- Last weekend Wax spent about 20 hours watching videos about Scania trucks (a make of semi trucks made in Sweden). She has never had any special interest in trucks, shipping, or even cars before, but Youtube suggested one video and she watched it, and then watched the rest of the guy's channel for two days. The Youtuber was an American truck fan who was just obsessed with Scanias and had imported several from Europe at great expense and his videos were about taking them to truck shows, talking about them with other truck fans, and tuning them.
- We got a notification from the city that they've rezoned the opposite side of the street from us and are going to knock down two of the abandoned houses they (the city) have owned and kept standing there as a public hazard for the last few decades, and put a new fire station there. Obviously this is a bit of a long-term plan. I guess it will increase the noise level on our street. And they will probably fix the potholes! And even better, they're going to close the outlet where the street opens onto the highway, and semi trucks won't be able to illegally go down our street and access the back of the parking lot of the shopping center down the hill anymore! So no more waking up to all the china in the house vibrating because of some asshole illegally driving down our residential street. Uh, whenever that actually happens. Probably a few years away.
- Wax's union was on strike a few weeks ago for two days but it didn't work so they might have to go on strike again in the next month or two. Yay! Extra weekend in the middle of the week!
- Uhhhh Sweden is sending a Finnish band to Eurovision this year (they won Sweden's Melodifestivalen and are a favorite for the whole thing according to
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
waxjism, but don't ask me about it, because I hate Eurovision and I don't know. NM, though... I guess you can talk about it in the comments if you want and she'll see it since she has writer's block and can't update her journal anymore). These guys are a band from the Western hick coast of Swedish-speaking Finland who have been making humorous pastiche/parody songs for years and have like fifteen albums and have even had songs chart before, she says. Their dialect/accent is so dense that I can only casually pick up like one word per song in some of them. Anyway, they worked with a Swedish songwriter and that apparently made them eligible? LOL. - Wax's current shipping OTP looks like... about 90% plausibly going to go canon really soon? She's watching this cheesy dumb primetime soap called 911 about emergency responders in the LA area and shipping a melodramatic guy named Buck whom she calls a "crazy girl" with his BFF, Eddie, who has a teenaged son with CP. Anyway, the show made Buck come out as bi and date a horrible guy played by an alarmingly bulging chunk of beefsteak actor who is apparently... the son of
Hulk Hogana guy who played the Hulk, WHAT???... and a character who previously appeared on the show just to be a racist and bully everyone, and they brought him back to date one of the leads? Uh, but he broke up with him and now the last episode was clearly deliberately written like they are Going There probably in the next few episodes. Mazel tov, I guess.
- [Shopkeeper and postmistress speaking:] "When he gets a frank he fills it up exact to the weight of an unce, that a carvy-seed would sink the scale—but he’s neer a grain abune it. Weel I wot I wad be broken if I were to gie sic weight to the folk that come to buy our pepper and brimstone, and suchlike sweetmeats."
- "You may observe that he never has any advantage of me in dispute, unless when he avails himself of a sort of pettifogging intimacy with dates, names, and trifling matters of fact—a tiresome and frivolous accuracy of memory, which is entirely owing to his mechanical descent."
- He who is bent upon a journey is usually easily to be distinguished from his fellow-citizens. The boots, the great-coat, the umbrella, the little bundle in his hand, the hat pulled over his resolved brows, the determined importance of his pace, his brief answers to the salutations of lounging acquaintances, are all marks by which the experienced traveller in mail-coach or diligence can distinguish, at a distance, the companion of his future journey, as he pushes onward to the place of rendezvous.
- He hated greetings in the market-place; and there were generally loiterers in the streets to persecute him, either about the news of the day, or about some petty pieces of business.
- "What say you?—in the language of the world and worldlings base, if you can condescend to so mean a sphere, shall we stay or go?"
"In the language of selfishness, then, which is of course the language of the world—let us go by all means."
Yesterday Wax and I thought we had the energy to put together the little glass cupboard we bought about six months ago, which is going to be the dwelling for her tropical plants.
However, we might have been a little ahead of ourselves, because for the first time ever in assembling Ikea furniture (having lived in the same greater urban area with one for 15 years or so), we missed a step - 8/24 or something like that - and will have to remove the little shelf supports that hold the glass panels in place, then the roof and glass panels, in order to fit this bracing piece into the bottom.
We are not ready to use the cabinet yet anyway, because we need to go to the hardware store and get a bunch of wire frameworks and plant lights and stuff like that to hold all the little plants.
However, we might have been a little ahead of ourselves, because for the first time ever in assembling Ikea furniture (having lived in the same greater urban area with one for 15 years or so), we missed a step - 8/24 or something like that - and will have to remove the little shelf supports that hold the glass panels in place, then the roof and glass panels, in order to fit this bracing piece into the bottom.
We are not ready to use the cabinet yet anyway, because we need to go to the hardware store and get a bunch of wire frameworks and plant lights and stuff like that to hold all the little plants.
- or he might have staid to take a half-mutchkin extraordinary with his crony the hostler
- The young gentleman, who began to grow somewhat impatient, was now joined by a companion in this petty misery of human life—
- The floor, as well as the table and chairs, was overflowed by the same mare magnum of miscellaneous trumpery, where it would have been as impossible to find any individual article wanted, as to put it to any use when discovered.
- As Mr. Oldbuck thought his worthy friend and compeer was in some respects little better than a fool, he was apt to come more near communicating to him that unfavourable opinion, than the rules of modern politeness warrant.
- “Woman,” said he, “is that advertisement thine?” showing a bit of crumpled printed paper: “Does it not set forth, that, God willing, as you hypocritically express it, the Hawes Fly, or Queensferry Diligence, would set forth to-day at twelve o’clock; and is it not, thou falsest of creatures, now a quarter past twelve, and no such fly or diligence to be seen?—Dost thou know the consequence of seducing the lieges by false reports?—dost thou know it might be brought under the statute of leasing-making? Answer—and for once in thy long, useless, and evil life, let it be in the words of truth and sincerity,—hast thou such a coach?—is it in rerum natura?—or is this base annunciation a mere swindle on the incautious to beguile them of their time, their patience, and three shillings of sterling money of this realm?—Hast thou, I say, such a coach? ay or no?”
