The Faerie Carousel

Pondering between classes

2012-01-10T16:27:00.000-08:00

My last class of the day is due to start in about, oh, half an hour, and I'm currently sitting at a circular stone table just waiting. Not THE Round Table, of course--for one thing, there aren't any chairs, just benches--but still it's a bit more fun to sit at than one of those boring rectangular ones I can see just a little distance away.

All my classes so far are promising. I'm not much of an Anthropology enthusiast but we do get to go to the Honolulu zoo to look at monkeys apparently, so that's nice. All of my other classes are English classes, which means I have an insane amount of reading and writing to do this semester. I'm happy about it now, but just wait until a few weeks have passed; I'll probably be rueing the day I decided to sign up for a full schedule! Oh, and I have an Honors seminar but I honestly don't know much about what that entails other than it's supposed to begin my Final Senior Project process, so I'm withholding judgement until I learn more. I have my first one this Thursday.

The weather's been shockingly pleasant, especially since I just came back from home where it's cold and somewhat rainy right now. Today in fact has been very hot, so much so that I've had to put my hair up and am continually thirsty. This is really odd, as I'm used to bundling up after my three weeks home. I'm breathing a lot easier now that I'm back in the tropical warmth, though; the cough that plagued me all Christmas break has mysteriously vanished. I'm like Robert Louis Stevenson, retreating to Hawaii for my health!

Nothing much else to report right now. Life is moving along placidly and without untoward disturbance, and I'm just going with the flow. I do have to refocus and get back to exercising rigorously and eating healthily, though--during Christmas break it's not much of an exaggeration to say that I was living entirely off of butter, sugar, caffeine, and chocolate.

Oh, wait, one more thing! Last Sunday's episode of "Sherlock" was brilliant, and I am extremely excited about "The Reichenbach Fall", hopefully it doesn't let me down. Last week I went to the movies with some friends and watched "War Horse" (which was extremely good, by the way, if you haven't seen it you should, despite the slow beginning, it's honestly all worth it by the end) and seeing Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston dressed up as British WWI cavalry officers galloping side by side on some splendid horses with John Williams music playing was one of the greatest things I have ever seen ever. Huzzah the Brits!

New Year's Resolutions

2012-01-08T17:37:00.000-08:00

Are overrated.

But in the interest of procrastinating on unpacking and other necessary things I am made some up for myself anyway.

1. Stop procrastinating.

2. Write every day.

3. Don't put things off for later, that only leads to headaches and panic.

4. Finish "The Outlaw's Hand" by the end of the year.

5. Don't get lax about classwork halfway through the semester like you usually do. I know it usually works out fine in the end but just don't do it.

6. Sew those Hobbit plushies.

7. Never forget your watercolor paints and fabric pens in California ever again.

8. Read at least 5 new books per month.

9. Make Irish dance more of a priority.

10. Exercise every day.

11. . . . Write every day some more.

My Grades for Fall 2011 are in

2011-12-22T17:45:00.000-08:00

And the final verdict is: 3 A's, 3 A+'s. Which I am super happy about because I was worried that a year's break from school would make returning to classes difficult and cause a drop in my grades or something. Apparently it doesn't. What a nice early Christmas present.

Also I put cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger in my tea today and it was delicious. Just right on a chilly and very windy day.

Happy Christmas, fellow Tolkien-lovers!

2011-12-21T02:04:00.000-08:00

Christmas came early today with the release of the first teaser for "The Hobbit". I am overjoyed. It's been like seven hours and countless reviewings since the trailer was released and I'm still overjoyed, that's how brilliant it is. I've been waiting for this since I was five years old and all that waiting was worth it. I couldn't be happier, really. And I can't help but wonder what the actual trailer will look like if this is only a teaser! The trailer for "The Dark Knight Rises" that was released a few days ago was really good, and I also love the "Hunger Games" trailer, but nothing. Nothing comes close to this. Nothiiiiiiiing.

I have a hunch that Fili, Bofur and Ori will be my favorite Dwarves, aside from the incomparable Richard Armitage as Thorin. And Freeman looks splendid as Bilbo, and I get to see more of him in action soon too with the release of series 2 of "Sherlock" (finally!), yay.

I'd better get to bed, it's incredibly late right now and I want to make rice pudding tomorrow morning. Brown rice pudding. Because, you know, I'm eating healthy and all ;)

Anyway, Happy Hobbit Day! And I hope to post lots of new writing over Christmas break, so if you are on the Radish Room, look out for that. And I also have to post my summary posts about 2011, my book round-up and all. I'm sad I didn't make it to 100 books read this year but honestly I'm quite pleased with my final total as well. I got basically no reading done in November/December because school was INSANE. It's a strange feeling to have no homework now.

