Assorted maunderings about E.M. Forrester, icons, and kniting
I think the fact that I have a kick-ass monitor at work is skewing my icon-making. I'll make an icon in sort of faded colors, but as I'm creating it, it looks soft and glowy and beautiful, and then I'll see it on another computer and it'll look duller and not as vibrant. I suppose I could just be deluding myself about it, but I really think I'm skewing too far towards the "softly vivid" and not enough towards the "sharp, glowy and vivid" and that's hurting me because most people's computer screens can't cope with the overly subtle coloring that I'm trying to do.
Just finished reading E.M. Forrester's A Room with a View and Howard's End. Of the two, I've only seen the movie for Room, which I do like very much. However, I don't think Forrester is to my taste. Throughout Howard's End, I'd be reading along, thinking that I was absorbing his information about the personality of his characters, and they'd be presented with a situation and I'd think, "Ok, so she'll respond in this way to this situation..." and discover I was totally, completely off the mark. Forrester seems to be writing from a point above and to the left of the story, and although the introduction to the book seemed to indicate that he would take me along for the ride up to his vantage point, for me he never actually succeeded. So I was left with this handful of characters, none of whom I liked and none of whom I was apparently understanding at all, and who, in the end, I really didn't care about. A Room with a View is, in my mind, much better, but I still didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I did the movie. My co-worker Flirty Feminist is, I think, correct when she says that Forrester's books do make excellent movies, but are actually one of the rare exceptions to the rule that The Book Is Always Better.
Finally, in Learning to Knit News, I scrapped my first attempt at the little bag I was making. I didn't know that I should soak the circular needles in hot water to free up the cords, which was, quite literally, spiraling out of control as I tried to work on them. It was driving me to distraction. Plus, while I seem to be doing the ssk correctly, it doesn't look right at all, so I want to consult some knitting help websites and then start again from the beginning. It's not like I was all that far along, anyway.
Just finished reading E.M. Forrester's A Room with a View and Howard's End. Of the two, I've only seen the movie for Room, which I do like very much. However, I don't think Forrester is to my taste. Throughout Howard's End, I'd be reading along, thinking that I was absorbing his information about the personality of his characters, and they'd be presented with a situation and I'd think, "Ok, so she'll respond in this way to this situation..." and discover I was totally, completely off the mark. Forrester seems to be writing from a point above and to the left of the story, and although the introduction to the book seemed to indicate that he would take me along for the ride up to his vantage point, for me he never actually succeeded. So I was left with this handful of characters, none of whom I liked and none of whom I was apparently understanding at all, and who, in the end, I really didn't care about. A Room with a View is, in my mind, much better, but I still didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I did the movie. My co-worker Flirty Feminist is, I think, correct when she says that Forrester's books do make excellent movies, but are actually one of the rare exceptions to the rule that The Book Is Always Better.
Finally, in Learning to Knit News, I scrapped my first attempt at the little bag I was making. I didn't know that I should soak the circular needles in hot water to free up the cords, which was, quite literally, spiraling out of control as I tried to work on them. It was driving me to distraction. Plus, while I seem to be doing the ssk correctly, it doesn't look right at all, so I want to consult some knitting help websites and then start again from the beginning. It's not like I was all that far along, anyway.