bloodygranuaile

[Poll #1300983]

Yes, that's a Will & Grace quote from like a million years ago, when I watched Will & Grace.

At any rate, today was a good day. The story I wrote for Tapply's class, which I had generally been feeling Not Very Happy with, got workshopped and went over quite well. There are definitely issues in the story, which definitely got noticed, but I also got a lot of shiny compliments (and Tapply seemed to really like it), and since I am an insecure little attention whore, this quite made my afternoon.

In other news, I have a car, as of two days ago (I just have to go back to Jersey and get it). I was expecting to have to shell out quite a chunk of money to cover at part of the cost, but this afternoon my mother told me that the deal on the car was actually cheap enough that she's covering the whole thing. So that's an extra several hundred dollars I actually don't have to spend. That's the sort of good new you don't get every day.

It also leaves me with a more flexible budget for buying GIRL SCOUT COOKIES. Apparently it is that time of year again. I fucking love Girl Scout Cookies.

Fellow Clarkies, this is your cue to laugh at me: I had my first Moe's burrito today. Yes, I am a junior... yes, that means I have lived in Worcester for slightly upward of two years without ever going to Moe's... okay, that's enough, you can stop laughing now.

Oh, and karate club finally freaking started. Yay karate! Also, yay not being the least experienced person in the class by several years! It was nice to labor under the delusion that I actually know karate, if only for an hour and a half. (From now on, though: If I leave class and I am not sweaty and in pain, something is wrong.) I do seem to have lost my paperwork for the next belt level, though, but this is easy enough to fix.

"Girl, Interrupted" makes me happy. It makes me feel all normal an' stuff. On the other hand, being flat-out flailing-and-raving psycho just looks so liberating sometimes.

The Monk is everything a Gothic novel should be. Notable for being the first English-language Gothic novel to draw really heavily from the German "Sturm und Drang" (and yes, my fellow HP freaks, I did actually write "Durm und Strang" and have to go back and fix it) tradition, it is full of all sorts of ridiculously cruel and grotesque horrors, some supernatural, some the result of completely unmagical human cruelty in almost unbelieveable degrees. The unmistakable moral message in it is Catholicism Is For Fucktards. It is vastly more readable than, say, The Castle of Otranto, and the narrative flow is much better (none of this giant helmets falling off ceilings totally randomly business). There is actually character development an' stuff. But the drama is still all about people accidentally eloping with ghosts and priests committing all sorts of awful crimes with help from Teh Debil and noble Spanish gentlemens vanquishing covens of murderous brigands and all sorts of crack. The Victorian writing style is really not dense at all, but from a modern perspective seems very quaint and stylized, which is hilarious considering how much sex is in the book. Considering Victorians were not allowed to write sex the way modern authors do, there is a complete lack of anything graphic, and instead a lot of prissy-sounding phrases about "wanton Pleasures" and "rioting". I especially can't decide whether the outdated use of the word "incontinence" (used with its etymologically literal meaning of "loss of control", and always in reference to persons of the cloth breaking their vows of celibacy), or the description of Antonia's breast as "elastic," conjures up the more amusingly inappropriate mental images.

The author seems to be laboring under the firm conviction that All Middle-Aged Women Are Bonkers, because all of the women in the book that are not Young Maids are certifiably bonkers, or at least ridiculously annoying. Elvira is maybe less totally insane, but still a bit weird. Agnes' aunt is my favorite certifiably bonkers character, because she is a ridiculously melodramatic character typifying one of my least favorite kinds of people, "people who are too god damn selfish to even listen to themselves". As much as I hate those people in real life, her scenes were hilarious. I am also a giant dork and was specifically thinking to myself how nice it was to be reading something from a time when people used the word "disinterested" properly, when I hit the bit where Auntie and Raymond have ( The Awkward Conversation of Awkwardness (spoilery, a bit?) )

Yeah, real disinterested a passion there, Auntie.

Despite the outraged reception it got upon publication (it was the Victorians, being scandalized was the only fun they were allowed to have), I actually found this as morally solid a book as a Gothic novel (read: "something this RIDICULOUS") can be. Love (both friendship and the getting married kind), honesty, faithfulness, compassion, forgiveness, and "disinterestedness" save the day. What more wholesome message do you want out of a Victorian novel? They hadn't invented strong female characters yet; I don't know what else you'd freaking want.

