yourself to find them.
I'd recommend this book to F/SF readers in general, but also to people working in the sciences, people who want a rather non-American view of war, and to anyone out there (S.J.? Laurie? Laura?) who "doesn't usually read fantasy." This book is a fantasy, but it's not about the fantasy, if you take my meaning. It's about, among other things, a woman on the verge of escaping one cage only to find herself trapped by a series of interlocking cages, trying to find her way among them. |
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| WHEW. |
[Nov. 5th, 2009|04:01 pm] |
Classes. DONE.
Meetings. DONE.
All I have to do now is an hour at the desk, then go to the symphony with yaypatrol!
Life is much less stressful now than it was four days ago, and I'm looking forward to the weekend. |
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| what I'm reading on my breaks today |
[Nov. 3rd, 2009|02:44 pm] |
"Maybe it was prescience: things have never ended well for me when you’ve led me out of the world of women and into the world of men."
— from A Memory of Wind, the story of the sacrifice at Aulis from Iphigenia's point of view.
This story is damn good. |
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| busy, busy week |
[Nov. 2nd, 2009|11:16 am] |
Here's how it looks.
Today: work 12 hours, because I had a workshop to teach this morning. This is okay because the to-do list, she is long. Mail ballot. Reference shift till 8pm. Try to get in fiddle practice before bed.
Tomorrow: work 8 hours, teach one class, work one reference shift. Go to Javascript class in the evening. Get home around 9:30. Try to get in fiddle practice before bed.
Wednesday: work 8 hours, no classes, two meetings, one reference shift. Tattoo still healing so no kung fu in the evening. Might go for a run. Pack for Sickle, which at least will be easier this year because I'm not cast. (Don't forget tiki torches.) Try to get in fiddle practice before bed. (Sensing a theme here, are we?)
Thursday: work 8 hours, two classes, two meetings, one reference shift. OY. Symphony in the evening with yaypatrol, yay! Load car. Try to get in fiddle practice before bed.
Friday: get up at oh-dark-hundred to travel to Anacortes. (I'm hoping to make the 8:50 boat, thereby getting to the park early enough to do some hiking before people start arriving in droves.)
After this week, work will still be busy but will be less appointment- and schedule-driven. Which will be good, because there are parts of my office I haven't seen since July.
Morning class went reasonably well. I hate teaching in the lab because it's noisy and the students are more easily distracted. The rest of the week will be in the classroom. |
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| A Good Morning For Links |
[Nov. 2nd, 2009|06:31 am] |
pgtremblay talks about teaching his first writing class after years on end of teaching math. Sounds like a fun class. Teaser:
Despite it being the least commercially viable form of horror, we spent most of our time discussing literary horror. We talked about the best (or most effective, most memorable) horror being transgressive, and not being safe. We talked about treading carefully with tropes (including twist endings).
sartorias had a fun idea for con reports from World Fantasy: describe the events and skip the roll calls. It makes for entertaining reading. Go see.
asakiyume continues her tale of two pen pals from very different places, in very different situations.
babarnett flashes us with zombies. (What do you say to zombies at Mardi Gras? "Show us your gibs!" (forgive me, Barbara!))
Also, media consumed on Halloween weekend...
The Ring
Rosemary's Baby
Spirit Trap
The Wire in the Blood
Had seen the first two, but they still creepy. The third was fine. The fourth was an awesome, creepy surprise. I'd read one Val McDermid before (can't remember which), but it wasn't one with these characters, that's for sure. |
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| Image a Day (1/365) |
[Nov. 1st, 2009|04:41 pm] |
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Or maybe two to kick things off :-) Autumn Colors 
Pumpkin Carving Winner (New Seasons Market) 
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| Mrs. Dalloway vs. an Ancient Red Dragon |
[Nov. 1st, 2009|11:50 am] |
Welcome to November, everyone, good to see you. I could go on about a number of things today, from pumpkins to Skull-Hame to the Hanover Halloween celebration in Richmond, but instead I am going to talk to you about Virginia Woolf.
