(AKA I had nothing better to do on my Thursday night than talk to myself)

It was this or continue my experiments with html. I really want to learn CSS, but I'm not sure the best way to teach myself. Should I copy someone else's and tinker, or should I write my own from ground up? And what do I do with it once I've written it? I guess I could customize this account, right? Hmm. Well, this is more fun anyway.

( ...how much I ardently admire and love you IN BED WITH A LLAMA )


( can haz travel plz?? )


( Scribble, scribble )


Eh. Next week's going to be a long one, and I think it will spill out the wrong side into my weekend. Oh dear, life is complicated sometimes.

ETA: Fixing typos and including a (probably unnecessary) link to the only zombie parody I feel is worth reading: The (Zombie) Master of Culter. Yes, it's a parody of something out there already and yes, you can read it if you haven't read the original. You should - it's genius. And then you should read the original because it's summer and Dorothy Dunnett is a great summer author (actually, she's great all year round, but particularly good for engrossing hammock reads if you're into that).

Decided to get some background noise while I mangled my mending (my favourite raincoat stand-in is losing buttons), so I looked up Prince Caspian on youtube. Watching it, I too was forced to ask that time-honoured question:

Why do all the Telmarines have heavy Spanish accents? Even trying to suspend my disbelief and leave out the questions of vowel shifts over several hundred years, there's no reason that Glozelle should sound like he just arrived from Madrid. WTF, Walden?

And for some reason (and don't ask me why) all these gloomy castles and blue-filter filming and sinister men with pointy beards feels oh-so-very GRR Martin to me. I'm not watching Narnia - I'm watching Game of Thrones. Even one of the dwarves has been confirmed as Tyrion Lannister (although he's the only cast member they've got).

Eh. I think it's the dramatic and yet completely predicatable plot-line that they're bringing out of the film..so I am going to not watch the rest of this very silly movie and instead spend my time playing casting games in the North country. Ooh, I know, I'll cast Ben Barnes as someone. And Anna Popplewell. They're both pretty. And Rupert Everett because his personality feels right for someone in there (Petyr Baelish as flamboyantly Rupert Evertt: discuss)

No, better idea: I'll go read more of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I was feeling a little lukewarm (inserts = overwhelming cognitive dissonance) but Lady Catherine's ninjas have won me over. Of course Lady Catherine has a ninja guard - why didn't anyone else think of that??

Best idea: I'm going to bed

Having one of those days where I feel hopelessly out of my league in half a dozen different ways. But. This is good. I keep telling myself that. Challenge makes you strong, right? Right.

On the bright side, I had another run-in with the new book I was talking about last month. This is The Magicians, which looks like even more fun than I originally thought. Harry Potter, C.S. Lewis, and The Secret History, folks: this is going to be awesome. Genre-bending dark and awesome. Plus there's a really entertaining fansite for one of the worlds in the book: it's right here and the fan art cracks me up. I've visited too many places like this.

Hmm. Elizabeth Kostova (author of the 900 page, 10-year labour of love debut novel The Historian, notable for intertextuality, a very strange end, and vampire librarians) has a new book coming out in January, as does mistress-of-the-art-of-first-person Megan Whelan Turner. Should be a good winter.

And me? I want to get my hands on The Angels' Game and Wintergirls, which are Borgesian (semi) supernatural and dark YA respectively. Still debating whether I should try Eclipse or not. This is a very difficult question. Anybody have thoughts on Bloodhound?

(Although what I really want are my Lymond copies for comfort reading. I need Francis Crawford, I tell you. Need.)

Because I don't want to be awake but can't go to bed and this is more interesting than anything else right now. And cause I finally have a recording to gloat over.

( Cut for plot bunny dorkage and my strange Don Giovanni obsession )

Wow. Nearly everyone on my friends list is having a bad week.

I hope you all find something to cure what ails you. I just want to join in on the general suckiness to observe that: overcaffinated + extremely anxious + behind schedule = bad things happen. I too am having a pretty crap week, but if I can make it until Thursday evening without killing myself or anyone else, it's pretty likely I'll survive.

I also want to plug:

Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise, because it is not only excellent scholarship and an evenhanded treatment of some very ugly parts of history and a notoriously problematic subject, but because it takes a pretty special piece of non-fiction to make me cry (grace_poppy , the chapter on Britten is was one of the main offenders here. I suspect you know everything Ross has to say, but it's really well narrated, and may have talked me round to liking Britten more than I did before...).

Lev Grossman's The Magicians. I just got wind of this and will now have to sit on my hands till August. It seems to be equal parts Harry Potter and Narnia, served up with a knowing smile and a shot of whiskey because, dammit, this is for grownups.
So, basically, my ideal book? Let's hope so.