- "[A] walk in the garden once a-day is exercise, enough for any thinking being—none but a fool or a fox-hunter would require more."
- "But ye like to gar folk look like fools—ye can do that to Sir Arthur, and the minister his very sell.”
“Nature has been beforehand with me, Grizel, in both these instances, and in another which shall be nameless." - "I have a literary friend at York, with whom I have long corresponded on the subject of the Saxon horn that is preserved in the Minster there; we interchanged letters for six years, and have only as yet been able to settle the first line of the inscription. I will write forthwith to this gentleman, Dr. Dryasdust,..."
- For, gentle reader, if thou hast ever beheld the visage of a damsel of sixteen, whose romance of true love has been blown up by an untimely discovery, or of a child of ten years, whose castle of cards has been blown down by a malicious companion, I can safely aver to you, that Jonathan Oldbuck of Monkbarns looked neither more wise nor less disconcerted.
Inspector Japp, our tiny criminal, stole and ate two half Ferrero Rochers, with foil, from inside their plastic box on top of a plant stand two days ago.
That amount of chocolate cannot be good for him. ... But he seems absolutely fine and normal, and the symptoms would have appeared by now, so... I guess we got lucky!
Other pet photos:
( Read more... )
Tristana's made one step closer to Sipuli, as Sipuli made one step closer to proximity without scaring Tristana away by getting too excited. That was less than a week ago but it hasn't been repeated since.
That amount of chocolate cannot be good for him. ... But he seems absolutely fine and normal, and the symptoms would have appeared by now, so... I guess we got lucky!
Other pet photos:
( Read more... )Tristana's made one step closer to Sipuli, as Sipuli made one step closer to proximity without scaring Tristana away by getting too excited. That was less than a week ago but it hasn't been repeated since.
- “He’s a pratty man, a very pratty man,” said Evan Dhu (now Ensign Maccombich) to Fergus’s buxom landlady.
“He’s vera weel,” said the Widow Flockhart, “but no naething sae weel-far’d as your colonel, ensign.”
“I was na comparing them,” quoth Evan, “nor was I speaking about his being weel-favoured; but only that Mr. Waverley looks clean-made and deliver, and like a proper lad o’ his quarters, that will not cry barley in a brulzie. And, indeed, he’s gleg aneuch at the broadsword and target. I hae played wi’ him mysell at Glennaquoich, and sae has Vich Ian Vohr, often of a Sunday afternoon." - The friends now parted and retired to rest, each filled with the most anxious reflections on the state of the country.
- dressed as if her clothes had been flung on with a pitchfork,
- The master smith, benempt, as his sign intimated, John Mucklewrath,
- “No; he that steals a cow from a poor widow, or a stirk from a cotter, is a thief; he that lifts a drove from a Sassenach laird is a gentleman-drover. And, besides, to take a tree from the forest, a salmon from the river, a deer from the hill, or a cow from a Lowland strath, is what no Highlander need ever think shame upon.”
Some very medieval eclectic Morrissine turns of phrase:
And now, on another note... here are some pieces of National Romantic myth-making working to build a peculiarly English (pre-Norman) history encompassing a society that for Morris, because of his passionate socialist beliefs, must also be inherently virtuous, comparatively equitable, and comparatively Utopian (in contrast to the evils of his time). (I conjecture that this is why the more popular targets of National Romantic myth-making in Britain, such as the Matter of Britain and Celtic folklores, are not the main meat of Morris's medieval eclectic quest novels.)
These passages show the knowledgable godfather of our young hero, Ralph, delivering some big packages of worldbuilding in infodump form and describing the less free and equal, more evil foreign lands which the quest leads them through (and which Ralph ultimately helps to free from tyranny). The passages are particularly revealing because the phrasing makes very clear, by contrast, just what are the social system and values of Ralph's homeland (the mythical pre-Norman Anglo-Saxon Britain of Utopian agrarian equality, although again, this fictional world doesn't share our geography). These shockingly (to Ralph) tyrannical foreign lands are uhhhhh not described as Eastern or Oriental in the book, and I think he is maybe trying not to make them thus - and given the time he was writing, he was probably thinking very much of colonialism and the evils of his present day in contrast to his utopian agrarian past, and not JUST of foreign people... but they are very much recognizable nonetheless as Orientalist in the context of his pseudo-medieval history. Anyway, here are three significant passages delivered by Clement as the quest progresses towards the mountains and the Well at the World's End and describing the increasingly tyrannical governments of the city-states they are passing through:
( Read more... )
- A few shepherds they fell in with, who were short of speech, after the manner of such men, but deemed a greeting not wholly thrown away on such goodly folk as those wayfarers.
- So they ate their meat in the wilderness, and were nowise ungleeful, for to those twain the world seemed fair, and they hoped for great things.
- So they went thence, and found the master-church, and deemed it not much fairer than it was great; and it was nowise great, albeit it was strange and uncouth of fashion.
- However, all men were armed, and they had many bows, and some of the chapmen's knaves were fell archers.
- [...] where was much recourse of merchants from many lands, and a noble market.
- When they came up to the wall they saw that it was well builded of good ashlar, and so high that they might not see the roofs of the town because of it;
- “I shall lead thee whereas we shall be somewhat out of the way of murder-carles.”
And now, on another note... here are some pieces of National Romantic myth-making working to build a peculiarly English (pre-Norman) history encompassing a society that for Morris, because of his passionate socialist beliefs, must also be inherently virtuous, comparatively equitable, and comparatively Utopian (in contrast to the evils of his time). (I conjecture that this is why the more popular targets of National Romantic myth-making in Britain, such as the Matter of Britain and Celtic folklores, are not the main meat of Morris's medieval eclectic quest novels.)
