All This Killing Time

[yasaman]

I've been too scatterbrained and bored lately to make a proper post. However, I had a lovely 4th of July with my family: I spent most of it watching the endless entertainment and adorableness that are my baby cousins. I'm always astonished by just how much personality toddlers have.

Bullet points of stuff what I have thought about posting about:

• This season of SYTYCD has been intensely disappointing. I was cautiously interested in the format changes, especially since I do love seeing Kathryn and Allison dance again as all stars. But it's been such a messy, mediocre season apart from a few highlights. Also, the judges have become intolerable. I record SYTYCD just so I can fast forward past everything that isn't the dancing. I mean, it's pretty bad when I can accurately guess what the judges will say about any given dancer before they even dance because they've telegraphed their preferences so obviously. I guess I'll stick with SYTYCD Australia's reliable excellence and SYTYCD Canada's more interesting, varied choreography. 
• Germany, you have disappointed me with that terrible showing against Spain. :( I guess I'm rooting for Holland now.
  
• I read the latest in Jacqueline Carey's Terre D'Ange series, Naamah's Curse. Now, I love these books because they're good old-fashioned, sink into it, lose an entire day, indulgent reading. In the latest, half-Alban, half-d'Angelline Moirin is on a quest to find Bao, who decided he wanted a little space after they were soul bonded. Yes, this book features soul bonds, one of my favorite of all fannish/fictional tropes. Anyway, Moirin's quest takes her across much of Central and Southeast Asia, and to my mind, Carey did a better job this time than with the Ch'in section of her last book. There's still a touch of ~ooohh exotic setting~, but frankly all of her settings have a bit of that. It's not hideously racist at any rate, though I'm honestly not familiar enough with Hinduism to be able to tell if she's gotten something horribly wrong there: Carey treats all of her pseudo-fantasy, pseudo-historical/actual religions with the same credence and respect in-world, which mollified most of my concerns. Ultimately, Carey's fashioned another ripping yarn full of romance, adventure, and interesting settings and characters, which is all I wanted. Also, Moirin and Bao make for a much more relatable couple than Phedre/Joscelin or Imriel/Sidonie, and Moirin is a lot less portentous and angsty as a narrator.
• Say what you like about the Twilight movies, but they have great soundtracks. I'm currently obsessed with Florence and the Machine's "Heavy In Your Arms," which is awesomely dramatic. The lyrics are fairly simple, but clever and interesting: "I was a heavy heart to carry, my beloved was weighed down/My arms around his neck, my fingers laced a crown" and "My love has concrete feet, my love's an iron ball/Wrapped around your ankles, over the waterfall." 
• Other music I've been enjoying lately is Zoe Keating's latest album, Into the Trees. She does beautiful things with a cello, looping and plucking and expanding so that her one cello fills her songs to the brim. You can stream or buy the album here.
• There's a soccer-shaped hole in my life now that there isn't a World Cup match every day or every other day. :(
• Still sadly fandomless. I've resorted to reading things like epic Pevensies in England Narnia fic (pretty great, actually, though I now desperately want more fic with Susan being awesome) and epic HP fic set in America and featuring all OCs (also pretty great, with excellent American wizarding world background, though the protagonist takes a while to warm up to). 
• Oh, there was a marathon of Band of Brothers earlier this week, and I don't think I've ever mentioned it, but I love that miniseries so much. I mean, I've watched it something like five times now and still need a fandom primer open with pictures so I can remember who everyone's names are (look, there are an awful lot of brown-haired dirty dudes in helmets okay, it's hard to keep track of), but whenever it's on I watch it and get newly starry-eyed over my deep and pure love for Dick Winters and the men of Easy Company. Which I feel rather awkward about as they're real people and all. I didn't watch "Why We Fight" again though. Did not want to cry for 45 minutes straight, it's bad enough that one shot of Liebgott in the credits makes me teary eyed every time. 

Hmmm, maybe I'll bake something today. I haven't baked anything since the (amazing, seriously, I'm impressed with myself) cheesecake with blackberry sauce I did for my mom's dinner party.

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