Posters!

2011-11-28T21:15:00.000-08:00

The new poster for John Carter was released today and it's absolutely gorgeous, very retro-scifi-feeling in all the best ways and super brightly coloured (a joy compared to all the dark and pretentious posters out there). Just like how I have this weird love for movie trailers I love a good poster. My favorite poster of 2010 is probably the one for War Horse, a film I can barely wait to watch:

Colors, composition, the contrast between the emotion on the boy's face and the serenity of the horse, the beautiful amber lighting . . . it's beautiful. My runner-up would have to be the poster for The Artist, another film I've been eagerly anticipating for over a year now:

I guess I have a thing for dramatic lighting. But look at it! It's gorgeous, I love how elegant and classical it looks. And I love profiles of any kind, so that too. I'm seeing both of these movies over Christmas break, it's going to be wonderful!

After only 3 hours of sleep last night

2011-11-28T21:11:00.000-08:00

I dragged myself out of bed to rush to my 830 AM class only to remember as I walked into a completely empty classroom, that class had been cancelled today. AUGH.

And now I have a paper to write so I can't spend any more time blogging but I registered for classes today and STILL was unable to get into the creative writing class before it filled up. This is ridiculous, I mean I'm a Junior already and still can't get in. AUGH AGAIN.

Seriously the only thing keeping me going right now is the knowledge that the first Hobbit trailer comes out in December. And that I can get the Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell audiobook from the library in December.

And caffeine. Copious amounts of caffeine.

Top 10 Books that I want to see turned into (awesome) Movies

2011-11-28T00:18:00.000-08:00

1. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (One of my newest reads but oh my Silmaril it would make an amazing film. Actually, arguably more amazing would be if the BBC made a miniseries out of it--imagine the previews. They start out looking like the usual British costume drama and then BAM! re-animated corpses and evil faeries and pineapples growing out of people's mouths. That'd be perfect.)

2. The Silmarillion (Okay, this is only half true. I want a Silmarillion miniseries. No kidding. I might be the only person on the planet who would watch it, but imagine how epic it would be! A Beren and Luthien episode? The Kinslaying? The Fall of Gondolin? EPIC, I TELL YOU.)

3. The Bartimaeus Trilogy (One of my favorite trilogies ever. Ever ever ever ever ever.)

4. The Mark of the Horselord (One of the less likely titles on my list to actually become a film, as hardly anyone knows about it, but that's a crying shame because it would be fantastic. Sutcliff is such an unbelievably visual writer anyway.)

5. The Once and Future King ("Camelot" just doesn't cut it. This would have to be like a Trilogy or something--Part I would be The Sword and the Stone/The Queen of Air and Darkness, Part II The Ill-Made Knight, and Part III The Candle in the Wind. And it would be beautiful.)

6. The Thief/The Queen of Attolia/The King of Attolia (I know another girl who'd be first in line to these films, but I'd be second. A very close second.)

7. The Last Unicorn (As much as I adore the animated film, I really wish there was a proper live-action version. There's been rumors about one being in the works for years, but so far nothing really has happened.)

8. A Tale of Two Cities (Like The Last Unicorn I love the film we already have (Ronald Colman is LOVELY) but it is from the 1930s and so suffers a bit as an adaptation in terms of editing the story. We need more Dickens in the cinemas again!)

9. The Hero and the Crown (Fantasy with strong female lead, visually impressive setting, and lots of eventful magic happenings. Why hasn't this been made yet? Same goes for The Tombs of Atuan which, I admit, could be a bit dull since half the time it would have to be set in pitch-darkness, but it'd still be cool.)

10. The Charwoman's Shadow/The Worm Ouroborous) (Another couple of great fantasies hardly anyone knows about. The Old Woman with a Young Shadow is such a great image, and Eddison's tale of Mercury-dwelling Demons and Witches is just gloriously weird.)

"The Fall" set to Poets of the Fall

2011-11-13T22:40:00.000-08:00

Perfection. I should really do a post sometime with random music fan videos for stuff that I've found and liked, there's some great ones out there.

Book Reviews for October

2011-11-13T20:51:00.000-08:00

You'll notice I read significantly less in October than I did in September. That is because school got absolutely mad. Six exams, three final papers to start preparing, and a presentation to put together, and that's besides all the regular homework. Something had to go, and unfortunately, because I am a good student, the something was my pleasure reading *sad sigh*

But I still managed to read 4 books anyway. So here are my reviews!

A Conspiracy of Kings, by Megan Whalen Turner

Probably my least-favorite of Turner's "Thief" novels, but that doesn't mean it's a bad book. On the contrary, it's great. But it isn't as self-contained as the other books; I felt upon finishing it that it was only really prefacing a greater tale--one which I eagerly anticipate! It was interesting reading Sophos' first-person narration though, as I'm so used to Gen. They're definitely two different voices.