These passages show the knowledgable godfather of our young hero, Ralph, delivering some big packages of worldbuilding in infodump form and describing the less free and equal, more evil foreign lands which the quest leads them through (and which Ralph ultimately helps to free from tyranny). The passages are particularly revealing because the phrasing makes very clear, by contrast, just what are the social system and values of Ralph's homeland (the mythical pre-Norman Anglo-Saxon Britain of Utopian agrarian equality, although again, this fictional world doesn't share our geography). These shockingly (to Ralph) tyrannical foreign lands are uhhhhh not described as Eastern or Oriental in the book, and I think he is maybe trying not to make them thus - and given the time he was writing, he was probably thinking very much of colonialism and the evils of his present day in contrast to his utopian agrarian past, and not JUST of foreign people... but they are very much recognizable nonetheless as Orientalist in the context of his pseudo-medieval history. Anyway, here are three significant passages delivered by Clement as the quest progresses towards the mountains and the Well at the World's End and describing the increasingly tyrannical governments of the city-states they are passing through:
( Read more... )Two days ago I dreamed I was watching a late 1970s/early 1980s movie starring Angela Lansbury and Al Pacino about an organized-crime connected Showgirls-esque club.
The showgirls themselves were a mixture of women and drag queens, but they all had a shared dressing room with the top half of the walls covered in wig stands and the bottom half covered in shoe stands.
Al Pacino was running this club with another guy representative of various organized crime entities and they were hiring an emergency replacement for someone who had gone to jail, and Angela Lansbury was sent, looking very prim in a tweed suit, but backed by... some other organized crime interest I guess?
At first it looks like this isn't going to work, because how can someone so prim and proper (and wearing such a long skirt and such low heels) be - whatever job she's supposed to have, doorman? Hostess? Bartender? Idk - but Angela Lansbury was told to show up and she did and she is sure she can do whatever this job is, because she's nothing if not competent. Then there's a humorous scene with playful music where the girls transform Angela Lansbury into a sexier version of the secretary look she's got going on while they're also getting themselves dressed, putting on wigs and stockings and shoes (and drag queen padding and makeup for about half of them).
Then they have one night's business (and presumably some minor conflict with the Bad Organized Crime elements, elided) and after closing they're laughing and taking off makeup in the dressing room pointing around at the wig stands and talking about the ones on the wall and whose they are and what act they're for and then someone playfully asks Angela Lansbury to guess one, but they don't know that she realizes it's a challenge and does a masterful Sherlock Holmes style deduction that it's Al Pacino's. (Correctly.)
Tragically I woke up, but Angela Lansbury was obviously going to join them and help them kick out the other guy and the 'bad' organized crime connections, leaving, obviously, only the good organized crime, while having a playful sexual tension romance without the actual romance with Al Pacino.
Tragic that this isn't a real movie.
The showgirls themselves were a mixture of women and drag queens, but they all had a shared dressing room with the top half of the walls covered in wig stands and the bottom half covered in shoe stands.
Al Pacino was running this club with another guy representative of various organized crime entities and they were hiring an emergency replacement for someone who had gone to jail, and Angela Lansbury was sent, looking very prim in a tweed suit, but backed by... some other organized crime interest I guess?
At first it looks like this isn't going to work, because how can someone so prim and proper (and wearing such a long skirt and such low heels) be - whatever job she's supposed to have, doorman? Hostess? Bartender? Idk - but Angela Lansbury was told to show up and she did and she is sure she can do whatever this job is, because she's nothing if not competent. Then there's a humorous scene with playful music where the girls transform Angela Lansbury into a sexier version of the secretary look she's got going on while they're also getting themselves dressed, putting on wigs and stockings and shoes (and drag queen padding and makeup for about half of them).
Then they have one night's business (and presumably some minor conflict with the Bad Organized Crime elements, elided) and after closing they're laughing and taking off makeup in the dressing room pointing around at the wig stands and talking about the ones on the wall and whose they are and what act they're for and then someone playfully asks Angela Lansbury to guess one, but they don't know that she realizes it's a challenge and does a masterful Sherlock Holmes style deduction that it's Al Pacino's. (Correctly.)
Tragically I woke up, but Angela Lansbury was obviously going to join them and help them kick out the other guy and the 'bad' organized crime connections, leaving, obviously, only the good organized crime, while having a playful sexual tension romance without the actual romance with Al Pacino.
Tragic that this isn't a real movie.
After I read Ivanhoe, I decided to read more of the works of Walter Scott because I read that he was a childhood favorite of William Morris and likely influence on his writing.
First of all, he definitely was. A lot of the archaic-seeming terms that Morris sprinkles throughout his quest novels were still in use in the 18th century in Scotland and are found abundantly in Scott's novels chronicling the recent past: the time of his life, his parents', and his grandparents'.
Ivanhoe was really hard to get into because of Scott's efforts at historical accuracy and the slow commencement of plot (a bit like Tolkien in that respect, except the language is much denser), but also because its primary themes are about racism( Read more... ) Be that as it may, however, I found that the novel picked up a lot in the middle after its slow beginning; there were lots of fun and unputdownable parts. I like Scott's use of language and his sense of humor very much, and I found the parts about Robin Hood and his men extremely delightful.
So next I read Waverley, his first novel, which is about the Bonny Prince Charlie revolt, the one with Culloden. From the start I found it much more readable. It's explicitly set sixty years before its publication date, and the language and subject matter is more familiar to me (Scott was a contemporary of Austen, possibly the most comfortable narrative voice for me). In terms of the plot, Waverley, too, begins a little slowly, and it took me some months to read because of this, but it, too, picks up as it nears the halfway point, and develops a lively adventure plot and a strong thread of humor.( Read more... )
The third book I read was The Antiquary, which was Scott's third published novel in 1816, and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. It is by far my favorite that I've read so far. By way of blurb, here's the beginning of the article on Wikipedia (emphasis mine):
In terms of the plot and humor and vibes, The Antiquary reminds me strongly of some of Georgette Heyer's humorous adventure novels, like The Talisman. It is full of rural Scottish scene-setting, however, vivid portraits and examples of Scottish English dialect from all classes - deliberate, but carefully edited to be readable to an English audience, I am informed by the introductions. Someone might dislike these, but I enjoy them. The romance does not have such a central part in Scott's novels, though, compared with Heyer, although it does seem that he felt he couldn't write a novel without including one.
The vivid, fully-rounded, rather satirical character portraits are beyond Heyer, though, and a bit more similar to Austen perhaps (although Scott's writing isn't really like Austen's). The comedy of manners is delightful. The Antiquary himself, according to the introduction, was apparently based on a friend of Scott's father, and enabled someone who knew his family as a child to guess who had written the book (which was published anonymously, a practice Scott eventually stopped). But I recognized in him one of the more delightfully humorous characters from Waverley as well (Baron Bradwardine), although I gather it isn't the style of dialogue which these two characters have in common that gave Scott's identity away, but the details of the Antiquary's household and interests and so on. (These are also great.)
