'cause you see black and white, and i see red
I had a super easy commute this morning, probably because smart people took the day off and nothing was crowded, and when I arrived at my desk, I found a very generous holiday gift from new boss1! And then she also gave me a bottle of Sancerre that was apparently extra from her gifts for senior management! Woo! Now I kind of wish I didn't bother getting a bottle of moscato last night. Eh, it'll all get drunk eventually. (As will I!)
Now to just get through the rest of today and I've got another four-day weekend coming up! Rice balls and wine and not dealing with any other people at all! My kind of weekend!
***
December 30:
anonymous_sibyl asked me to talk about poetry, about how it makes you *feel* and why/how it does that.
Oh man, buckle up for me being pretentious because I can't seem to describe it any other way, but poetry makes me feel like I'm seeing things in a new and different light, like the world has shifted on its axis and my perception of everything has shifted with it, but in ways that feel like they were always true and I just didn't understand before. It's especially true in how words are used in poetry, in unexpected combinations that double back or go far afield from the expected, the layers of meanings, the rhymes and echoes and reflections, the way words and phrases can twist and build and climb or shatter.
For me, it's not always as visceral as music is (a lot of music makes me cry or gives me that achy in the chestal area feeling), it's more like when you get new glasses (or clean your glasses) and things suddenly become clearer, and make more sense.
I find that when I'm stalled in writing, reading poetry helps more than almost anything else, because it reminds me of all the different ways to use words, of all the different meanings they can convey, and helps me see how stuck in a rut my own usage is, and how to see my way forward through it.
***
The last Wednesday reading meme of 2015! I listed my top 5 books of the year in my last post, so I won't do that again. I didn't do an update last Wednesday, mostly because last week was taken up with hours and hours of candy-making and then family and then fic-reading (both yuletide and non, though I still have SO MANY TABS open jebus), so I probably don't have much to say this week either. I guess we'll see!
What I've just finished
Over Christmas Eve, I read Carla Kelly's Regency romance anthology, Regency Christmas Gifts: Three Stories, which made for cozy bedtime reading. I liked the story about the bored sailing master and the package gone astray best, I think.
I also read Falling Stars by Loretta Chase, a Regency Christmas novella that I enjoyed, and It Happened One Christmas, another Regency Christmas anthology that was a cute read.
Batman and Robin Eternal 12 & 13:
I didn't read 12 last week, so I read it and 13 this week on the commute, and 12 is a lot of unbelievable backstory where Dick is told that Batman killed people (or at least didn't save them) in order to get a new Robin since Dick wasn't working out. Which I, like Dick, do not believe for one second! Except of course Dick's own doubts from when he was first Robin are eating at him (and this would work so much better if he weren't, like 16 or whatever, I refuse your new timeline, nu52!) so he's all emotional about getting to the truth! Oh Dick. Everybody loves you. Why do you even doubt it?
And then #13, today's issue featuring Cass Cain, MADE ME TEARY. Not for Dick [per #12]. Here we see Cass going back to the "nursery" where the orphans are indoctrinated and she wants to save them but her father has killed them all (I think?), but then she has a flashback to when she first sought out Batman to give him information on Mother and he tells her she isn't the monster they made her and she has a choice of who she wants to be and HE GIVES HER A HUG AND OH MY GOD WHY IS SHE NOT STILL HIS ADOPTED DAUGHTER THEY ARE SO GREAT TOGETHER. All the parenting he's bad at with the post-Jason boys he's SO GOOD AT with her (I mean, in his own inimitable way. Let's not elect him father of the year just yet, but he's so much less faily with her). I LOVE THEIR PREBOOT RELATIONSHIP SO MUCH (even if he seems to forget about her sometimes because of the writers). SHE WAS HIS TRUEST HEIR (I mean, I loved Dick as Batman with Damian as his Robin, but long-term, Cass should inherit the mantle. I am just saying.)
AND THEN CASS PAINTS A BAT ON HER FACE IN BLOOD. HOLY SYMBOLISM BATMAN. (I mean, Damian did it first, but I don't think he actually drew a Bat symbol. IJS. Either way, PRECIOUS BABY ASSASSINS.)
My only complaint, as usual, is that it should be STEPH, not Harper, who gets Cass's hugs and friendship in the present. Ugh. WHY? Nothing against Harper, again as usual, but I really feel like Steph is totally slighted in her favor over and over again for no good reason. Sigh.
So that was a metric fuckton of Batfamily feels in a brief span of pages. Which is basically why I'm reading this comic in individual issues (a format I basically hate) rather than waiting.
What I'm reading now
Aside from aforementioned fic tabs (eventually!), I started A New Dawn by John Jackson Miller, which is the backstory of how Kanan and Hera from Star Wars Rebels met. It's okay? Right now, I feel like there are too many narrators (one of whom reminds me of Mad Stan from Batman Beyond), and we don't spend near enough time with Hera.
