(no subject)
Diabolo update: It's amazing how much dogged persistence can pull off. Instead of spending my lunch break fiddling around with various tricks with the diabolo that I can kind of do, I just focused on this one that I was having trouble with, called the Cat's Cradle, and did it over and over for 15 or 20 minutes, until I finally pulled it off successfully :) I was very happy!
The Chinese Suicide trick is still elusive, though I am getting a lot closer. Not that any of these trick names will mean a darn thing to most of my friends, but oh well!
Also, I finished Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Oh my God! This book is so freakin' awesome! I think all my readerly friends should go out and check it out, it's fantastic! The world is so thoroughly, imaginatively pulled off; the characters are interesting, sympathetic and delightfully just over-the-top; and the writing is very tight. Stephenson can start going off on some colorful random detail that you think has nothing to do with the plot, and lo and behold, wham! It all comes into play :)
Speaking of good writing, I found another book on the shelves, called Thus Far and No Further by Rumer Godden (the full title is actually Rungli-Rungliot means in Paharia, Thus Far and No Further). I ended up reading some bits and pieces; it's about a Russian woman living in some bungalow near Tibet during the war (I think she means World War II?), and her interactions with the locals. It is interspersed with her own sketches of the local scenery and people. I picked out a few passages to read, including one about a primitive wooden Ferris Wheel (the locals called it an "over and over") which was the crowning attraction of a local festival; the look of the mountains and trees on a late fall evening; and the poignant sound of a horn blowing at a funeral ("hoarse because it was so largely human"). The writing was so poetic. I really felt like I knew what this woman was saying about life in this remote, peaceful place.
All of it put me in a very calm frame of mind; I feel very peaceful and creative and light right now, just thinking about it.
The Chinese Suicide trick is still elusive, though I am getting a lot closer. Not that any of these trick names will mean a darn thing to most of my friends, but oh well!
Also, I finished Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Oh my God! This book is so freakin' awesome! I think all my readerly friends should go out and check it out, it's fantastic! The world is so thoroughly, imaginatively pulled off; the characters are interesting, sympathetic and delightfully just over-the-top; and the writing is very tight. Stephenson can start going off on some colorful random detail that you think has nothing to do with the plot, and lo and behold, wham! It all comes into play :)
Speaking of good writing, I found another book on the shelves, called Thus Far and No Further by Rumer Godden (the full title is actually Rungli-Rungliot means in Paharia, Thus Far and No Further). I ended up reading some bits and pieces; it's about a Russian woman living in some bungalow near Tibet during the war (I think she means World War II?), and her interactions with the locals. It is interspersed with her own sketches of the local scenery and people. I picked out a few passages to read, including one about a primitive wooden Ferris Wheel (the locals called it an "over and over") which was the crowning attraction of a local festival; the look of the mountains and trees on a late fall evening; and the poignant sound of a horn blowing at a funeral ("hoarse because it was so largely human"). The writing was so poetic. I really felt like I knew what this woman was saying about life in this remote, peaceful place.
All of it put me in a very calm frame of mind; I feel very peaceful and creative and light right now, just thinking about it.