"Every second sucker on the street has a story to sell. One cannot move for memoirs and 'confessions' and outpourings - a deluge or diaries for a nation of professional weepers. Family bloody histories, ooh, my ancestry, here's a video of my first shit. ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME! You're a chef - cook - SHUT UP! You're a gardener - garden - SHUT UP! There's no privacy. No decorum. They pimp their kids for the cameras, fashion themselves as holes for the press to fuck then moan and gnash when they get fucked over. The 'revelations' of a bejewelled footballer: 'Me, ma bling and other things about ME.' What's next? 'My Crack Hell' by the Pope. The podcast; an opportunity for every tedious twat in Christendom to broadcast his banalities. LEAVE US ALONE! BE QUIET! Some hairy bastard scratched a donkey on the wall of his cave, he saw it, he drew it. A million years later: 'Hello, welcome to my blog. Today I bought a plum.' You silly, dozy twat, you're forgotten HOW TO LIVE! Darwin was wrong, man didn't evolve, he got nicer tools! From a lump of charcoal to the Apple Mac - whoosh - history! (softly) Where's the poetry, hmm? Where's the soul?"

Patrick Marber, Don Juan in Soho.
---
I saw this play three years ago on a whim. I had a vague and distant dislike for Patrick Marber because I'd only encountered After Miss Julie and I was ready to hate anyone who would give Miss Julie the time of day. But I ambled in and ended up electrified by the whole play but especially the last fifteen minutes which included not only this amazingly angry speech about the internet (with which I completely agree; don't ask me what I think about blogs) but DJ's refusal to apologize for how he lives and who he is. Interesting that Elvira's brothers take it up a notch - it's not just avenging their sister, but getting some kind of universal vengeance on this loose moral cannon.

Colm: But it's suicide, don't you want to live?!
DJ: YES! BUT ONLY AS I PLEASE!

Not sexual pleasure so much as the pleasure of absolute unfettered indulgence; the fantasty of being completely independent in a desperately interconnected world.

Especially the people having a party in my backyard and their crap music.

Ugh. I'm having one of those days where everything is clearly a deeply personal affront directed at me. Everything.

Oh well. I guess I was due for a sublimely bad day, but why did it have to be this one?

I hate being up all night; it's like some kind of totemic ritual to prove your strength and your candidacy for remaining in the tribe. Or it is the way I do it.

( Ugh )

I really need to not do this so often. I was not made to be noctural.

Looks like Sesame Street wants to give Philippa some competition in the "L" doggerel arena.

See, this is what happens when you let me alone with Youtube for too long too early in the morning...

Muppets singing Carmen = awesome. That's all.

**Later: my cello has the timbre and sound of a tuba with a dead rat up the bell. It could be a lot of things, and maybe half of them are my fault. But in any case, I'm not impressed.**

Chicago's Mayor Daley announces this day shalt be, for now and perhaps henceforward, Talk Like Shakespeare Day.

The good lord desires to turn his flourish'g town to a Renaissance Faire? Forsooth. I know not if all around will follow this decree, but I hereby warn all jacknapes and bunglers: he who grossly misuses in my ear the tongue of our most respect'd Bard shalt receive a slap and something more as a remembrance.

(in other news, I've been reading a lot of books from the 1860s recently, so my ear for Shakespeare is decidedly off)

Ugh. There was really very little to be happy about today. But I signed up for eight days and dammit, I will find something happy. 

I wrote something! And my readers liked it! I wrote it for the wrong reasons, and there isn't much there, but it was nice to get one particularly sticky image out of my head and on paper.

I also went on a positive orgy of opera clips on Youtube, which is what I've started doing instead of reading fanfic. They're just as silly, but better written and they look much prettier.  And it means I can listen to my New Favorite Bass until my ears fall off. And he's lovely...as one poster said, "he could sing 'la ci darem la mano' to a stuffed flamingo and I'd still explode." Heheh.

(also had a huge music dork moment when I found one video that was literally 10 different basses singing the same low note...since I like the extract anyway, I listened to the whole thing and giggled)

Things that made me happy today are almost all fangirly and procrastination-related.

1) This yummy picspam poem of obscure British actors and their lovely hair.

2) This lovely, understated fanfic about Dorothy Dunnett's Jerrot Blyth, a character I normally don't much care for, but here gets some care and thought that he probably deserves.

3) The fact that I decided to take off an hour today and play dress-up because, dammit, I'm an adult and I can still play dress-up if I want. So I did my best shot at a Jareth's glamtastic eyeshadow and some serious stage makeup (I love that I can make myself cheekbones), put on a pair of gloves and my top hat, and took silly, slightly Cocteauesque pictures of myself in the mirror.  

4) Samuel Ramey. Champagne aria. Youtube. YES. Now if only I could find a real CD of this production...

5) Wasted an unholy amount of time looking into a) side effects of opium addiction and b) what it's like taking the train from Xian to Lhasa. Two entirely different ideas here, by the way.

Ooof. Not a very happy day, I'm afraid. It's raining and ewww. Cold and wet and decidedly unhappy.