What I'm reading next
It's gonna be a whole new year! Who can say?
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/805528.html.
people have commented there.
Now to just get through the rest of today and I've got another four-day weekend coming up! Rice balls and wine and not dealing with any other people at all! My kind of weekend!
***
December 30:
anonymous_sibyl asked me to talk about poetry, about how it makes you *feel* and why/how it does that.
Oh man, buckle up for me being pretentious because I can't seem to describe it any other way, but poetry makes me feel like I'm seeing things in a new and different light, like the world has shifted on its axis and my perception of everything has shifted with it, but in ways that feel like they were always true and I just didn't understand before. It's especially true in how words are used in poetry, in unexpected combinations that double back or go far afield from the expected, the layers of meanings, the rhymes and echoes and reflections, the way words and phrases can twist and build and climb or shatter.
For me, it's not always as visceral as music is (a lot of music makes me cry or gives me that achy in the chestal area feeling), it's more like when you get new glasses (or clean your glasses) and things suddenly become clearer, and make more sense.
I find that when I'm stalled in writing, reading poetry helps more than almost anything else, because it reminds me of all the different ways to use words, of all the different meanings they can convey, and helps me see how stuck in a rut my own usage is, and how to see my way forward through it.
***
The last Wednesday reading meme of 2015! I listed my top 5 books of the year in my last post, so I won't do that again. I didn't do an update last Wednesday, mostly because last week was taken up with hours and hours of candy-making and then family and then fic-reading (both yuletide and non, though I still have SO MANY TABS open jebus), so I probably don't have much to say this week either. I guess we'll see!
What I've just finished
Over Christmas Eve, I read Carla Kelly's Regency romance anthology, Regency Christmas Gifts: Three Stories, which made for cozy bedtime reading. I liked the story about the bored sailing master and the package gone astray best, I think.
I also read Falling Stars by Loretta Chase, a Regency Christmas novella that I enjoyed, and It Happened One Christmas, another Regency Christmas anthology that was a cute read.
Batman and Robin Eternal 12 & 13:
I didn't read 12 last week, so I read it and 13 this week on the commute, and 12 is a lot of unbelievable backstory where Dick is told that Batman killed people (or at least didn't save them) in order to get a new Robin since Dick wasn't working out. Which I, like Dick, do not believe for one second! Except of course Dick's own doubts from when he was first Robin are eating at him (and this would work so much better if he weren't, like 16 or whatever, I refuse your new timeline, nu52!) so he's all emotional about getting to the truth! Oh Dick. Everybody loves you. Why do you even doubt it?
And then #13, today's issue featuring Cass Cain, MADE ME TEARY. Not for Dick [per #12]. Here we see Cass going back to the "nursery" where the orphans are indoctrinated and she wants to save them but her father has killed them all (I think?), but then she has a flashback to when she first sought out Batman to give him information on Mother and he tells her she isn't the monster they made her and she has a choice of who she wants to be and HE GIVES HER A HUG AND OH MY GOD WHY IS SHE NOT STILL HIS ADOPTED DAUGHTER THEY ARE SO GREAT TOGETHER. All the parenting he's bad at with the post-Jason boys he's SO GOOD AT with her (I mean, in his own inimitable way. Let's not elect him father of the year just yet, but he's so much less faily with her). I LOVE THEIR PREBOOT RELATIONSHIP SO MUCH (even if he seems to forget about her sometimes because of the writers). SHE WAS HIS TRUEST HEIR (I mean, I loved Dick as Batman with Damian as his Robin, but long-term, Cass should inherit the mantle. I am just saying.)
AND THEN CASS PAINTS A BAT ON HER FACE IN BLOOD. HOLY SYMBOLISM BATMAN. (I mean, Damian did it first, but I don't think he actually drew a Bat symbol. IJS. Either way, PRECIOUS BABY ASSASSINS.)
My only complaint, as usual, is that it should be STEPH, not Harper, who gets Cass's hugs and friendship in the present. Ugh. WHY? Nothing against Harper, again as usual, but I really feel like Steph is totally slighted in her favor over and over again for no good reason. Sigh.
So that was a metric fuckton of Batfamily feels in a brief span of pages. Which is basically why I'm reading this comic in individual issues (a format I basically hate) rather than waiting.
What I'm reading now
Aside from aforementioned fic tabs (eventually!), I started A New Dawn by John Jackson Miller, which is the backstory of how Kanan and Hera from Star Wars Rebels met. It's okay? Right now, I feel like there are too many narrators (one of whom reminds me of Mad Stan from Batman Beyond), and we don't spend near enough time with Hera.
What I'm reading next
It's gonna be a whole new year! Who can say?
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/805528.html.
people have commented there.