The Seer and the Sword, by Victoria Hanley

I actually enjoyed this book more than I thought I would; it's got a lovely, light style that makes it seem like a romantic epic somehow, like an Arthurian tale or something. I wish in a way that the author delved deeper into the characters (some of whom were very intriguing but barely featured) and spread the story out across more than one book so things didn't move quite so quickly. But all in all it was quite enjoyable.

Eight Days of Luke, by Diana Wynne Jones

A fun, lighthearted little book, very much in the vein of “The Game”. I was pleased that I guessed most of the mythological characters, etc. before they were revealed in the afterword. Also, I wonder if this book influenced JK Rowling at all, as a lot of the scenes with David and his relatives really reminded me of how JK wrote, tonally, about Harry and the Dursleys. I quite liked Loki’s characterization too. Nothing particularly special about this book but it was fun, especially if you like Nordic mythology.

The Book of the Month:

Plain Kate, by Erin Bow

This is the best YA fantasy I have read in a long while--beautiful, frightening, poetical, with characters that really stay with you and mean something without seeming to try. I love this book. It's rare to find a completely refreshing and original world in fantasy fiction, but I thought the world depicted in this book was a breath of fresh air, as was the description of and rules of magic. There is genuine tragedy, genuine drama, and genuine fright. I was entirely absorbed by Kate's journey from beginning to end. And I also enjoyed what I can't help but think is a very deliberate tribute to "The Charwoman's Shadow", an excellent fantasy novel by Lord Dunsany. I honestly cannot criticize a single thing about this book, its plot, how its told, or the characters who inhabit it. It’s a beautiful piece of art.

This is me right now.

2011-11-08T22:48:00.001-08:00

It really is. No joke. I've had very little sleep for five nights now because of midterm exams, a film presentation, sundry other homework, and now I get to start stressing about those 3 separate 10 page final papers I need to start writing (or actually should have started writing weeks ago). I am utterly worn out. Sigh. Also, Mr. Thornton is adorable when he falls asleep at his desk while working.

And I've finally altered what songs play on my blog playlist now. That was a change way overdue. Not that I love the other songs any less. But even the best things get monotonous after a while. Except "The Lord of the Rings". And chai tea. And naps.

1 HOUR TO NANOWRIMO YOU GUYS

2011-11-01T02:03:00.001-07:00

I'd be running around flailing and going 'aaaaaaaaah' if I wasn't so tired. As is I think I'll just do homework and sip water and stretch and watch the clock like a mouse watching the cat outside its mousehole.

I need to post more often

2011-10-30T02:55:00.000-07:00

This is getting ridiculous, really. Anyway, quick bringing-up-to-date stuff: I am currently back at school, classes are going pretty well with either my Argumentative Writing or my Fairy Tale courses probably being the best and Astronomy being the worst but all still in A-range, where I hope to keep them all semester! I've kept busy exercising a LOT in my spare time, and will be competing at Oireachtas this year, which is both frightening and exciting. Also I get to go home for Thanksgiving this year which feels really strange because I never have before. It'll be odd spending a week at home then coming back to Hawaii for a few weeks and then going home again so soon! I can't wait to see all my siblings again, they've all grown, especially the baby. I see her on Skype sometimes and she likes waving at me and things, so she probably thinks I'm just on the computer screen now, I hope she isn't frightened when I show up physically and real at the airport, that'd be awkward.

I have at least been keeping up with my book reviews, and as you may have noticed I have been doing a LOT of reading. September was a high point, I read like ten books or so, October has been a bit more full of school and midterms and things so I am not sure how many books I'll be able to finish this month. We'll see. I'm currently partway through about five. I tend to read many books at the same time.

Also, film. I went to the theatre to watch "Real Steel" a couple weeks ago and to my own surprise I enjoyed it; it's somewhat predictable (the fatal flaw of any sports movie really) but despite that I really cared about the characters, the robots were fantastic, and the humor and energy of the film was really fun. So as a light, silly piece of entertainment it was pretty good. Also, Hugh Jackman was in it, as well as the kid who played little Thor in "Thor", and Evangeline Lily from "Lost", as well as Kevin Durand, so the casting alone made it a pleasure to watch :)

I'm still rabidly following any and all "Hobbit" film news. Speaking of which, I am a Hobbit for Halloween this year. I put my entire costume together in a day (thank you Salvation Army thrift store!) thanks to being incredibly fortunate in finding the perfect pair of pants and even a long green woolen coat at the thrift store. Also, I am now very fond of the suspenders I bought for the costume too, I want to wear them all the time but I'm afraid that most people find suspenders to be stupid, not cool. Oh well. I even found a costume store that sells pointed ear tips and the gum to attach them with, so I am wearing pointy ears too! I'm going to save this costume so I can wear it to "The Hobbit" premiere next December, I think.