It's sad to think, after finishing something I enjoyed this much, that it is perhaps the one of his works I was most likely to enjoy, going by these descriptions. But I will continue to read more of them, at least for a while. I skipped Guy Mannering because it reportedly has a plot device quite similar to one in The Antiquary, and am about to read The Monastery.
First of all, he definitely was. A lot of the archaic-seeming terms that Morris sprinkles throughout his quest novels were still in use in the 18th century in Scotland and are found abundantly in Scott's novels chronicling the recent past: the time of his life, his parents', and his grandparents'.
Ivanhoe was really hard to get into because of Scott's efforts at historical accuracy and the slow commencement of plot (a bit like Tolkien in that respect, except the language is much denser), but also because its primary themes are about racism
( Read more... ) Be that as it may, however, I found that the novel picked up a lot in the middle after its slow beginning; there were lots of fun and unputdownable parts. I like Scott's use of language and his sense of humor very much, and I found the parts about Robin Hood and his men extremely delightful.So next I read Waverley, his first novel, which is about the Bonny Prince Charlie revolt, the one with Culloden. From the start I found it much more readable. It's explicitly set sixty years before its publication date, and the language and subject matter is more familiar to me (Scott was a contemporary of Austen, possibly the most comfortable narrative voice for me). In terms of the plot, Waverley, too, begins a little slowly, and it took me some months to read because of this, but it, too, picks up as it nears the halfway point, and develops a lively adventure plot and a strong thread of humor.
( Read more... )The third book I read was The Antiquary, which was Scott's third published novel in 1816, and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. It is by far my favorite that I've read so far. By way of blurb, here's the beginning of the article on Wikipedia (emphasis mine):
The Antiquary (1816), the third of the Waverley novels by Walter Scott, centres on the character of an antiquary: an amateur historian, archaeologist and collector of items of dubious antiquity. He is the eponymous character and for all practical purposes the hero, though the characters of Lovel and Isabella Wardour provide the conventional love interest. The Antiquary was Scott's own favourite of his novels, and is one of his most critically well-regarded works; H. J. C. Grierson, for example, wrote that "Not many, apart from Shakespeare, could write scenes in which truth and poetry, realism and romance, are more wonderfully presented."
Scott wrote in an advertisement to the novel that his purpose in writing it, similar to that of his novels Waverley and Guy Mannering, was to document Scottish life of a certain period, in this case the last decade of the 18th century. The action can be located in July and August 1794. It is, in short, a novel of manners, and its theme is the influence of the past on the present. In tone it is predominantly comic, though the humour is offset with episodes of melodrama and pathos. (Wikipedia)
In terms of the plot and humor and vibes, The Antiquary reminds me strongly of some of Georgette Heyer's humorous adventure novels, like The Talisman. It is full of rural Scottish scene-setting, however, vivid portraits and examples of Scottish English dialect from all classes - deliberate, but carefully edited to be readable to an English audience, I am informed by the introductions. Someone might dislike these, but I enjoy them. The romance does not have such a central part in Scott's novels, though, compared with Heyer, although it does seem that he felt he couldn't write a novel without including one.
The vivid, fully-rounded, rather satirical character portraits are beyond Heyer, though, and a bit more similar to Austen perhaps (although Scott's writing isn't really like Austen's). The comedy of manners is delightful. The Antiquary himself, according to the introduction, was apparently based on a friend of Scott's father, and enabled someone who knew his family as a child to guess who had written the book (which was published anonymously, a practice Scott eventually stopped). But I recognized in him one of the more delightfully humorous characters from Waverley as well (Baron Bradwardine), although I gather it isn't the style of dialogue which these two characters have in common that gave Scott's identity away, but the details of the Antiquary's household and interests and so on. (These are also great.)
It's sad to think, after finishing something I enjoyed this much, that it is perhaps the one of his works I was most likely to enjoy, going by these descriptions. But I will continue to read more of them, at least for a while. I skipped Guy Mannering because it reportedly has a plot device quite similar to one in The Antiquary, and am about to read The Monastery.
I moved on from listening to Dracula to listening to Frankenstein, which I vaguely remember being slightly more engaging than the former for me when I read it 22 years ago, in spite of Frankenstein himself being such a famously insufferable narrator.
I think the fact that he's sort of an antihero made it more bearable for me, or maybe it's just that an annoying narrative is more annoying to listen to than to read, but... whatever it was, I had to take a break at about 2/3 of the way through the book this time. I was just completely unable to listen and relax, and was instead physically tensing up and exclaiming "Oh for fuck's sake" and "What a revolting excrecence of a man" every other line.
I think much of this is just my brain being older now, and more able to step back and keep a critical eye on the context without getting distracted by the experiences of the unreliable narrator, and hence more able to see how rich, layered, and fully thought-out all the details of his character and actions are. There's so MUCH of it and it's ALL TERRIBLE. Every flawless, glittering detail of Victor Frankenstein is SO clearly selfish, self-pitying, pompous, irresponsible, short-sighted, foolish, and deliberately self-deceiving... it is a breathtaking and monumental achievement. I should probably buy one of those cheap paperbacks of it - if we don't have one - and mark it up with a pencil as I go in order to somewhat soothe these feelings.
But anyway, in the break I listened to an abridged The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier, a novel about a guy who gets addicted to an experimental time travel drug and survives just long enough to witness a melodramatic novel's worth of 14th century interpersonal drama before it liquefies his brain. While his marriage is falling apart. I am always fascinated by things like time travel narratives approached from outside the sff genre. The fantasy element in a novel that is otherwise written on the framework of psychological horror could have been quite 'Turn of the Screw' if she had wished, but DDM chooses instead to make it quite clear that the time travel is real and he's learning facts he couldn't have known... but apparently not for any external plot reason, because then he just dies (and so does his homoerotic boyhood friend who invented the drug and keeps it in an old laundry room in his basement along with - I am not making this up! - fetuses in jars and a dried monkey's head). I think at this point (three short stories, this novel, and a couple of chapters of Jamaica Inn before backbuttoning in disgust) I have a clear feel for what DDM's whole vibe was and how Rebecca fits into that while still being the most standout, sort of like those bands who essentially write the same song all the time and yet still manage to have exactly 1 top ten hit, so everything else you listen to is the same as it but just not as much of a banger.