I got a retroactive happy giggle out of the fact that I walked to a meeting - in the rain - while doing that bouncy-walking/dancing-with-the-headphones-in thing because I was listening to Dance Magic. And I had a custard pie in one hand.

OK, well it seems silly to me.

Also, went past local bookstore to purr over the full, matching set of Vintage Dunnett editions. They are so beautiful.
Mon choix est fait, aultre ne se fera.

Made a pie and blue banana daqueris (supposedly in honor of Ten, because he likes bananas, but I'm not sure he would actually drink the cocktail I whipped up in my blender. I ran out of rum early in the process and ended up tossing proportions out the window and making up the extra with more curacao and a free shot of peach schnapps - because what else are we going to do with it?? - and thus created a strange, frothy, uncomfortably blue and slightly banana-flavored thing) and had some friends over to watch the Doctor Who Easter Special.

Not the greatest special or episode, but I enjoyed it. Parts of it were wonderful, parts of it were a little like reheated leftovers. It all comes out in the wash, I think. I'm looking forward to what the Doctor makes of Lindsey Duncan, though. That should be a lot of fun.

Anyway, David Tennant makes me happy. So does Murray Gold.

Also - it's warm again. I like.

Yep, still trying to find things each day that make me happy.

Although I was beat yesterday, so I didn't actually post.

Day 3
Got some things in the mail I'd been waiting for (boring book I had to order, but it was exciting to see it and hold it anyway) and some paperwork. I have a future! I also found this really cool little book at the library that's basically a survey of the academic novel, which is one of my fave subgenres (yes, dammit, that is a subgenre. A really little one). Add this to my shiny new copy of Prayers for Sale and I've got some awesome reading coming up on me.

Day 4
Today, another reminder that I really like some of the people I have to deal with every day. They're great.
But more importantly, watching William Shatner wake up Canadian made me almost indescribably happy. If you follow the link, make sure you watch the video in the left hand corner. AWESOME, eh?

A little tough to find happy today, but...

1) Mint chocolate chip milkshake.

2) Burgundy streaks. In my hair.

3) People are not as bad as I think they are.

Wanted: one piece historical fiction about Franz Liszt.

Seriously. Read the wiki entry. The man is fascinating. I read a long and slightly-too-involved chapter last night pretty much solely dedicated to the thesis that Franz Liszt Played the Piano Sexy - which seems to be true. Prior to research, that was the only thing I knew about him. Now I know a lot more, and I'm intrigued. He seems like an interesting guy and his biography is Romantic enough to be interesting without the "are-you-kidding?" excess of people like Byron, Chopin, or Berlioz.

Upon reflection, I decided Susan Kay might have had Liszt in mind when she wrote her trashy-but-awesome Phantom. But Erik is like Liszt's mirror-image, not the man himself. And speaking of mirrors, apparently Liszt, i.e. greatest piano rock star in the world, took lessons from Salieri, i.e. bitter and washed-up contemporary of Mozart.  All together now, awww. Poor Salieri.

Anybody seen one? I'll even settle for historical fiction set in 1830s Europe. I want me some musicians starving in garrets.




(I'm also still looking for a historical novel about 12th century Wales that IS NOT Lady of Hay, which did not impress me even a little bit. Can anyone give me a yes/no/awful on Elizabeth Chadwick?)

sugar_fey tagged me for this one - which is either hilarious or unfortunately ironic, given how rough the next eight days are going to be for me.

On the other hand, I think a little incentive to keep me from being all doom-and-gloomy is probably a good thing. I support positive thinking, at least theoretically.

Rules are simple:

1. Post about something that made you happy today.
2. Repeat for eight days.
3. Tag eight people to do the same.
(but I'm not going to because, well, frankly, I'm too damn lazy)

Day 1
I'm making a dress, and I spent three hours this afternoon happily immersed in pinning, fussing about interfacing, and tussling with the sewing machine.  I didn't get a terrible lot done, but it was nice to be completely absorbed in a project.

Also, I just listened to a recording of Liszt's Reminiscences de Don Juan. The presto made me pretty happy, in a fleeting sort of way. Although I'm inclined to give the credit of that one to Mozart for writing such an unstoppably perky drinking song, rather Liszt for his sublime (and sublimely difficult) arrangement.

Normally I would mock this idea more (because the author <3s Twilight and Harry Potter!), but I'm way too tired. All I'm going to do is share the link and giggle.

Sloppy, my friends. Very sloppy.

Wide awake and ready to write for the first time in months.

Pity I'm behind on about 8 other things, and so will spend my few potential moments of brilliance doing boring stuff and leave my fun projects to moulder for a bit longer.

( Things I'm not writing, I swear to god )What else? I saw a Kindle today. They're...strange. But less scary than I originally thought - and considerably more useful, according to the person who showed me hers.

( And some dorktastic updates on the cult classics )