As far as films I'm interested in that are a bit closer, I am mostly keen on watching "The Artist" and "War Horse", but I'm also planning to probably watch "The Muppets" (I'm a huge Muppets/Jim Henson fan but have been really displeased with most recent Muppet things and so want to be sure this film is a return to form before I commit) and "The Adventures of Tintin" (I think I'm finally sold on the mocap visuals).

Hm, what else? Hawaii's nice, it's been a bit rainy lately but the humidity's mostly manageable, thank goodness. I like all my classes. It's great seeing old friends again. And yet I am eager to go back home for Christmas already--cookie baking and present wrapping and hot cocoa making and getting to goof around with seven younger siblings and two extremely awesome parents, what could there possibly be more delightful than that?

I'll pop back in in a few days with my book reviews for October, and then hopefully I'll keep to a more frequent posting schedule after. Cheers!

Book Reviews for September

2011-10-12T23:22:00.000-07:00

I read a lot of books in September. I mean, a LOT a lot. Like, I-am-crazy-why-aren't-I-using-my-time-to-study-for-my-midterms-instead a lot. It's all okay though, I got A's on all my midterms so no harm done.

Even better, I actually really enjoyed all of them except two, which is way higher than my usual ratio, yay. Also, some of these books--like Cormac McCarthy's The Road and William Goldman's The Princess Bride are tomes I've been wanting to read for a long time, so it's especially satisfying to say I have read them (and enjoyed them) at last.

So here you go, my reviews for the NINE books I read in September. I wish I knew how many pages that was.

Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins

I thought this was a satisfying followup to The Hunger Games (which was, you may recall, my previous Book of the Month); it had plenty of twists and turns, the story got deftly darker, and the stakes were raised without feeling too contrived. Also, there were some surprisingly horrific moments, which helped keep it from feeling like a retread of the first book. While some plot points were painfully obvious to me, others were not. Pacing still whipped past, and I still can't decide if I like that or not. It does make me wonder, however, whether I might actually like the films even better than the books (GASP) because the pacing seems a bit more attuned to cinema. We'll see next year, I guess!

Marvel Civil War: Iron Man

I thought this was good and solid but it didn't have as good a storyline as the other comics. On the plus side, however, the character dynamics were far more interesting, and since I love anything dealing with character dynamics that is a big plus. Also I think this had the best artwork of the lot, I read it super slow because I had to savor and examine every page. Great stuff.

The Shadow of the Torturer, by Gene Wolfe

I finished this early in September and I thought it was for sure my book of the month. As it turns out, it wasn't, but it is a highly recommended read anyway. I am pretty sure this book influenced "Name of the Wind" heavily; that's not a bad thing, just interesting. Its first-person voice is FAR superior to Kvothe's, though and the world and its characters are all really interesting and engaging. It's a pretty dark story and can be a bit confusing at times, but overall it's pretty good. I might check out the rest of the trilogy.

The Sable Quean, by Brian Jacques

I've been feeling nostalgic for Redwall and when I heard there's a character named Globby in this one I just had to read it. Alas, although the book began fine it quickly unravelled to the point where it felt like the entire plot and its contents were just inferior rip-offs of what Jacques wrote in earlier (and excellent) books: the lone badger maid, the dibbuns getting kidnapped and enslaved, underground tunnels with water and carnivorous blind fish, an island surrounded by pike, an over-dramatic female who is part of a traveling troupe, double-crossing villainesses--I could go on and on. The plot really fell apart in the second half, becoming completely random and nonsensical. If the above elements sound interesting, please read "Marlfox", "Martin the Warrior", or "Pearls of Lutra", but don't bother with this one. Not even Globby could save it.

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

This was the second book I was absolutely sure I was going to name Book of the Month, but I ultimately chose another by the slimmest of slim margins. This book is incredible. It's beautiful and heartrending and haunting and riveting and terrifying all at once. McCarthy's use of language is simply wonderful; his descriptions are succinct and yet so well-written that they are far more effective than sensationalism would have been. The characters--I felt I knew them so well basically as soon as I met them, and I cared about them instantly. That's talent, folks. And though there are disturbing and even horrific parts ultimately the end is somehow uplifting. I can't really describe this book well enough, just trust that it was fantastic and basically moved me to tears numerous times.