I think the fact that he's sort of an antihero made it more bearable for me, or maybe it's just that an annoying narrative is more annoying to listen to than to read, but... whatever it was, I had to take a break at about 2/3 of the way through the book this time. I was just completely unable to listen and relax, and was instead physically tensing up and exclaiming "Oh for fuck's sake" and "What a revolting excrecence of a man" every other line.
I think much of this is just my brain being older now, and more able to step back and keep a critical eye on the context without getting distracted by the experiences of the unreliable narrator, and hence more able to see how rich, layered, and fully thought-out all the details of his character and actions are. There's so MUCH of it and it's ALL TERRIBLE. Every flawless, glittering detail of Victor Frankenstein is SO clearly selfish, self-pitying, pompous, irresponsible, short-sighted, foolish, and deliberately self-deceiving... it is a breathtaking and monumental achievement. I should probably buy one of those cheap paperbacks of it - if we don't have one - and mark it up with a pencil as I go in order to somewhat soothe these feelings.
But anyway, in the break I listened to an abridged The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier, a novel about a guy who gets addicted to an experimental time travel drug and survives just long enough to witness a melodramatic novel's worth of 14th century interpersonal drama before it liquefies his brain. While his marriage is falling apart. I am always fascinated by things like time travel narratives approached from outside the sff genre. The fantasy element in a novel that is otherwise written on the framework of psychological horror could have been quite 'Turn of the Screw' if she had wished, but DDM chooses instead to make it quite clear that the time travel is real and he's learning facts he couldn't have known... but apparently not for any external plot reason, because then he just dies (and so does his homoerotic boyhood friend who invented the drug and keeps it in an old laundry room in his basement along with - I am not making this up! - fetuses in jars and a dried monkey's head). I think at this point (three short stories, this novel, and a couple of chapters of Jamaica Inn before backbuttoning in disgust) I have a clear feel for what DDM's whole vibe was and how Rebecca fits into that while still being the most standout, sort of like those bands who essentially write the same song all the time and yet still manage to have exactly 1 top ten hit, so everything else you listen to is the same as it but just not as much of a banger.
in the vihreitä kuulia cable vortex
18 Mar 2025 02:41 pmI picked a shawl pattern (Laulu by Sari Nordlund but bigger, in thinner yarn, with different edging) that's covered all over with cables and lace for my 900+ meters of jelly bean green wool (this was my replacement idea for how to use this color that I love, after deciding against a hat) (the yarn color is actually named for green marmalade balls, a Finnish traditional candy, in Danish, the original language. They are called vihreitä kuulia in Finnish).
a little before the halfway point
I guess I just wasn't realistically picturing how much longer it takes to knit each square inch in cables than just in lace. I have spent so many hours on this shawl. I've been working on it for twelve days, probably an average of six hours a day, and I'm only about two thirds finished.
I need to finish because I have the wool for a cardigan and a fair isle vest waiting. And on Easter we get to buy some more natural unbleached local yarn from Stentorp.
a little before the halfway point
I guess I just wasn't realistically picturing how much longer it takes to knit each square inch in cables than just in lace. I have spent so many hours on this shawl. I've been working on it for twelve days, probably an average of six hours a day, and I'm only about two thirds finished.
I need to finish because I have the wool for a cardigan and a fair isle vest waiting. And on Easter we get to buy some more natural unbleached local yarn from Stentorp.
Our garden is not WHOLLY in hiding. The crocuses, lilies, and daffodils are starting to come up. Nothing has started making buds yet.
It got cold again two nights ago though and now it's one degree above freezing, but it's been sleeting and snowing a very fine layer of powdered sugar all day. (And I expect the last snow to happen after Easter, as it has for the last five years or so.) Wax says this cold snap should not last many days, so hopefully all the shoots will be okay.
We planted a lot more bulbs in the perennial borders last year and it's always a bit of a crapshoot if a bulb will survive the winter or not, even with established ones. But the amount of shoots was looking good.
Since the snow hasn't finished, the street hasn't been washed yet, although the street brushes have come by once or twice to move some of the accumulated gravel to the edges after the last thaw which lasted a few weeks. However, all the dust is still out there. It's very much too dusty on the streets to walk along them on a dry and windy day without a mask if your airways are prone to irritation. We haven't managed to start walking again yet anyway, so this isn't our problem! We just gawk at the dust devils in the parking lot from the car windows on our weekly pilgrimage to the supermarket.
It got cold again two nights ago though and now it's one degree above freezing, but it's been sleeting and snowing a very fine layer of powdered sugar all day. (And I expect the last snow to happen after Easter, as it has for the last five years or so.) Wax says this cold snap should not last many days, so hopefully all the shoots will be okay.
We planted a lot more bulbs in the perennial borders last year and it's always a bit of a crapshoot if a bulb will survive the winter or not, even with established ones. But the amount of shoots was looking good.
Since the snow hasn't finished, the street hasn't been washed yet, although the street brushes have come by once or twice to move some of the accumulated gravel to the edges after the last thaw which lasted a few weeks. However, all the dust is still out there. It's very much too dusty on the streets to walk along them on a dry and windy day without a mask if your airways are prone to irritation. We haven't managed to start walking again yet anyway, so this isn't our problem! We just gawk at the dust devils in the parking lot from the car windows on our weekly pilgrimage to the supermarket.
Daphne du Maurier's "The Doll"
16 Mar 2025 10:20 pmI just listened to a short story about a guy who falls in love with a beautiful young woman who is apparently not really that into him but continues to hang out with her constantly (is he just showing up at her house??? Daily???), but then discovers that she is actually in love with a male mannequin dressed in a tux that she keeps in its own bedroom in her flat, and she is just using him (the narrator) to make the mannequin jealous. This revelation is too much for him and the story implies he immediately ( Read more... ).
