trip digest

[fanbeatsman]

Hazel and I spent most of last week in London, because she had never really been and had a week of holiday to do something with. We stayed in a very pleasant little hotel, unremarkably comfortable, quiet, and friendly, probably a bit overpriced for what it was but well worth it for the location - about two minutes away from Covent Garden market,

Comments

[dybji]

Aw, it sounds like an awesome week. <3 Glad you had fun!

I can make sense of visual art when I can translate it into words and concepts, but I'm a bit lost on the actual visual level itself, if that makes sense.

A world of sense. *nods* I've been slowly immersing myself more in classical music and ballet and kabuki and such this year, and I've realized that, intellectually, I'm just at a loss in it. My comprehension, my analysis, my close readings - my literacy in general - just isn't there for it, because they simply don't depend on words or even linear ideas. It's a whole nother navigation style to learn.

"Ponyo" was wonderful, I agree. <3 I actually very much liked "Where the Wild Things Are", but I a) hadn't grown up with the book, and while I'd read it (in college for class), and loved it, I loved it in the way we love great books that get us when we can finally appreciate them but after the time when they'd grab us by the heart and become parts of us, so I was totally willing to see what they'd do with a film; and b) I think I went in expecting an indie-style artsy film, thanks to the commercials, which I think did a good job of representing what the movie was going to be. That said, it also didn't explode into something amazing and breathtaking; it was good and smart, but not amazing and brilliant.

I haven't seen "Legally Blonde," but if it's anything like "There! Right There!", then there is awesomeness to be had, I think. <3 I've always loved "Hairspray" -- I think it's the only feel-good pop-music high-school-style musical that's ever worked on a critical as well as a feel-good level *cough* -- but I agree it can depend on the venue. I was lucky enough to always see it with a cast that knew how to work with each other, and I agree it would really change the color of the show if people were laughing at Amber's quips instead of, well, not at all during those scenes, but generally at Amber.

I love the meme! And am tempted to give it a go.

I'm sorry that I seem to always deliver essays at you instead of proper comments, btw. >.

posted this in the wrong place at first, fail

[fanbeatsman]

I love getting long comments! <3 You should never worry about verbosity with me, haha.

I'm even less literate in very physical, embodied art forms like dance, so I hear you, for sure. What I wonder about is, how do you acquire that literacy? Because I am hyperliterate in word-based art, but I think that's the product of being implicitly and explicitly trained in it my whole life; I was read to and brought up reading from a very early age, I was a voracious reader as a child, the vast, vast majority of the training primary school, secondary school, and university gave me in fictional literacy was in books. And I feel like I've been able to translate that into other narrative media, like film and television - and of course, have been exposed to them outside of academic contexts since I was wee - but I still feel on shakier ground with their languages. So I wonder whether I'll ever be able to learn other expressive languages as well as I know words. That said, I've self-taught myself what I feel is a pretty high degree of literacy in understanding videogames as forms of expression, so maybe you can learn them, idk. It's something I've been thinking about a lot recently, and the desire to see more forms of expressive and fictional literacy beyond books taught right from the start in schools is becoming something of a pet issue of mine.

I think I came to Where the Wild Things Are with the wrong expectations, I have to say. It was very much a comment on the book and its resonances, rather than an adaptation of it, which is what I had been expecting. But I think ultimately my dissatisfaction with it came from what you say in the last line of your paragraph - that it was a very solid discussion of childhood and child psychology, but not a particularly original or groundbreaking one, you know? There were some bits that really touched nerves in me, though, as being almost painfully authentic to childhood - the bit at the beginning, for example, where Max is trying to play with the teenagers but finds the play's getting too rough for him - and I appreciated those bits.

I totally encourage the doing of the meme! Talking to people about it just keeps generating more "oh yes, her! I LOVE her!" conversations (Hazel was reminding me just how many Ace Attorney women I'd forgotten - Little Plum! Maggey!), and that can only be a good thing :D

Ahaha, you have no idea how many times I've done that

[dybji]

I think I wound up so word-literate (and word-dependent) for much the same reasons: implicit and explicit training, absolutely. But I also think it's because I actively bought into that training, so to speak: read like a loony, blathered about books nonstop, worked really hard at being able to word things properly so my babble would be a little more comprehensible, and, now, consciously seeking out a degree in the subject.

So I think a lot of that was deliberately engaging the resources I could find because of interest as a child, and then continuing to do so to the point where by now it's just a natural part of who I am. Lots of my friends were/are art students, and it was fascinating to me listening to the way they engaged with the exact same things I did, and how it was so differently informed. When I throw myself back to when I was in elementary and reading books way beyond my comprehension level, the thing that always surprises me is that iirc I didn't actually understand what I was reading, and I was totally okay with that. I'm trying to channel that part of my personality as much as I can now with all the dance and music and such, because hopefully it'll follow the same trajectory: by just immersing myself in it, I eventually will be able to access all the implicit and explicit resources that actually are there and that were just never on my radar before. Though if I'd only started it sooner ...

But you're right, word literacy is such an emphasis in schools. It would be amazing if they tried emphasizing other sorts of literacy as well, from the get-go.

"Wild Things" got its A from me during the bit about, of all things, corrosion. I loved how, to Max and the Wild Things, the fact that the boulders would eventually corrode to rocks to pebbles to sand was terrifying; but those boulders nearly killed him on the way into the island, and when he went with the teenaged Wild Thing, the sand created that most teenaged of coasts, a beach. And it's from the beach that he leaves at the end. <3 It's not, say, "8 1/2." But it was still had moments.

it just keeps generating more "oh yes, her! I LOVE her!" conversations

To which I add (since I love those, too): Rem! ♡ Meg Murry! ♡ Kiki! ♡ (And ... Misa? Really?)