perevision

I've been following petronia's reading/watching meme for a while now, and between that and Film Crit Hulk I've been inspired to catch up on movies, series and books.

Movies finished:
Jiro Dreams of Sushi - my mouth watered the entire time, and so will yours, but that's an irrelevant detail. This has so much in common with my favourite documentary, Bill Cunningham New York: it's inspiring and very humbling to watch these men perform their craft with such skill. I wanted to say their skill was effortless but it's not true--like a kata, constant repetition makes every movement smooth and light. I have never been so mesmerised watching someone pinch nigiri together. Also charmed by food critic Masuhiro Yamamoto, who serves as a guide to Jiro's genius. Loved his breakdown of the three criteria for the Michelin stars: quality, originality and consistency. This one's going in the Artist Handbook.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - ahahaha this actually showed in London while I was there. I enjoyed the hell out of this film; I'm sad I didn't see it in the theatre.

Books finished:
To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee - I am so ashamed that I hadn't read this yet! Of course I loved it, but I can't really process my feelings until I read it a few more times, detached from everything that's already been said about it.
Do the Work, Steven Pressfield - a little gung-ho for my taste, but good for motivation.
Blood and Gold, Anne Rice (reread) - Short version: vampires are assholes, but they're fascinating assholes.
Zen and the Art of Writing, Ray Bradbury - Another one for the Artist's Handbook, but also just fun to read.

Still reading/watching:
The Fall - about 1/3 of the way through and enchanted. Although that might be more the two leads than anything else; I am super weak for Lee Pace.
Sunshine Cleaning - I honestly thought this would be way more engaging and funny?
Elementary - now watching 'M'.

Venice Is A Fish, Tiziano Scarpia - ♥
Why We Broke Up, Daniel Handler - Lemony Snicket's turns of phrase are just as amazing when he is not being Lemony Snicket. And I feel even more for his characters.
Stuff White People Like, Christian Lander - Sometimes I read so many sad things, I just need a bathroom book.

Just acquired:
Hannibal, ep 1
Da Vinci's Demons, ep 1 - SO EXCITED.

Diary of a Dictator, William Rempel - Ferdinand Marcos's diary. I honestly have no idea what to expect.
The Dreyfus Affair: A Love Story, Peter Lefcourt - apparently an LGBT love story about baseball NOT written by Steve Kluger. Recommended on the podcast Slash Report.
The Eagle of the Ninth, Rosemary Sutcliff - because I am obsessed, not with Channing Tatum, but with trying to remember the title of this one children's book I read, which was also about the dying days of Roman Britain and featured a teenage protagonist called Marcus who meets a Celtic boy. In the book Marcus, whose family is about to leave for Tuscany, gets to witness the ritual of the Horned God and exchanges his toga for a fur pelt. Also Rosemary Sutcliff.
Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds: Ways of Telling the Self, Marina Warner - I love this lady.

Sorry, this is going to be really, really long. It's been a while since I unburdened myself online. You might want to skip all the feelings and just click the links before the cut, you'll enjoy them.

So I gave up reading fanfic for Lent but then got addicted to Steve Rogers' American Captain, which is part Harvey Pekar pastiche, part Avengers fancomic, and all Steve Rogers feels all the time.

And through a link to an extra-large comic I was led to the artist's DeviantArt page, and her comic called Therapy with the Vampire, which is about Anne Rice's Louis and Lestat and their compelling, twisted relationship. And that reminded me that I still had my uncle's Vampire Lestat graphic novel that I first read at fourteen. So I cracked it open for the first time in more than a decade...and like cracking an egg, a gooey mess came spilling out. And in the process of cleaning it all up I suddenly understood several blind spots in my real life past, not to mention my fandom tendencies.

( The thing that's wrong with these vampires is the thing that's always been wrong with vampires. )

Part Two

Title: Window Dream (#18)
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: G
Warnings: Surreal imagery.
Summary: AU. Eames is a window display artist who can't seem to stop dreaming about his artistic rival Arthur.
Artist's Notes: see end.

( 18th of a nonexistent series )

Anne McCaffrey has gone between.

Thank you for your books, Anne McCaffrey. They were a huge part of my teens and one of my gateways to SF from fantasy.

I'm sad I'll never get to meet you.

Had a great time over at lyrakristine's house; she's in town with her whole family, whom I'm quite close to. So nice to spend time with all of them again. It really only needed angelthorn to make things perfect; in fact if A had been there I think we might actually have got round to Ly teaching me how to sew. Next time, I swear.

Got back home and am having a lazy day reading instead of painting or anything productive. Picked up Volume 1 of the Complete Novels and Stories of Sherlock Holmes at Fully Booked some days ago and just finished The Sign of Four.