If I hadn't just read the absolutely insane "Don't Look Now" I would be gobsmacked at this level of bonkers, but in comparison to that data point I'm now like Eh, how unlikely IS it, really, for a young woman to keep a room in her flat solely for the eveningwear mannequin that she considers her life partner? I don't know her life! And it's undeniably easier to obtain a mannequin than it is to become a master knife thrower (see previous post).
Also, I can't help thinking that if a single young professional lady is having difficulty dodging a determined Nice Guy like this, taking him to make out in front of a mannequin and giving him to understand that she cares nothing for him and is using him to make the mannequin jealous and that she could never love a human man might be an effective (if not an efficient...) way to get rid of him. And definitely was a richly-deserved response to That Guy.
( Read more... ).If I hadn't just read the absolutely insane "Don't Look Now" I would be gobsmacked at this level of bonkers, but in comparison to that data point I'm now like Eh, how unlikely IS it, really, for a young woman to keep a room in her flat solely for the eveningwear mannequin that she considers her life partner? I don't know her life! And it's undeniably easier to obtain a mannequin than it is to become a master knife thrower (see previous post).
Also, I can't help thinking that if a single young professional lady is having difficulty dodging a determined Nice Guy like this, taking him to make out in front of a mannequin and giving him to understand that she cares nothing for him and is using him to make the mannequin jealous and that she could never love a human man might be an effective (if not an efficient...) way to get rid of him. And definitely was a richly-deserved response to That Guy.
Hair Products
16 Mar 2025 02:46 pmI just noticed that the labels on my new shampoo and conditioner (Maui Moisture, aka Johnson & Johnson) both say "Store in a cool dry place".
Did they just copy this boilerplate from some other product? Nobody even proofread?
In other shampoo news, I recently learned while attempting to find product recommendations that the low-quality hair beauty contentosphere is now using the term
"Pre Poo"
to refer to... thoroughly wetting the hair before you put the shampoo in it... you know... just like (I thought) everybody already knew because of the fact that every shampoo ever says to on the bottle.
Just. Absolutely loathesome. Who came up with this? Who allowed this? What kind of debased, deranged person would perpetuate this?
Did they just copy this boilerplate from some other product? Nobody even proofread?
In other shampoo news, I recently learned while attempting to find product recommendations that the low-quality hair beauty contentosphere is now using the term
"Pre Poo"
to refer to... thoroughly wetting the hair before you put the shampoo in it... you know... just like (I thought) everybody already knew because of the fact that every shampoo ever says to on the bottle.
Just. Absolutely loathesome. Who came up with this? Who allowed this? What kind of debased, deranged person would perpetuate this?
[On the porch]
CIM: Is that all the groceries?
WAX: Yeah.
[In the kitchen]
CIM: Where's the bag of frozen food?
WAX [looking around]: Did you do something weird with it?
CIM: I put it in the styrofoam cooler, like always.
[CIM fetches the bag of frozen stuff from the cooler.]
CIM: It was right in front of us. The lid wasn't even on the cooler, the pizza was sticking right up in our faces saying PIZZA.
WAX: I saw that but I thought it was some recycling.
[In the hall again.]
CIM: Hey, where's the bag of kitty litter?
WAX: What bag of kitty litter?
CIM: The one we talked about two times in the store?
WAX: I... don't think we actually bought it. I think we left it in the aisle.
CIM: I don't remember putting it in the car...
WAX: I think you said something about going back to get a pizza, and I put it down right then, and then we both forgot it.
[We return to the store to buy kitty litter and toilet paper, which also was forgotten in the aisle.]
CIM: Is that all the groceries?
WAX: Yeah.
[In the kitchen]
CIM: Where's the bag of frozen food?
WAX [looking around]: Did you do something weird with it?
CIM: I put it in the styrofoam cooler, like always.
[CIM fetches the bag of frozen stuff from the cooler.]
CIM: It was right in front of us. The lid wasn't even on the cooler, the pizza was sticking right up in our faces saying PIZZA.
WAX: I saw that but I thought it was some recycling.
[In the hall again.]
CIM: Hey, where's the bag of kitty litter?
WAX: What bag of kitty litter?
CIM: The one we talked about two times in the store?
WAX: I... don't think we actually bought it. I think we left it in the aisle.
CIM: I don't remember putting it in the car...
WAX: I think you said something about going back to get a pizza, and I put it down right then, and then we both forgot it.
[We return to the store to buy kitty litter and toilet paper, which also was forgotten in the aisle.]
I wrote a long and minutely detailed summary of the last Morris novel I read, The Well at the World's End, a couple of days ago here.
In a more brief and analytical tone, one might say that this story diverges from folktales about the quests of multiple brothers and incorporates a successful quest to the fountain of youth (not that I can think of any folktales specifically about this right now. If only I had an academic library login to check Arne Thompson...).
In the same way that I described the prior Morris I finished rereading, The Wood Beyond the World, as preoccupied with the virtue and virginity of women, The Well at the World's End is preoccupied with two main clusters of things:
1. Freedom, Justice, the Nature of Society and Humanity, etc.
2. Having Two Romantic Interests.
This isn't the only Morris novel to deal sensitively and empathetically with love triangles (consecutive or contemporaneous), infidelity, or second partners. These views are distinctly non-normative for the Victorian era, although nothing groundbreaking now. Interesting in light of biographical details.
In a more brief and analytical tone, one might say that this story diverges from folktales about the quests of multiple brothers and incorporates a successful quest to the fountain of youth (not that I can think of any folktales specifically about this right now. If only I had an academic library login to check Arne Thompson...).
In the same way that I described the prior Morris I finished rereading, The Wood Beyond the World, as preoccupied with the virtue and virginity of women, The Well at the World's End is preoccupied with two main clusters of things:
1. Freedom, Justice, the Nature of Society and Humanity, etc.
- slavery (and adjacent classes ie thralldom, serfdom, and highly unequal societies)
- good/just and bad/unjust rulers, with the former being shown explictly to consist in those who actively work to increase the equality and quality of life and freedom not just of their own subjects, but of the entire world
- the necessity and value therefore of war and combat, but the hollowness and ultimate evil of war for the sake of wealth or glory
- the importance of mercy and forgiveness, with the counter-case being shown in the backstory of the villainous warriors of the Burg of the Four Friths who are said to have been peaceful agrarians who were attacked and plundered by a neighboring tribe in the distant past, in response to which they walled their town and changed their whole culture to be based on merciless battle, emphasizing nothing more highly than the trainig and arming of their male populace, who conduct regular raids in revenge on the neighboring culture who supposedly attacked them once in antiquity but unwisely left able-bodied men alive - and as a result of which they invariably plunder absolutely all wealth, livestock and crops, kill all males and enslave all females. Their supposed self-defence turns out to be a lie when they are overthrown and cast out of their city by their victims, and turn themselves into an armed band roving around looking for nearby innocent settlements to steal.