The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

I love the movie. I can quote it back to front. I consider it, in fact, to be one of the most perfect films ever made; I wouldn't change a thing about it. So I was a bit nervous about reading the source novel. That being said, I ultimately ended up enjoying this book quite a lot; it's funny and smartly written. The best parts for me were the interactions between Fezzick and Inigo and being able to read their backstories. I don't think it would have been half as enjoyable without watching the film first though, because the actors are really what made the characters come to life and gave them the dimensionality and charisma that makes me care about them, really; some of them, like Buttercup, are so ridiculous in the book I cannot care about them. So I am glad I read the book, but the film version still remains by far my favorite.

Heir to the Empire, by Timothy Zahn

A solid, very enjoyable "Star Wars" novel and definitely better than the entire prequel film trilogy put together. Everyone is completely in character, the plot is engaging and well-paced, the dialogue is so perfect I can clearly hear it spoken by the actors from the films, and it's actually pretty sophisticated plot-wise. Best of all, it captures the mood of the first "Star Wars" films really well, fun but dangerous and exuberant all at once. I'm definitely going to read the rest of this trilogy.

Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins

This is a difficult book to grade. Overall it was a bit too remorselessly dark and down, in my opinion, and it's certainly brutal; no longer can this series be called a children's series, if ever it was. Also, a lot of characters change drastically very quickly which can be a bit startling; the ending almost felt like . . . 1984 if it had a happy ending (stupid analogy, I know, I can't really explain it any better though). The emotional payoff is not quite what the reader wants, but I respect Collins for that. There are lots of things that happen that I had thought even from book one "Oh, that'd be cool if she did that" but never thought would happen because they were just too dark. AND THEN SHE DID THEM in this book. So that kind of delighted me, haha. Anyway, I thought it was a brave finale and if not as well-executed as "Ptolemy's Gate", well, that's all right because nothing is. It is a fitting ending to the series.

Gentleman Captain, by JD Davies

Let me just say that when the blurb on the back of your book is more interesting, exciting, and suspenseful than the actual story inside your book you should know you have problems. The author is apparently a historian who crossed over into novel writing and you can tell because the characters are all lifeless and dull and immediately forgettable and he manages to make even sea battles, assassination plots, and mutinous crews boring, but he spends pages and pages talking about history, awkwardly, in the first-person voice of his insipid main character. This is basically a waste of what might have been a good plot; don't bother with it.

Assassin's Apprentice, by Robin Hobb

The last book I read this month is also my favorite. What a breath of fresh air! This is absolutely the best fantasy I have read in a long time; it is essentially perfect in my opinion. I kept expecting it to derail at any moment with a sort of superstitious trepidation and by the end I was so delighted I was probably grinning like a fool at the pages as I turned them. It's beautifully written, is filled with engaging characters I cared about, has a wonderful protagonist who tells the story in first person masterfully, has really creepy villainry, fantastic politics, complexity, tragedy, beauty, mystery, and a totally unexpected twist towards the end that had me literally with my jaw dropped open completely caught unawares. That never happens. Best of all, perhaps, is the entire lack of objectionable content; thank gracious a fantasy novel with no gratuitous sexual content, or, indeed, any sexual content at all. It relies entirely upon the strength of the characters and the story and emerges triumphant. I am definitely hunting down the sequel to this, I can't wait. HIGHLY recommended.

So that's it, folks! Have you read any of these books before, and if so, how do your thoughts on them compare with mine? I'm off to get back to my reading now; I have 13 books borrowed from the library, if you'll believe it. Also, I'm currently in the middle of planning my next NaNoWriMo novel; November's only about three weeks away, after all.

Book Reviews for August

2011-09-03T22:41:00.000-07:00

August was a crazy month for me; one moment in California, the next in Hawaii. As a result I don't have too many books that I finished in August. Now that I've settled back into the college routine however I've been busily stocking up on library books and am halfway through half a dozen of them! Home, after all, is where your book rests XD

Doctor Who: Paradox Lost, by George Mann
This book read like watching an episode, and I mean that in the best way possible. Mr. King Kong novelist could learn a lot from Mr. Mann. Eleven was delightfully Eleven-y; just reading about him and his dialogue I could easily visualize Matt Smith acting it all out. Wonderful. Another bonus to this story is that most of it is told from Rory's point-of-view, and one can never have too much Rory! Even better? The story involves a mystery, time-travel, an android, aliens, and both Futuristic and Victorian London. Also, since it's a book and not an episode it allows for a bit more gore, which I'm sorry to admit is something I like, ha. It's brainy and fun and a pleasant surprise, and I wouldn't mind reading more.

