Meme!
The interest meme is going around again!
Comment on this post. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.
I have a couple sets to explain built up, some of which overlap in places.
izhilzha asked about
colin firth's sideburns - They have supernatural powers. They are the sexiest sideburns in existence and they elevate the BBC rendition of P&P to a whole extra level of hotness that it could not have achieved without the presence of the sideburns. The sideburns themselves are very powerful but they draw a great deal of additional power from the fact that they are located on Colin Firth.
conlang - Constructed languages are fun. I became fascinated with Tolkien's invented languages and writing systems when I was a teen with too little to occupy my spare time and I spent a few years trying to come up with a conglang of my own. I wish I had the time and attention span to study the subject now. As it is, the idea of conlangs fascinate me, and I love dabbling in other people's even though I'll probably never again try my hand at making my own. I am especially charmed by languages made up for books, movies, tv shows and video games (Elvish, Klingon, etc).
fencing - Cheaper and more fun than anger management counseling. I haven't fenced in a while because the school where my club meets made a bunch of new weird rules about non-students being involved in the clubs, but I'd like to get back to it eventually. Another perk of fencing at least twice a week is that you really put your muscles through the wringer, so your body needs more fuel than usual for muscle-repair. Translation: you get to eat more without gaining weight. Huzzah!
pre-raphelites - I was worried that I was spelling this incorrectly, but it looks like there are two different spellings both in pretty common use, so...*shrugs*
From Wikipedia:
The Pre-Raphaelites have been considered the first avant-garde movement in art, though they have also been denied that status, because they continued to accept both the concepts of history painting and of mimesis, or imitation of nature, as central to the purpose of art.
I like the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood because they saw mainstream art becoming formulaic and tired, and they banded together in a group that would follow four declarations:
1. To have genuine ideas to express;
2. To study Nature attentively, so as to know how to express them;
3. To sympathise with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parodying and learned by rote;
4. And, most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues.
The brotherhood also included critics of various art forms and poets (including one of my all-time favorites, Christina Rossetti). For handy cross-section of Pre-Raphaelite paintings, see their page on Wikimedia Commons. Really, click the link and go wander through all the beautiful artwork for a bit. I'll wait.
narcissism - I keep a journal for the express purpose of talking about myself and whatever happens to be occupying my frontal lobes at the moment. I love reading my own writing. I love talking about myself. I love people who laugh at my jokes. As much as I'd like to be better at humility, I have to admit that I'm a huge narcissist.
penguins - They wobble. They produce baby penguins. They swoosh around underwater like little amphibian Batplanes. They are the primary resident of Antarctica, which is one of my weird quasi-obsessions. Did I mention they wobble?
urban exploration - I just think it's really cool. I have yet to get up the wherewithall to go exploring in some random abandoned manufacturing plant or subway tunnel (partly because my area is rather short on that kind of thing and partly because, well, it is technically illegal/inadvisable) but I have yet to really quash the desire to do so. Here's a link to Wiki's page on UE which covers a lot of what it's all about. We've been on a lot of road trips in the past few years and we always see these deserted warehouses and towns just out in the middle of nowhere, and every time I kind of want to stop and get out with my camera and take tons of pictures of broken glass and disused equipment. There's just something about urban decay that I find captivating.
obsessedwelves asked about
balls of wax - I love the little Baby Bel cheeses that come covered in red wax. I eat the cheeses and I play with the wax until it's warm from contact with my hands, and then I roll it up into a little red ball and put it with the other little red balls of wax on my desk. I throw them away when they get dusty, but they're so shiny and red and fun to play with. They make me happy.
brad bird - The mind that brought you The Iron Giant and The Incredibles. He's just really, really good and I love his movies with a great and tooby love.
hedgehogs - They're so cute! And prickly! I want one!
orthography - My favorite part of any conlang is the invented orthography. I love letters. I find them fascinating. I want to know why a certain shape represents a certain sound and where that shape came from. I am strangely intrigued by the "sacred" or "heavenly" letters used by various (usually rather...ah...nutty) religious sects to write various texts (presumably of religious import, though with some of the writing systems used, they could probably be recipes for all anyone knows). As a teen I wanted to come up with a new orthography for writing English that would provide a one-symbol-per-phoneme system (I continue to blame the fact that I can't spell on the fact that our alphabet just doesn't have enough letters).
pre-raphelites - See above (yay, I get to be lazy!)
pocky - It's sweet biscuit sticks dipped in chocolate or the alternative flavored topping of your choice. What's not to love?
shannonsequitur asked about
balls of wax - See above (again! yay!)
conlang - See above yet again.
fat cats - They are the best kind. Our cat Mo is an excellent example of why: you can use her as a pillow, roll her off furniture she's not supposed to be on, and bury your face in her tum when the world is scary.
killing house plants - This is not so much an interest as something I routinely do without meaning to. I don't kill so many plants since Mr. Bill discovered a passion for container gardens. So I can indulge my impulses to buy pretty plants without the experiencing the depressing sense that I am signing their death warrant.
maraschino cherries - I LOVE maraschino cherries. They are the best part of any mixed drink (especially if the drink contains gin--you can leave the cherry at the bottom, where all the gin settles and then when you've drunk the thing, you have a gin-soaked cherry!). One of my favorite things about my husband is the fact that when he gets a shake with lunch, he just automatically gives me the cherry before I can even ask.
salt - It makes everything better.
till we have faces - Probably my favorite C.S. Lewis book, and there's some stiff competition for that honor. Every time I read this book, I discover some new level on which it is awesome. It continues to amaze me with how insightful and eloquent it is. It is one of the three books that I take down when I am in need of comfort and inspiration. (The other two are The Last Unicorn and The Return of the King.)