On the staring at screens front, Se7en is gory and full of literary/biblical/medieval stuff about sins and Hell! Right up my alley. Crime? Check. Asshole character with hilarious dialogue? Check. Use of old mythology? Check. Blood and violence? Check. Striking visual aesthetic? Check. Deep WTF plot twist at the end that involves people getting shot? Check. You can make good movies with these ingredients, or bad movies with them, but either way I will like them. Seven is twisted and creative enough to be one of the good movies. Also, it's the only time I have ever made a dead baby joke in the middle of a movie, and it turned out to be an accurate prediction of where the movie was going. Whoever wrote this thing was seriously, seriously macabre. I want to be able to write things like that.

We also just finished watching Night Watch, which is based on the Russian novel Night Watch and not the Discworld book of the same name. Movie mostly just gave me a headache, being visually so hyperstylized and full of artsy fast cuts and slow-mo and things shifting around and colors going weird and stuff that it gets hard to follow. Definitely atmospheric, though. And there was enough stuff in it I liked during the bits I could follow that I really would like to read the book, since books are usually better than their movies (and Josh says this one is, he's read it), and even if the book is written in some weird style too, at least the words will probably stay on the page and be legible. At any rate, is very dark fantasy, and involved vampires that are actually scary and more bestial than romantic, which I very much appreciate right around now.

Not a review, but in keeping with the Goth as Fuck theme: Went to Salem today with Liz to pick up Josh. Was only in Salem for an hour or so to have dinner and desert, but still. I went to Salem today! I fucking love Salem! It makes me so happy.

Yeah, so trying to get a third job for the summer isn't going to happen. We'll do serious job-hunting when I have better transport; in the meantime, between getting Netflix again and trying to get this god damn house anywhere remotely resembling clean, I'm sure I'll be able to fill up the days I'm not working.

On the other hand, I've got about two whole months left in the summer, I'll need more than twenty-five movies to get me through it... what do you guys recommend?

( HardLuckNinja (7:30:41 PM): You should stop talking to people, and go into movie reclusion for a while. )

I feel like I should journal about movies when I watch them, and sometimes I do, but I don't really have time. Since last weekend I've watched Death at a Funeral, Surf Ninjas, The Karate Kid, the first half of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (then my computer went stupid), The Eye (the Chinese one), The Departed, The Downfall (I think that's what it's called... a German film from the POV of Hitler's secretary), Cloverfield, Spirited Away, Spaceballs, Plan 9 from Outer Space, and half of the Battlestar Galactica miniseries (I'll finish it tomorrow). I feel like I'm missing at least one.

...Red Dwarf, Series 6. Duh.

So, yeah. No reviews.

I should also finish at least one of the two books I'm reading, so I can start Cold Comfort Farm in peace. But this is my problem. YOUR job is still to tell me what movies to add.

Guy Ritchie: Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels: check. Snatch: check for me and Pat; not for Dan or Moody.

Scorsese: The Departed: check for everybody, I think. Gangs of New York: check for me, but as me and Tim are the only people who liked it anyway, ever, there is no need to make anyone else watch it. Goodfellas: must see, optimally with Dan, probably not with Patrick.

Boondock Saints: check for everybody but Moody. This needs to be fixed.

Reservoir Dogs: must see, optimally with Dan and Moody, don't know if Patrick would like it or not.

Super classic mafia films: Godfather epic: will get around to it eventually, as is genre must-see and Paul recommended it. Scarface: ditto.

The Sopranos: Shipped! To be watched when it gets here, with whoever is interested (Pat will not be interested), at least in playing "throw popcorn at the screen and make a snarky comment every time you recognize a place" if not in the series.

Donnie Brasco: name keeps showing up in conjunction with Goodfellas; has Johnny Depp in it. Must see.

Blow: I liked the middle segment I saw; also has Johnny Depp in it; about drug trafficking. Must see start-to-finish.

Any suggestions, or anyone interested in watching any of the above with me?

Saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest yesterday.

There is NO WAY to start describing how awesome this movie is. It is fucking EPIC. And it is absolutely beyond hilarious.

I think I will need a new icon to replace this one, though, as it is past July 7th. I will think of something.

So.

Nearly everything that can go wrong has gone wrong with trying to get Glyphs done, short of God smiting the entire building to ashes. It would be absolutely comical if we weren't trying to, y'know, get shit done. Absolute proof of Murphy's Law.

The schedule for the rest of the week in History: watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

I came home today and my nearly-sixteen-year-old brother was busy happily playing Pokémon on his GameBoy.

A particular freshman with gorgeous long hair has cut all his hair off. And it actually doesn't look bad.