Marvel Civil War: Frontlines
I've been keen on reading the Civil War comics for a while now, I just haven't been able to find them. Problem now solved, thanks to my local library! I really enjoyed reading this. The dialogue's snappy, the art is brilliant, and the story is both clever and thought-provoking, clearly social commentary but also entertaining in its own right.

Marvel Civil War: Captain America
What I said above, really, more of the same. I think I prefer the art in Frontlines, but the storytelling in this collection, but I'm not sure. One thing's certain, though: Winter Soldier rocks.

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
Book of the Month! YES I only just got around to reading this, but I've been trying to for years, it's just always checked out of the library. Anyway, I thought the book was great, if not quite up to the hype surrounding it. The narrative voice, the characters, and the plot are all good, and I liked the deliberate twists Collins puts on such tropes as the love triangle, for example. Sometimes it's a bit too deliberate, and so a little distracting, but usually it's just right. The tension was kept up really well throughout the story and the tricky issues and social critiques in the story were explored and utilized well. Something that irritated me a little was how quickly some problems were solved, but that's just part of the fast-paced nature of the novel, which in other places serves the story very well, so I suppose it's a necessary ill. Anyway, as far as dystopian literature goes this is nowhere near "Fahrenheit 451" or "1984" status, but it's still a very good read and a book I'll surely reread after I track down the remainder of the trilogy.

Book Reviews for July

2011-09-03T21:03:00.000-07:00

August will be a separate post :)

King Kong (film novelization)
Ugh, this was such a disappointment. I mean, I don't really expect much from the novelization of a film really, but even so this book was incredibly dry and blah, the writing merely connecting the dots of the plot without any real flair or interest. If anything a novelization is a chance to flesh out characters, give greater insight into their minds, etc. The characters here were like cardboard, and I actually love the characters in the movie (I'm talking 2005 PJ version, by the way). The best part of this book was a typo ('whore durves')! Watch the film, it's great. Don't read the novelization.

The Sherlockian, by Graham Moore
Well, the two mysteries that make up the plot were told well and the characters were entertaining, but once the book was closed and the story was over neither really stuck with me. The best thing about this novel was the interactions between Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker, and the chapter where they discuss Oscar Wilde's recent death was utterly fantastic. There are plenty of quality lines scattered throughout as well, so overall I'd say it's not literature, but it is quality fiction with more thought behind it and things to say than most. Warnings for some 1800's crude and profane language.

A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
As someone who to her own surprise prefers the Disney "Tarzan" to Burroughs' actual novel, I have to say that this book is much much better than "Tarzan of the Apes". Its sheer inventiveness is extremely refreshing, and while it's not really that complex a tale it is very entertaining. Seeing all the aspects of the story that later influenced the entire sci-fi genre as a whole was also really interesting ('padwan's, telepathic Martians, etc.). Also, the opening chapter is probably one of the best openings to any book I have ever read; it literally gave me chills. As far as early fantastic literature goes I still definitely prefer "The Worm Ouroboros", but this book is worth a read.

Moon Over Manifest, by Clare Vanderpool
A very worthy Newbery medalist, thank goodness! I loved the way Vanderpool wrote; the voices of the characters, the simple and truthful style, the interplay between first-person narrative, newsclippings from the past, and the letters of a WWI soldier are all great. I am personally very interested in reading about WWI, it's such a tragic and powerful moment in history and impacted a lot of my favorite authors too (JRR Tolkien, for one), so to have an entire narrative thread set during that time was fantastic. The other half of the story is set during the Great Depression, another period of American history that I love learning about, so double-yay! The interlocking mysteries in the story could have been balanced a bit better, as I cared about some and others seemed very superfluous, but this is a very minor issue compared to how excellently it all comes together in the end (and powerfully; I actually got a bit misty-eyed). I'd really like to see this made into an old-style film. This is, in my opinion, one of those rare worthy Newbery Medalists that both kids and adults can enjoy. (Also, if you're interested in WWI like I am, check out the film "Wooden Crosses". It's a black-and-white French film from 1932, and many of the actors are actually veterans of the war. Its one of the most powerful, frightening, and emotionally draining films I've ever watched. Absolutely stunning. It really makes the war real to the viewer.)

Shane, by Jack Schaefer
At last, my book of the month! I don't usually read Westerns, but I'd heard good things about this book and so picked it up at the library. And then promptly read it cover-to-cover four times. It's a beautifully told story by a writer who knows perfectly how to use simplicity of language and understatement to his advantage. Shane is a fascinating and utterly compelling character, and the tragic ambiguity of the ending was of course exactly the kind of thing I love. I think the book could have done without the epilogue, but other than that I have no complaints. If you have not yet checked out this slim little book, do so! And then you can watch the film, which is also very good thanks mainly to Alan Ladd's performance and the cinematography. The book's better, though.