2. Having Two Romantic Interests.
- The younger son starts out by meeting and being attracted to a beautiful peasant girl, but then meets and instantly falls in love with an immortal woman who has been worshiped as a goddess and rules a nearby city as warrior queen, and who is actually a wonderful person, but unfortunately is cursed so that every man who sees her will fall in love with her, possibly as a result of being partly fae. She falls in love with him too and briefly teaches him the ways of love, but during their honeymoon together tells him about the peasant girl and informs him that he is destined to be with said peasant girl and they are perfect for each other. Then she dies tragically and he sets off to rescue the peasant girl, and then to find the fountain of youth with her, and the second two thirds of the book or so are dedicated to their love. The peasant girl rescues herself, by the way, and later more than once rescues the hero. She travels a time armed and armored in a knight's gear and follows the hero into battle in this way more than once. (Morris's feminism is not really modern but he does way better at women being people and doing male tasks than JRRT writing two generations later.)
This isn't the only Morris novel to deal sensitively and empathetically with love triangles (consecutive or contemporaneous), infidelity, or second partners. These views are distinctly non-normative for the Victorian era, although nothing groundbreaking now. Interesting in light of biographical details.
A couple of days ago I tried to find old text posts from dracula daily's heyday on Tumblr, but I found it impossible due to the fact that people who create fanfic drabbles and fanart in the Dracula fandom use this freely as a fandom tag and I couldn't wade back through it successfully. I only kept looking for about an hour before I gave up, but I did find a post where an asker said something like,
And the answerer agreed and provided a bunch of examples of egregious details of this phenomenon in various film adaptations, adding that this slanderous misreading of the text is also popular in criticism.
I tried a brief websearch after that and found about five essays or blog posts doing exactly what the answerer says here before I stumbled on this fascinating paper: Rethinking the New Woman in Dracula by Jordan Kistler.
There is no female character treated worse by adaptations than Lucy Westenra. Every single adaptation completely rewrites her to make her an evil whore basically.
And the answerer agreed and provided a bunch of examples of egregious details of this phenomenon in various film adaptations, adding that this slanderous misreading of the text is also popular in criticism.
I tried a brief websearch after that and found about five essays or blog posts doing exactly what the answerer says here before I stumbled on this fascinating paper: Rethinking the New Woman in Dracula by Jordan Kistler.
Abstract: The existing canon of scholarship on Dracula asserts that the sexually aggressive female vampires are representative of the New Woman, and thus are evidence of Stoker’s conservative reaction to changing gender roles. In contrast, this article offers a reinterpretation Dracula in the light of key writings of the New Woman movement which sought to demonize the Victorian marriage market because of its creation of a class of female parasites: idle middle-class woman entirely dependent on fathers and husbands. A close reading of key sections of the novel demonstrates that the female vampires are characterized as traditionally subordinate Victorian housewives, in contrast to the positive presentation of Mina Harker as a New Woman. This reading reveals a text that argues that work for women is the only antidote to the degeneration inherent in traditional womanhood, through which women are reduced to nothing more than their biological functions.
I think I mentioned that I have been listening to Tony Walker's Classic Ghost Stories Podcast. I was inclined to pick shorter stories first because I dislike having to break off my attention in mid-story, but I finally listened to:
1. The Haunting of Hill House. I have been meaning to give this a try since I saw some analytical videos about Shirley Jackson by Books 'n' Cats on Youtube and then listened to a couple of her short stories. I am an anti-horror-genre person in general, but this is mostly down to a dislike of jump scares, slashers, thrillers where someone is pursued, etc. I had heard, and I think correctly, that this novel is not very horrific in that sense, although it definitely qualifies as psychological horror. I was not as distressed by the horrible ghost manifestations and the tragedies as by( spoilers ) BIG BONUS: Tony Walker, as mentioned in a previous post I think, is Northern, but he does a variety of accents and is quite good at them. His Scots, Irish, Cockney, etc all seem great. His American accent is... mostly good? I mean it's better than Ewan McGregor's, but it's EXTREMELY midwest with slightly too much chewy mouthing around everything and a bit of sort of New Yorky nasal tone. For some reason, he only read the professor and his wife with this accent, leaving the other residents British, and then the wife's dumb henchman is like... rustic Scots. It's very distracting.