Virginia Woolf is awesome. I read a bit of To the Lighthouse when I was in high school, didn't like it, and never looked back. A couple of weeks ago, I started reading Mrs. Dalloway. Damn, but it's some kind of cool. I love the way she jumps from character to character, mind to mind, and the way she depicts nuances of her characters' psychologies through the kind of tangential, sort-of-related thoughts that we all have when we are thinking around--but not about--a topic. Reading it in 1925 must have been either baffling or mind-blowing.
Reading Mrs. Dalloway also puts me in mind of the time I saw Casablanca for the first time: clearly a work of art, but somehow... familiar, cliche-ridden. This is, of course, because people have stolen from her left and right and adopted that kind of take on mentality and adopted it for their novels or films.
Several weeks back I read a bunch of S.M. Stirling recent novels, set in his post-apocalyptic Change universe (The Sunrise Lands and the two following). At one point, a character is thinking about how people were back before the apocalypse, and his feeling about their art is that they were incredibly neurotic, focused too much on explicating at excruciating length the experience of being human. In Stirling's world, older forms of storytelling have become popular, those with an epic flavor and which reflect the post-industrial flavor of the post-Change world. I can easily imagine that character having such a view on Mrs. Dalloway, which is not a criticism, merely an observation that she seems to be an author of our moment in history. She captures the run of our thoughts, and the pressures the modern world has brought to bear on us, and the way those interact with the traditional pressures of life before Modernity.
What is hard to avoid noticing about Mrs. Dalloway is that it has little plot, as the term is construed by most readers. Pace Delany's view on structure vs. plot, it quite clearly has a structure, but the bare facts of Mrs. Dalloway's plot are banal enough to bring into question whether or not the novel is actually a story. (Note to self for another day: blog about difference between literature and stories.) They are against the tidal flow of stories throughout history that seem to have both more drama and more action.
Now, I don't think this makes Mrs. Dalloway a bad book, especially given the role that I would assume Woolf (and presumably Joyce) played in getting people to look inside their characters' heads and to try to capture their realities. At the same time, at the back of my head I hear the grumbling of a thousand nerds and a million high school students, all complaining that "nothing happens" in this book. Not true! Many things happen in it, and there is surely conflict here, but it lacks duels, serial killers, robots, ninjas, car chases, explosions, etc. (Perhaps the worst observation ever made about Mrs. Dalloway, but I promise that a point is coming.)
To put it another way, different readers like different things, but reading Woolf, I'm struck as clearly as I have been by the fact that two readers may have so utterly different value schemes when it comes to quality of fiction that conversation between the two seems almost utterly pointless. While some readers (ahem) may enjoy both, and while bona fide action may appear in "literary" novels, and while clever "literary" techniques may appear in genre novels, worlds of difference separate the two.
Some authors hop back and forth across the border, but I understand more than ever before (and identify with more than ever before) those authors forever at the margins of either realm. Literary Author X makes oodles of money with The Herringbone Frippery, a literary novel with thriller tropes and techniques that literati treat as a guilty pleasure ("but let me hasten to add that it's well-written!"). Genre Author Y works like a mad bastard to make just enough to get by with The God of Sardinia's Children, a fantasy novel with literary styling. One has mass appeal if marketed to the people who read Mrs. Dalloway, and the other has minimal appeal to the people who read, say, A Dance with Dragons--to whom it is typically marketed for a variety of reasons you can probably guess, if you've read this far.
There is a border between types of readers and types of stories, and even if we're able to pass back and forth sometimes, I think that at heart, there are kinds of stories that people come home to: their material of choice, their comfort food. These are the kinds of stories they most enjoy, and whether this is a matter of nature or nurture, I hesitate to say, but... stories that are interstitial exist between two different systems. Stories are not organs, but it's a valid question as to whether tastes can ever be artificially shaped to such a degree that an intentionally cultivated artistic hybrid can overtake the weight of stories as we currently understand them. (Though I suspect there are probably dozens of examples of such in the history of art in all its manifestations. If you can think of some examples, throw 'em in the comments. :)
That's a long way from Mrs. Dalloway, but do give it a try if you've never read Woolf. I'm glad I did, and I shall be reading more. |
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