Life is weird lately.

Got around to watching "Wilde" this evening. Thought it was very good, although it may have been better if Wilde had written the screenplay, except then it would have been dreadfully inaccurate. Stephen Fry very Wildean as Wilde; Jude Law utterly despicable as Bosie; Orlando Bloom hysterically recognizable as Orlando Bloom as a rentboy in a dippy hat.

There are a lot of things I admire about Wilde and would love to be a fraction as good at--his writing is almost invariably superbly clever, he's extremely quotable, he's the undisputed master of paradox (in all its useful forms, from avoiding answering questions altogether to saying very serious things in a silly fashion, and sometimes both at the same time), he's a masterful storyteller, a skilled poet, and a lovely essayist, he's utterly and fantastically unconventional, the Aestheticism movement amuses the hell out of me even though I fully agree with it, and he basically got to travel all over the US and Europe and say ridiculous things and is remembered a hundred years later for it.

But Wilde made one mistake that, although a common one, scares me and upsets me greatly when I realized I've come anywhere close to it, and that was his abysmal lack of judgment about Bosie's character. Bosie was a spoilt little child who only liked Wilde when he was amusing, but never, ever thought of anything outside of his own amusement. The film featured a number of (hopefully exaggerated, but I really don't know) scenes of Bosie blowing up over the most idiotic things, getting mad at Wilde for not going into debt over him when he'd spent every penny he could afford on him (and Wilde had a wife and three kids to support, so this was generous), refusing to get him a glass of water when he was sick because he wasn't amusing sick, and eventually, it was ENTIRELY Bosie's fault that Wilde went to jail, because Bosie was trying to get back at his (admittedly rather crazy) daddy. Yeah, sacrifice your devoted boyfriend and mentor so you can piss your dad off one last time--that's really considerate. Wilde loved him anyway.

I don't want to love terrible people. I want to have people to love, people to truly care about and be loyal and devoted to, and I don't think love should be based on a selfish idea of "what does this person do for me," but I don't like getting stuck loving people who are selfish, childish, narcissistic, vindictive, and treat other people--including me--badly. I like the nice-sounding idea of loving without expecting anything in return, but I abhor the idea of loving people and getting beaten or toyed with as a result. There seems sometimes to be a distressingly fine line between judging people, which we all know is Bad, and being any sort of judge of character, in which case it would seem that being a good judge of character is good and being a bad judge of character causes all sorts of dreadful things to happen, although cases such as Wilde's (or King Lear's) are a bit extreme. I am also torn between the warm and fuzzy idea that, all people being equal, all people are deserving of love, and the feeling that people who have more and stronger redeeming qualities than negative ones are better choices for me to love than people who have more and stronger negative qualities than redeeming ones. In addition to potentially getting hurt, I feel ashamed and delusional when I realize I have been holding people in a higher opinion than they merit, as I hate being wrong and I hate finding myself guilty of bad taste. And I fear I'm rather dreadfully snobbish about people in general, but I really do want to be able to love people for who they are, rather than despite it.

-Terry Pratchett is awesome.
-Watching badly directed movies makes me want to become a director considerably more than watching well-directed movies.
-Terry Pratchett makes me want to be a director, but that's because my current Discworld novel of choice is "Moving Pictures".
-I. Need. Help. With. My. Writing. My "writing ability" in general is pretty decent, but I need help in learning how to construct a proper storyline, and I'm sick of not getting any because this is about the only part of working where "copying stuff you think works" is not always going to be the best way to learn.

Yay, it's snowing. ^.^ Finally. Pat and I drove around in the snow for a bit today (midday, when the roads were still somewhat passible) and drank coffee. 'Twas fun.

I really, really like being snowed in and having nearly no homework. I've got quite a bit of reading, writing and movie-watching to do. So far have edited "Matchstick" for Glyphs, waded through another few cantos of Dante's "Inferno", and re-watched "Grass" (so happy. You've no idea).

Also baked a cake for Mom this afternoon, as didn't get to bake a cake for "cake" with Ella.

Am getting a phone that works in Europe, just in case I need it. Although really the more important thing is that I'm getting a new damn phone.

I can't find the full text of "Repris de la Mort." Possibly 'cos I'm the only person in existence for whom the three lines randomly posted everywhere aren't enough. "Je fis de Macabre la danse..." I wouldn't be able to understand it anyway; I'd be less fluent in midieval French than I am in modern French or midieval English.

Bonne nuit.