I took a walk to the library today

2011-08-26T00:04:00.000-07:00

. . . and these are the books I borrowed:

Civil War: Frontlines
Civil War: War Crimes
Civil War: Fantastic Four
Civil War: Iron Man
Civil War: Captain America
The Sable Queen, by Brian Jacques
Assassin's Apprentice, by Robin Hobb
Shadow and Claw, by Gene Wolfe
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
The King of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Suzanna Clarke

I managed to carry them the entire walk back to the apartment, too. Ha!

I also discovered a little ice cream parlor close to my university and tried some cantaloupe ice cream there, yum. And forced myself to sleep in for once. Tomorrow I head back to school again, and then that's my first week back completed! I'll write more later to bring you all up to date, as I know I haven't written in a while, but for now just know that I'm up to my eyeballs in good books to read and school books to read, have been exercising a lot, and am pretty well pleased with how my first week back in HI has gone.

(And I'll try to post my book reviews for July this weekend.)

The Mirror: A Poem

2011-08-04T02:15:00.001-07:00

This poem was inspired by my first semester in Hawaii. That first night, when I slept in the bedroom I had not slept in since I was four years old, was very strange and solemn to me, and I couldn't help but feel like I had disturbed a kind of sanctuary, a place where only ghosts of my past self had dwelt all these years and now had to give way to my real, living, but much older self. A mirror that has hung on the back of my bedroom door all these years made the greatest impression on me, as I have a special fondness for mirrors. I was almost afraid to look into it for the first time. I wondered if it was saddened to now reflect an adult woman's face, when it had over a decade of lonely years to obsess over my child-self's reflection. Yeah, I know, weird, but I felt sorry for it. And so I wrote a little poem. Not in my usual style, and certainly in need of polish, but it captures rather well the feeling I had at the time.

The Mirror.

There is a pale old mirror hung
Upon Grandmother's door,

It catches all the window-light
And hurls it to the floor.

The carpet pale is grey with dust,
The air is thick with haze:

Each mote reflected in the glass
Is minutes, hours, days . . .

This room belonged to Granddaughter
When she was barely four,

So long ago that the old room
Does not remember her.

But ah! That pale old mirror
In that lonely room apart

Still holds the image of the child
Within its glassy heart.

The shy little girl-image
Waits in her looking-glass world,

And dreams of brighter, sweeter times,
When she and Grandma's girl

Would draw out dreams with crayons
To hang proudly on the wall,

Or stand up in their mirrored cribs
And pretend they were tall.

The image in the mirror smoothes
Its polka-dotted dress

And passes years with memories
Of times ere loneliness.

Passes years with hoping,
Though the hoping is like pain,

That the child will come back to smile
Into the glass again.

*

And then, one darkened evening
When magenta stained the sky

And clouds all hemmed with vivid flame
Burned through the shuttered blinds;

When the glass was filled with shadows
And hardly dared now to hope more,

A young voice sounded in the hall,
And pushed open the door.

A figure stumbles in the darkness,
Groping for the light--

The mirror-child is trembling:
Something is not right--

A slender hand now finds the lamp,
A finger flicks it on--

Harsh and vivid shines the light
And the face it spills upon.

*

The mirror's frame is red with rust,
And dimmed now is its glass,

And standing now before it is
The child returned at last . . .

But years have come and lived and died;
A flowing tide of water.

The glass endured, impervious--
Not so the young Granddaughter.

A moment more she lingers there,
Entranced, but not sure why,

She stands and her reflection stands,
And they stand eye to eye.

The one looks in and the one looks out:
A woman, strange and clever.

O Mirror! Did you weep when the child
Within you vanished forever?

The Star Spangled Maaaaan!

2011-07-28T01:26:00.001-07:00

I finally got to watch "Captain America: The First Avenger" a few days ago! It was one of my most anticipated films of the year and I am pleased to report that I loved it. Anglophile that I am, I finished the film proud to be American, haha. I generally only am proud of my American-ness when reading about our nation's history up to the Great Depression, so this is something of a feat. Chris Evans is just as good in the title role as I had hoped he would be, and remains sympathetic and lovable during the entire film without being weak. The humor was great. The WWII trappings and trimmings were fantastic. The love story was sweet and tragic so . . . as anyone who knows me can attest, that means it was exactly to my liking. And I have that brilliantly horrendous "Star Spangled Man" song stuck in my head all these days later!

If you're on the fence about seeing it, I recommend you take the plunge. It's a great movie. Oh, and it has a trailer for "The Avengers" hidden after its credits, which was wonderful as well! ^_^

My remaining 'high-anticipation' films of the year: "War Horse" and "The Artist".