Comment on this post. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.
I have a couple sets to explain built up, some of which overlap in places.
izhilzha asked about
colin firth's sideburns - They have supernatural powers. They are the sexiest sideburns in existence and they elevate the BBC rendition of P&P to a whole extra level of hotness that it could not have achieved without the presence of the sideburns. The sideburns themselves are very powerful but they draw a great deal of additional power from the fact that they are located on Colin Firth.
conlang - Constructed languages are fun. I became fascinated with Tolkien's invented languages and writing systems when I was a teen with too little to occupy my spare time and I spent a few years trying to come up with a conglang of my own. I wish I had the time and attention span to study the subject now. As it is, the idea of conlangs fascinate me, and I love dabbling in other people's even though I'll probably never again try my hand at making my own. I am especially charmed by languages made up for books, movies, tv shows and video games (Elvish, Klingon, etc).
fencing - Cheaper and more fun than anger management counseling. I haven't fenced in a while because the school where my club meets made a bunch of new weird rules about non-students being involved in the clubs, but I'd like to get back to it eventually. Another perk of fencing at least twice a week is that you really put your muscles through the wringer, so your body needs more fuel than usual for muscle-repair. Translation: you get to eat more without gaining weight. Huzzah!
pre-raphelites - I was worried that I was spelling this incorrectly, but it looks like there are two different spellings both in pretty common use, so...*shrugs*
From Wikipedia:
The Pre-Raphaelites have been considered the first avant-garde movement in art, though they have also been denied that status, because they continued to accept both the concepts of history painting and of mimesis, or imitation of nature, as central to the purpose of art.
I like the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood because they saw mainstream art becoming formulaic and tired, and they banded together in a group that would follow four declarations:
1. To have genuine ideas to express;
2. To study Nature attentively, so as to know how to express them;
3. To sympathise with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parodying and learned by rote;
4. And, most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues.
The brotherhood also included critics of various art forms and poets (including one of my all-time favorites, Christina Rossetti). For handy cross-section of Pre-Raphaelite paintings, see their page on Wikimedia Commons. Really, click the link and go wander through all the beautiful artwork for a bit. I'll wait.
narcissism - I keep a journal for the express purpose of talking about myself and whatever happens to be occupying my frontal lobes at the moment. I love reading my own writing. I love talking about myself. I love people who laugh at my jokes. As much as I'd like to be better at humility, I have to admit that I'm a huge narcissist.
penguins - They wobble. They produce baby penguins. They swoosh around underwater like little amphibian Batplanes. They are the primary resident of Antarctica, which is one of my weird quasi-obsessions. Did I mention they wobble?
urban exploration - I just think it's really cool. I have yet to get up the wherewithall to go exploring in some random abandoned manufacturing plant or subway tunnel (partly because my area is rather short on that kind of thing and partly because, well, it is technically illegal/inadvisable) but I have yet to really quash the desire to do so. Here's a link to Wiki's page on UE which covers a lot of what it's all about. We've been on a lot of road trips in the past few years and we always see these deserted warehouses and towns just out in the middle of nowhere, and every time I kind of want to stop and get out with my camera and take tons of pictures of broken glass and disused equipment. There's just something about urban decay that I find captivating.
obsessedwelves asked about
balls of wax - I love the little Baby Bel cheeses that come covered in red wax. I eat the cheeses and I play with the wax until it's warm from contact with my hands, and then I roll it up into a little red ball and put it with the other little red balls of wax on my desk. I throw them away when they get dusty, but they're so shiny and red and fun to play with. They make me happy.
brad bird - The mind that brought you The Iron Giant and The Incredibles. He's just really, really good and I love his movies with a great and tooby love.
hedgehogs - They're so cute! And prickly! I want one!
orthography - My favorite part of any conlang is the invented orthography. I love letters. I find them fascinating. I want to know why a certain shape represents a certain sound and where that shape came from. I am strangely intrigued by the "sacred" or "heavenly" letters used by various (usually rather...ah...nutty) religious sects to write various texts (presumably of religious import, though with some of the writing systems used, they could probably be recipes for all anyone knows). As a teen I wanted to come up with a new orthography for writing English that would provide a one-symbol-per-phoneme system (I continue to blame the fact that I can't spell on the fact that our alphabet just doesn't have enough letters).
pre-raphelites - See above (yay, I get to be lazy!)
pocky - It's sweet biscuit sticks dipped in chocolate or the alternative flavored topping of your choice. What's not to love?
shannonsequitur asked about
balls of wax - See above (again! yay!)
conlang - See above yet again.
fat cats - They are the best kind. Our cat Mo is an excellent example of why: you can use her as a pillow, roll her off furniture she's not supposed to be on, and bury your face in her tum when the world is scary.
killing house plants - This is not so much an interest as something I routinely do without meaning to. I don't kill so many plants since Mr. Bill discovered a passion for container gardens. So I can indulge my impulses to buy pretty plants without the experiencing the depressing sense that I am signing their death warrant.
maraschino cherries - I LOVE maraschino cherries. They are the best part of any mixed drink (especially if the drink contains gin--you can leave the cherry at the bottom, where all the gin settles and then when you've drunk the thing, you have a gin-soaked cherry!). One of my favorite things about my husband is the fact that when he gets a shake with lunch, he just automatically gives me the cherry before I can even ask.
salt - It makes everything better.
till we have faces - Probably my favorite C.S. Lewis book, and there's some stiff competition for that honor. Every time I read this book, I discover some new level on which it is awesome. It continues to amaze me with how insightful and eloquent it is. It is one of the three books that I take down when I am in need of comfort and inspiration. (The other two are The Last Unicorn and The Return of the King.)