( thoughts on ACD, gender and race, historical notes, and tragic conclusions )

The really sad bit is the last line of the story. Watson says, 'You have done all the work in the business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?'

I was expecting Holmes to say something pithy about the work being its own reward, but I got this:

'For me,' said Sherlock Holmes, 'there still remains the cocaine-bottle.' And he stretched his long white hand up for it.

No wonder all the ACD canon fic is choked with angst. Damn.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n11/james-davidson/mr-and-mr-and-mrs-and-mrs

Fascinating reading, starting with the "English Couple" tomb of two (male) knights found in Istanbul, and going on from there. If the book is as intelligent, well-informed, and utterly absorbing as the review, I can't wait to order it.

I have been reading a LOT of YA lately, to the point that it's the first section I head for in Fully Booked. This hasn't been the case for 13 years--I got into YA as a genre in itself via lit-major friends (HAI GUYZ) and dropped off a little after we went our separate ways.

But now I'm living in a city with a bookstore that actually believes kids have their own personalities and can think for themselves instead of grabbing the nearest black-red-and-white cover on the Teens' Choice table...

I have these books that I love but didn't realise for years were written by authors who actually wrote more books. E.L. Konigsburg, Jerry Spinelli, Patricia McLachlan and Steve Kluger gave me a genre I had no idea I would love: a world without magic, vampires, fantastic machines or any of my usual favourite tropes, a world in which kids did kid things and realised they weren't enough, a world where kids got older and connected with adults and other kids and...changed, irrevocably, often for the better.

If you have any recs for these authors' books and more authors like them, please let me know.

In the meantime, I re-read The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World and succumbed to the inevitable: William Wilcox/Amedeo Kaplan slash fanfic. Because really, it was RIGHT THERE, hardly even coded at all. Oh, and a bit of het at the end.

Learning Russian
by Pere
EL Konigsburg's The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World
William/Amedeo, mostly
PG

( They don't really talk at school. )

Been sucking down books like summer cherries, especially the New York Review of Books series. Have read Wescott's The Pilgrim Hawk, a few bits off Borges' Labyrinths, James Wood's How Fiction Works, Schuyler's What's For Dinner?, Henry James' What Maisie Knew, and thanks to a lucky find at Oxfam and a special discount run on the Amazon marketplace, all the rest of James Marsden's Tomorrow series. Hey Lars, remember those? They're still as good as I remember--I think JK Rowling could have learned a thing or two from them.

I also love reading odd bits aloud to myself, which is like the verbal equivalent of tying the occasional stem in a knot with my tongue. (Mixed success, but fun every time!) :P

Hey all, Happy New Year! Hope your Christmases were as full of food, presents and familial joy as possible.

After some hairy moments, it seems I am indeed returning to London for my very last term. In addition will get to live all by my ownsie, which has been my fondest wish but also means I will miss my cousin a lot. Thinking of casting out for a roomie if I can't find a single flat in time.

Leaving on the 9th from Manila, but am trying to get a day or two there so I can see friends and do shopping--didn't get anything good in Chiang Mai as it's more of a retreat and not a retail paradise like Bangkok. The vacation itself was really lovely; must get the pics from my aunts and cousins as I didn't bring a camera of my own.

I have been rereading all my aunt's Diana Gabaldon books while I'm in Bacolod--angelthorn and lyrakristine, much much better than Judith Krantz, I promise! Hot Scotsmen, witchcraft and time travel, gay British nobility...and sex that's not only genuinely sexy, but actually believable. Plus funny on purpose. I'm also reading Crime and Punishment, Kawabata's First Snow on Fuji and The Janissary Tree, but I admit the Gabaldon books are really an addiction, and have been for years.

Er, anyway, now that I've got my grandmother's computer working, there will be more posts. Expect pics next :)

Watching LJ erupt over the past few weeks I wondered why we're (and I include myself here) so violent about spoilers. Then I read the book, and I watched LJ erupt even more, and I took a couple of days to think about it, and...I formed a possibly unpopular opinion.

Spoilers are so important to this series because the plot points are all we have left. The characters we loved (and loved to hate), the thrill of the pacing and the discovery of this new universe that lives around and alongside and yet away from what we know...it's all faded in the past few books, subsumed by the overwhelming plot devices and fake-outs and OH NOES vs. SQUEE!!!s that stuff the covers and feed the hype. And it breaks my heart to know that the series that captured and involved me so completely has turned into little more than a fireworks display.

I sound bitter, don't I? Maybe I'll post bullet points outlining the bits I found the most disappointing, along with the bits I actually did enjoy (there were some, I promise!). Maybe later.

In the meantime, here is one aspect of the series I AM forever grateful for.... Fandom, I turn this one over to you. Please make it right. You've done it before.

ETA: Some comments below contain spoilers.