2. Don't Look Now, a short story by Daphne DuMaurier. I have read Rebecca a few times but that was my only acquaintance with her works. This is a short story that's... um... well, the surprise twist ending is that the narrator( cut for multiple kinds of offensiveness )
3. Dracula. I had read Dracula 23 years ago, and started to do Dracula Daily a few years ago but I didn't make it very far. So a lot of my memory of the story was worn away by time. I remembered thinking that Jonathan Harker was a moron whose thoughts were a trial to read, and this was true again even though I am older and more patient (but maybe it's harder when you're listening to an audiobook since it's so much slower than reading). I remembered thinking that Mina was the only character with two braincells to rub together. I had actually forgotten how large Van Helsing's role was and didn't remember thinking anything about him. I was surprised to see such a distinct character, who is both likeable and maddening (long-winded with weird metaphors). He is not as slow as the other three men of the party, who are required to be confused so that he can explain things, but he also makes more errors and these more repeatedly because all through Lucy's slow demise he is the only one who suspects, then knows what is going on, and continually fails to act decisively in a way that reminded me irresistably of the bungled western powers' responses to the pandemic.( Read more... )
1. The Haunting of Hill House. I have been meaning to give this a try since I saw some analytical videos about Shirley Jackson by Books 'n' Cats on Youtube and then listened to a couple of her short stories. I am an anti-horror-genre person in general, but this is mostly down to a dislike of jump scares, slashers, thrillers where someone is pursued, etc. I had heard, and I think correctly, that this novel is not very horrific in that sense, although it definitely qualifies as psychological horror. I was not as distressed by the horrible ghost manifestations and the tragedies as by
( spoilers ) BIG BONUS: Tony Walker, as mentioned in a previous post I think, is Northern, but he does a variety of accents and is quite good at them. His Scots, Irish, Cockney, etc all seem great. His American accent is... mostly good? I mean it's better than Ewan McGregor's, but it's EXTREMELY midwest with slightly too much chewy mouthing around everything and a bit of sort of New Yorky nasal tone. For some reason, he only read the professor and his wife with this accent, leaving the other residents British, and then the wife's dumb henchman is like... rustic Scots. It's very distracting. 2. Don't Look Now, a short story by Daphne DuMaurier. I have read Rebecca a few times but that was my only acquaintance with her works. This is a short story that's... um... well, the surprise twist ending is that the narrator
( cut for multiple kinds of offensiveness )3. Dracula. I had read Dracula 23 years ago, and started to do Dracula Daily a few years ago but I didn't make it very far. So a lot of my memory of the story was worn away by time. I remembered thinking that Jonathan Harker was a moron whose thoughts were a trial to read, and this was true again even though I am older and more patient (but maybe it's harder when you're listening to an audiobook since it's so much slower than reading). I remembered thinking that Mina was the only character with two braincells to rub together. I had actually forgotten how large Van Helsing's role was and didn't remember thinking anything about him. I was surprised to see such a distinct character, who is both likeable and maddening (long-winded with weird metaphors). He is not as slow as the other three men of the party, who are required to be confused so that he can explain things, but he also makes more errors and these more repeatedly because all through Lucy's slow demise he is the only one who suspects, then knows what is going on, and continually fails to act decisively in a way that reminded me irresistably of the bungled western powers' responses to the pandemic.
( Read more... )I continue slowly rereading my way through William Morris's ~mediæval romances, which I have read all of once before (of which more in this post).
The next one I finished was his fifth prose-only romance, 1896's( The Well at the World's End )
I accidentally waited a few months after I finished reading to make this post, meaning I had go to back and page through it to get all the events in the right order, and of course when I started doing that I spent like six hours making this post because summarizing and leaving out details is hard. Ugh. Oh well, I'm sure sometime in the future I will be glad I have this summary to refer back to.
The next one I finished was his fifth prose-only romance, 1896's
( The Well at the World's End )I accidentally waited a few months after I finished reading to make this post, meaning I had go to back and page through it to get all the events in the right order, and of course when I started doing that I spent like six hours making this post because summarizing and leaving out details is hard. Ugh. Oh well, I'm sure sometime in the future I will be glad I have this summary to refer back to.
A few days ago I had one of those sore knot spots in the middle of my back and it annoyed me enough that I actually went and got the plastic massage stick, which I hardly ever touch because I can't be bothered. And it felt good at first, but I guess I irritated it too much or... whatever, I'm not clear on the mechanism, but it turned into an inflammation, like a little bruise, and now it's been annoying me even more constantly for two days. So I only want to be lying or sitting with a hot pack pressed next to my spine but I also would really like to be standing up and doing things, just not enough to stay away from the hotpack for long. I did take ibuprofen. I can still FEEL it there, being not exactly painful but just really ANNOYING, and I hate it. Also annoying that a hotpack on your spine tends to make you very warm.
I have been gradually accumulating a little bit more energy each day - hence the desire to be standing up or doing things, which I didn't have all winter until the middle of February - but it still doesn't feel springy enough to enjoy being outside. There aren't any flowers up anywhere. The sun isn't out every day. Our tenants were out there raking leaves (which we didn't do at all last fall) with their smallest child yesterday afternoon. They are embarrassingly much more together about... house... maintenance... stuff and they keep doing like twice or three times as much yardwork and stuff on their side of the house as we ever get around to. Last fall they even had a new load of gravel put down in the driveway on their side (there's a drive into the garage - which only they use - and then another one, which still has 0% visible gravel left, on the other side leading to our front door). I just every time want to cry and be like AHHH I'M SORRY FOR BEING SUCH BAD LANDLORDS!!!! WE ARE TEMPERAMENTALLY UNSUITED TO BEING LANDLORDS!!!!! We haven't done that. It wouldn't be professional. Also they asked us if they could get a dog, and obviously yes. They aren't decided yet apparently, but the children are campaigning. Wouldn't that be nice?
I finally got a response from the Finnish tax agency - after I think almost an entire year - for how much the tax will be for the money left me by my great-uncle. Finally, we know how much is left for plumbing (etc)! And at this point I fear we may have to call the plumber, even though in the first week of the year he told us he would call us, because it HAS been 2 months. On the other hand, maybe the ground was too cold to have done any of the digging yet.
I have been gradually accumulating a little bit more energy each day - hence the desire to be standing up or doing things, which I didn't have all winter until the middle of February - but it still doesn't feel springy enough to enjoy being outside. There aren't any flowers up anywhere. The sun isn't out every day. Our tenants were out there raking leaves (which we didn't do at all last fall) with their smallest child yesterday afternoon. They are embarrassingly much more together about... house... maintenance... stuff and they keep doing like twice or three times as much yardwork and stuff on their side of the house as we ever get around to. Last fall they even had a new load of gravel put down in the driveway on their side (there's a drive into the garage - which only they use - and then another one, which still has 0% visible gravel left, on the other side leading to our front door). I just every time want to cry and be like AHHH I'M SORRY FOR BEING SUCH BAD LANDLORDS!!!! WE ARE TEMPERAMENTALLY UNSUITED TO BEING LANDLORDS!!!!! We haven't done that. It wouldn't be professional. Also they asked us if they could get a dog, and obviously yes. They aren't decided yet apparently, but the children are campaigning. Wouldn't that be nice?
I finally got a response from the Finnish tax agency - after I think almost an entire year - for how much the tax will be for the money left me by my great-uncle. Finally, we know how much is left for plumbing (etc)! And at this point I fear we may have to call the plumber, even though in the first week of the year he told us he would call us, because it HAS been 2 months. On the other hand, maybe the ground was too cold to have done any of the digging yet.
