Up Far Too Late
It's actually already Sunday. My Saturday was completely absorbed. I feel a little depressed about it going by so fast. But, I guess some of that was just the fact that I did a huge vacuum during the day, for the hope of continuing my battle versus the Fleas Of Everlasting Life. I have to admit that I really did feel a lot of relief that at least it wasn't just us when we read the (now multiple) articles in the newspapers about the strange surge of fleas in the Portland Metro area this winter. So, it's not just us, and it's not even just around us. It's most of the western part of Oregon actually. Weird, and annoying as a screaming baby on a non-stop flight from Australia to Houston, TX.
We also watched a documentary courtesy of Netflix called "Life After People." It was a bit too short, and wasn't as comprehensive as we'd hoped. It kinda just stressed that really, we think of our civilization as making a semi-permanent mark on the world, but in reality, a great deal of our lifestyles can be returned to Nature With A Capital N in just a few decades, and even our more incredible bits in a few centuries. In fact, as I already knew, our most recent advances are the things that will go first. The things that will last are the things that have already lasted for several thousands of years. ~_~ But, they only dealt with things in a Humans Have Disappeared way...and I really felt like they should have explored the various ways that humanity disappearing and the way each would affect the regrowth of the world (ie: nuclear war, genetic failure, bioengineered plague, etc).
In related news, I started the SF book I got the other weekend. It's the one that won both the Hugo and the Nebula award, and came with glowing radioactive reviews. Now, I'm familiar with how advertising works--I know they aren't going to publish the negative reviews on the book, and even books like Twilight get starred, radiant reviews when really someone should be screaming "THIS IS HORRIFICALLY WRITTEN MISOGYNISTIC BULLSHIT THAT DESTROYS AN ENTIRE CULTURAL APPRECIATION FOR THE VAMPIRE GENRE." So, I never go in expecting everything to be perfect (nothing like a build up like BEST BOOK EVAR! to really get you easily disappointed). But, even with that...I feel like I'm getting majorly let down. I'm only a few chapters into it, but I've started to meet the Main Cast and approach the Main Story, if you will, and I'm....not impressed.
The main reason I'm not impressed by it is the fact that I find most of the style of the writing fairly alienating--it's the overly flowery descriptive narrative, where it takes three paragraphs to describe the appearance and taste of fruit. But, even more importantly than that (because I can get over things like that in the right settings--no style has ever irritated me more than Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson, and that's in my top 50 of all time favorite books because of the CONTENT, which grows incredibly awesome as the book progresses), is the fact that I feel like I've read this story before. Why? Because even though it's set in the "future" it's a book about the past. It's George Orwell's "Burmese Days" and every other White Guy In Asia As A Conqueror And Intruder story there is. It's the story of the "white devil," the "gaijin," the "farang," in Asia, who is trying to exploit the area, and so on. I'm already rolling my eyes. Because the reality is that Joss Whedon really had it a lot closer to the mark: in a not-so-distant future, East and West are going to seriously mix. Not just somewhat, but SERIOUSLY mix. There will come a day when Western folk grow up learning both English and Chinese, and when Eastern folk stop thinking of themselves as completely culturally separate/superior to Western influences, and vice versa.
So, in a future where the culture has gone BACKWARDS to an era when Asia is poor and dirty, and the West comes in with its superior advancements in culture (and Japan closes itself off to the world to pursue its own agenda with New People to replace Geisha and the military as Shogun/Samurai), I feel most alienated of all. I just feel like this book isn't even offering a decent social commentary on the situation--it's just rehashing the same old story that I've read dozens of times already. I'll read it to at least 60% of the way, and if it doesn't massively improve by then, I'm returning it/selling it back. I don't need it.
Anyway. Bed time.
We also watched a documentary courtesy of Netflix called "Life After People." It was a bit too short, and wasn't as comprehensive as we'd hoped. It kinda just stressed that really, we think of our civilization as making a semi-permanent mark on the world, but in reality, a great deal of our lifestyles can be returned to Nature With A Capital N in just a few decades, and even our more incredible bits in a few centuries. In fact, as I already knew, our most recent advances are the things that will go first. The things that will last are the things that have already lasted for several thousands of years. ~_~ But, they only dealt with things in a Humans Have Disappeared way...and I really felt like they should have explored the various ways that humanity disappearing and the way each would affect the regrowth of the world (ie: nuclear war, genetic failure, bioengineered plague, etc).
In related news, I started the SF book I got the other weekend. It's the one that won both the Hugo and the Nebula award, and came with glowing radioactive reviews. Now, I'm familiar with how advertising works--I know they aren't going to publish the negative reviews on the book, and even books like Twilight get starred, radiant reviews when really someone should be screaming "THIS IS HORRIFICALLY WRITTEN MISOGYNISTIC BULLSHIT THAT DESTROYS AN ENTIRE CULTURAL APPRECIATION FOR THE VAMPIRE GENRE." So, I never go in expecting everything to be perfect (nothing like a build up like BEST BOOK EVAR! to really get you easily disappointed). But, even with that...I feel like I'm getting majorly let down. I'm only a few chapters into it, but I've started to meet the Main Cast and approach the Main Story, if you will, and I'm....not impressed.
The main reason I'm not impressed by it is the fact that I find most of the style of the writing fairly alienating--it's the overly flowery descriptive narrative, where it takes three paragraphs to describe the appearance and taste of fruit. But, even more importantly than that (because I can get over things like that in the right settings--no style has ever irritated me more than Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson, and that's in my top 50 of all time favorite books because of the CONTENT, which grows incredibly awesome as the book progresses), is the fact that I feel like I've read this story before. Why? Because even though it's set in the "future" it's a book about the past. It's George Orwell's "Burmese Days" and every other White Guy In Asia As A Conqueror And Intruder story there is. It's the story of the "white devil," the "gaijin," the "farang," in Asia, who is trying to exploit the area, and so on. I'm already rolling my eyes. Because the reality is that Joss Whedon really had it a lot closer to the mark: in a not-so-distant future, East and West are going to seriously mix. Not just somewhat, but SERIOUSLY mix. There will come a day when Western folk grow up learning both English and Chinese, and when Eastern folk stop thinking of themselves as completely culturally separate/superior to Western influences, and vice versa.
So, in a future where the culture has gone BACKWARDS to an era when Asia is poor and dirty, and the West comes in with its superior advancements in culture (and Japan closes itself off to the world to pursue its own agenda with New People to replace Geisha and the military as Shogun/Samurai), I feel most alienated of all. I just feel like this book isn't even offering a decent social commentary on the situation--it's just rehashing the same old story that I've read dozens of times already. I'll read it to at least 60% of the way, and if it doesn't massively improve by then, I'm returning it/selling it back. I don't need it.
Anyway. Bed time.