Read/watch log
Haven't posted on DW for a while! (Did make a couple of posts on LJ.)
Not holding myself to this on a weekly basis, clearly, but it's still a useful exercise when there's something to report.
Read:
* Close to finishing The Old Ways: A Journey On Foot. This was my main reading during the holiday season -- an Indigo staff pick obtained on a whim while buying presents. ("Oh, this is Glen's pick," said the cashier. "I want to read Glen's pick!" "Is Glen very outdoorsy?" I asked. "Well, he's one of our managers and a bit of a hippie.") Highly recommended, though if you're as sedentary as I am it will make you feel like pre-Adventure Bilbo Baggins. In fact it makes one realize Tolkien didn't just make up all that mysticism of the road going on and on, he was writing a value set he would have expected his original readers (adult, if not child) to be able to contexualize easily... Tezuka Kunimitsu would enjoy this book.
* Read Red Dragon, since I've never watched either of the film adaptations. Actually, I've never read any of the Thomas Harris novels. Not sure why -- sometimes, with bestsellers, one unthinkingly assumes they can't be any good, though I usually read one or two completely random airport paperback thrillers a year so that's no reason. XD; Anyway, as paperback thrillers go, this was solid: good plot with twists, not infrequently beautiful language/imagery. (It turns out that Hannibal basically strip-mined this book for all the bits of memorable writing it contained, Sherlock-style.) The pacing is sometimes kind of weird -- the narration jumps around inconsistently in that shoulda-been-a-movie 3rd omniscient style, and sometimes suffers for it. But all in all it holds up OK, considering it's reached the Mad Men stage of awkwardly dated (both the plot-specific eg. no wily serial killer would leave that much DNA evidence now, or be that hard to catch on camera; and the interstitial social stuff eg. apparently in the Southern states in the 1980s, people still said "Negro" a lot and drank martinis in moving vehicles).
I will probably read Silence of the Lambs after? I did watch the movie, but I never felt like I got it. Like there seems to be some "holy shit" thing that people get from this story or character interaction that never struck me. Regular people treat this canon in a really fannish way, yanno?
Watched:
* Her. This is one of those movies where you will quite likely watch a different movie from the person who accompanied you into the theatre, depending on your respective attitudes toward gender relations, technology, alternate visions of LA that look more like Shanghai (+commuter trains -black people), and so forth. I will say that a full decade after Lost In Translation, one finally feels like one has both sides of the Spike Jonze-Sofia Coppola marriage story.
* Sherlock S3. Jumping the shark a bit but there's enough good stuff to keep me interested. In the other column, there is ASSASSINS?!? but from a fannish perspective, I have yet to find a canon that isn't improved for me in the long run by ASSASSINS?!?, that is like dinosaurs.
* Hannibal, earlier in the month, obviously. I keep thinking, maybe once they finish season 2 or whatever they'll publish a cookbook. XD;;; Someone on Douban wrote one of those insta-classic reviews that was just a massive cookery treatise on the preparation and consumption of the longpig, in traditional Chinese. (Rather, classical references are to the "two-legged goat". #themoreyoulearn)
I have figured out how to add the footer on a crosspost! Go me! /rollsalot (Original post is here: http://petronia.dreamwidth.org/59287.html)
Not holding myself to this on a weekly basis, clearly, but it's still a useful exercise when there's something to report.
Read:
* Close to finishing The Old Ways: A Journey On Foot. This was my main reading during the holiday season -- an Indigo staff pick obtained on a whim while buying presents. ("Oh, this is Glen's pick," said the cashier. "I want to read Glen's pick!" "Is Glen very outdoorsy?" I asked. "Well, he's one of our managers and a bit of a hippie.") Highly recommended, though if you're as sedentary as I am it will make you feel like pre-Adventure Bilbo Baggins. In fact it makes one realize Tolkien didn't just make up all that mysticism of the road going on and on, he was writing a value set he would have expected his original readers (adult, if not child) to be able to contexualize easily... Tezuka Kunimitsu would enjoy this book.
* Read Red Dragon, since I've never watched either of the film adaptations. Actually, I've never read any of the Thomas Harris novels. Not sure why -- sometimes, with bestsellers, one unthinkingly assumes they can't be any good, though I usually read one or two completely random airport paperback thrillers a year so that's no reason. XD; Anyway, as paperback thrillers go, this was solid: good plot with twists, not infrequently beautiful language/imagery. (It turns out that Hannibal basically strip-mined this book for all the bits of memorable writing it contained, Sherlock-style.) The pacing is sometimes kind of weird -- the narration jumps around inconsistently in that shoulda-been-a-movie 3rd omniscient style, and sometimes suffers for it. But all in all it holds up OK, considering it's reached the Mad Men stage of awkwardly dated (both the plot-specific eg. no wily serial killer would leave that much DNA evidence now, or be that hard to catch on camera; and the interstitial social stuff eg. apparently in the Southern states in the 1980s, people still said "Negro" a lot and drank martinis in moving vehicles).
I will probably read Silence of the Lambs after? I did watch the movie, but I never felt like I got it. Like there seems to be some "holy shit" thing that people get from this story or character interaction that never struck me. Regular people treat this canon in a really fannish way, yanno?
Watched:
* Her. This is one of those movies where you will quite likely watch a different movie from the person who accompanied you into the theatre, depending on your respective attitudes toward gender relations, technology, alternate visions of LA that look more like Shanghai (+commuter trains -black people), and so forth. I will say that a full decade after Lost In Translation, one finally feels like one has both sides of the Spike Jonze-Sofia Coppola marriage story.
* Sherlock S3. Jumping the shark a bit but there's enough good stuff to keep me interested. In the other column, there is ASSASSINS?!? but from a fannish perspective, I have yet to find a canon that isn't improved for me in the long run by ASSASSINS?!?, that is like dinosaurs.
* Hannibal, earlier in the month, obviously. I keep thinking, maybe once they finish season 2 or whatever they'll publish a cookbook. XD;;; Someone on Douban wrote one of those insta-classic reviews that was just a massive cookery treatise on the preparation and consumption of the longpig, in traditional Chinese. (Rather, classical references are to the "two-legged goat". #themoreyoulearn)
I have figured out how to add the footer on a crosspost! Go me! /rollsalot (Original post is here: http://petronia.dreamwidth.org/59287.html)