This and that and a bit of the other thing (and R.O.D. the TV)
I got a paper journal thingie the other day. I've never had one before. I got tired of having thoughts while I was in bed or winding down to go to bed, and forgetting them the next day. Getting them written down is helpful for clearing my mind as well as remembering (of course), but I only had big awkward sheets of notebook paper and an equally awkward goldenrod pad. So I started a journal. Just one page so far. I am starting to date everything I write too. Everything I've written in the last 10 years or so is kind of ambigious for dates. I have a list of when I wrote my Rambo stories and started and finished various other projects, but I stopped updating it around 1996.
I also bought the first volume of R.O.D. the TV, an anime series with a weird name. My friend is a major anime geek and I encourage him to bring me various things to try out. I had liked Read or Die the OVA, but when he brought me R.O.D. the TV volume one, I was pretty leery of it. Read or Die had the most energy and creativity of any anime I've seen since like... Battle Angel. R.O.D. the TV is much quieter, though the action is fantastic when it occurs. It really sings to me, somehow. It is made for bibliophiles and writers like myself, I think!
I put a list of characters I can relate to once, partly in a misguided attempt to pull thoughts from my friends list, and the protagonist from R.O.D. the TV was among them. Nenene is a young woman who wrote a successful set of novels, starting when 17. She was very close to a neurotic woman (the protagonist of Read or Die). The woman vanishes without a trace, and Nenene, bereft of her muse, ceases to produce work for several years. Though more tempermental than myself, by far, her reclusiveness and stubborness and passion resound with me. I also have the unfortunate trait -- thought I blush to admit it -- of putting emotional stake in people who don't care about me, particularly online. Though we find out that the muse (Yomiko? I forget) had a good reason for staying away.
The other three primary characters are cool too. Two seem like shallow anime stock characters, but have a certain depth. The eldest is ditzy, lazy, and a bit shallow. The middle sister is tall and painfully shy, speaking little and always slouching. Like myself, she likes small cramped places to nest in. But both have steely resolves when the chips are down. The youngest is a smartmouthed pain in the butt. But they all have a certain depth that is absent from so much anime. The older two are bibliophiles (or bibliomaniacs) which I can certainly relate to.
I have no shame in my love for books, which I probably learned from my parents. (When I was younger, on the rare occassion I brought a friend home, they'd often remark on how my house was like a library. My bedroom today is dominated by bookshelves, though I am way behind in filling them.) Powell's in Portland (now with two locations!!!) is like a Mecca for me. I love to just walk around in there, looking at random books, getting lost, touching the different covers. There are too many thoughts for me to ever absorb! It's sad to know how much I'll never get to read, even just in English! I have said that a woman is only as hot as the number of books she owns. I am only half-joking. I love the scent of a book! You can smell the printer, the paper, the ink, the warehouses it's been in, the bookstore, and finally its owner. Okay, I'm probably scaring you people now, so I'll change the subject.
I'm pushing forward, learning by looking at sources, more and more. Don't read Joseph Campbell: read the myths he studied! Don't read about what books inspired Dungeons and Dragons: read those books! Don't read about how Neuromancer was so influential: read Neuromancer! Don't read other people's philosophies: express your own! Too many people are getting more and more detached, and I'm fighting to not be one of those people! You can't just observe how the world could be better, you have to make your own part of that world better!
I'm getting all worked up now, so I'm going to quit. Bye! :)
I also bought the first volume of R.O.D. the TV, an anime series with a weird name. My friend is a major anime geek and I encourage him to bring me various things to try out. I had liked Read or Die the OVA, but when he brought me R.O.D. the TV volume one, I was pretty leery of it. Read or Die had the most energy and creativity of any anime I've seen since like... Battle Angel. R.O.D. the TV is much quieter, though the action is fantastic when it occurs. It really sings to me, somehow. It is made for bibliophiles and writers like myself, I think!
I put a list of characters I can relate to once, partly in a misguided attempt to pull thoughts from my friends list, and the protagonist from R.O.D. the TV was among them. Nenene is a young woman who wrote a successful set of novels, starting when 17. She was very close to a neurotic woman (the protagonist of Read or Die). The woman vanishes without a trace, and Nenene, bereft of her muse, ceases to produce work for several years. Though more tempermental than myself, by far, her reclusiveness and stubborness and passion resound with me. I also have the unfortunate trait -- thought I blush to admit it -- of putting emotional stake in people who don't care about me, particularly online. Though we find out that the muse (Yomiko? I forget) had a good reason for staying away.
The other three primary characters are cool too. Two seem like shallow anime stock characters, but have a certain depth. The eldest is ditzy, lazy, and a bit shallow. The middle sister is tall and painfully shy, speaking little and always slouching. Like myself, she likes small cramped places to nest in. But both have steely resolves when the chips are down. The youngest is a smartmouthed pain in the butt. But they all have a certain depth that is absent from so much anime. The older two are bibliophiles (or bibliomaniacs) which I can certainly relate to.
I have no shame in my love for books, which I probably learned from my parents. (When I was younger, on the rare occassion I brought a friend home, they'd often remark on how my house was like a library. My bedroom today is dominated by bookshelves, though I am way behind in filling them.) Powell's in Portland (now with two locations!!!) is like a Mecca for me. I love to just walk around in there, looking at random books, getting lost, touching the different covers. There are too many thoughts for me to ever absorb! It's sad to know how much I'll never get to read, even just in English! I have said that a woman is only as hot as the number of books she owns. I am only half-joking. I love the scent of a book! You can smell the printer, the paper, the ink, the warehouses it's been in, the bookstore, and finally its owner. Okay, I'm probably scaring you people now, so I'll change the subject.
I'm pushing forward, learning by looking at sources, more and more. Don't read Joseph Campbell: read the myths he studied! Don't read about what books inspired Dungeons and Dragons: read those books! Don't read about how Neuromancer was so influential: read Neuromancer! Don't read other people's philosophies: express your own! Too many people are getting more and more detached, and I'm fighting to not be one of those people! You can't just observe how the world could be better, you have to make your own part of that world better!
I'm getting all worked up now, so I'm going to quit. Bye! :)