Less than a month until I am back in Hawaii, now. It doesn't seem real yet. But the homesick ache I get whenever I try to think about it is definitely real.

Yep, it's Summer

2011-07-08T10:20:00.000-07:00

Happy Summertime, everyone! Well, except for my NZ friends, that is, who are now enjoying their winter. I still can't quite wrap my head around that, partially because summer is in such full swing here. Every day for a couple weeks now the sky has been cloudless and blazing, and the air so thick with heat it burns against your skin. Normally I'd be hating it. As it is, however, I'm enjoying it as much as I can because once I return to Hawaii the heat will be humid instead of dry (dry heat being much easier to bear, in my opinion) and at least here at home I have a working air conditioner which I don't have in Hawaii. So I'm trying to be philosophical about things. Same with the insect-life; sure the June bugs have started buzzing around, but if I was in Hawaii it'd be cockroaches, so I should be grateful for what I have--or, rather, do not have--right now.

Anyway, the heat also provides a fantastic excuse for both cold drinks and cold desserts and going to the local theme park to get drenched on their water rides, so I'm feeling rather kindly to it on the whole.

It will be overwhelmingly strange and sad to leave home again to return to college, but I know once I am back in Hawaii I will settle quickly and easily into my routine there again as though I had never left. In a way, this saddens me more than it reassures me. I'm scrambling in an attempt to get my driver's license before I have to go back to Hawaii, but I'm not sure if it's happening or not, we'll see. I am a much more confident driver now and can handle myself well on the busy main roads, but I have not yet ventured onto the freeway (nor do I want to) and my parallel parking is . . . not as parallel as I would like.

Movies! I'm looking forward to seeing "Captain America" so much, and am interested in "Cowboys and Aliens" but am not yet sure whether I'll pay to see it in theater or just wait until it comes out on DVD. More films I'm eagerly looking forward to: "The Artist", "War Horse", and "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", the first because it just looks absolutely amazing in every way, the second because of the gorgeous music and the fact that it's a WWI story (and I also want to see the play but since I can't anytime soon this'll have to do), and the third because of the cast. Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Tom Hardy, and BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH all in one film together?? Really??

Speaking of film, I recently watched "This Gun for Hire" for the first time, and it's really good, I'd recommend it. The very end was a little too staged for my liking, but other than that it was a very enjoyable film, and Alan Ladd is awesome.

Okay, that's all from me for now, but I'll be trying to write more regularly. Cheers!

Book Reviews for April, May, June

2011-07-03T18:32:00.000-07:00

I'm back, with a shiny and newly repaired laptop, and piles and piles of book reviews! So here I'm putting reviews for April, May, AND June. I went to the library last week for the first time in a long time so I managed to get a lot of reading done right at the end of June. Overall it's been mostly mediocre stuff, but there's been a few definite gems. So without further ado:

APRIL

North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell
This book I thought for sure was going to be my Book of the Month. It's an absolutely fantastic romance--comparisons to the works of Jane Austen are unavoidable--but what really made me love it is how very real all the characters are. The inner monologues of the heroine, Margaret, were extremely endearing to me and startlingly true to thoughts that I've had myself, making her easily identifiable. John Thornton, the male protagonist, is also an extremely likable character, far more so than the infamous Mr. Darcy, and the whole cast of characters are fantastic. I also liked how Gaskell uses the love story to explore her society and indeed social reform, in a way that was interesting without being preachy. The ending of this book is one of the most charmingly adorable and satisfying endings I have ever read. Definitely give this book a go. Oh, and after you read it go track down the BBC production starring Richard Armitage, because it's wonderful.

The Ring of Solomon, by Jonathan Stroud
I consider Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy to be the most well-written, emotionally satisfying, and consistently excellent trilogy ever written aside from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. It was with mixed feelings therefore that I picked up Solomon, Stroud's new 'prequal' to the series. How can one expand upon perfection? I both wanted to read more about Bartimaeus, and was loath to attempt it, being afraid that the experience could only be disappointing. Was it? Well . . . yes and no. It's a great stand-alone book, but also is a fun read for people who have read the trilogy (Bartimaeus' pre-Ptolemy attitude is very interesting, for instance, and Faquarl gets lots of page-time) and features some great characters and a truly scary villain, along with numerous trademark 'Bartimaeus moments'--Snarky footnotes and crazy escapades galore. But it is not as emotionally satisfying as the Trilogy, perhaps because there is no real sense of danger. We know that Bartimaeus survived to meet Nathaniel in London, so narrative tension is automatically compromised. Still, I'd recommend it both to Stroud newbies and fans of the Trilogy alike.

The Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss
I'm a big fan of Rothfuss' first book, The Name of the Wind. It wasn't perfect, but it has a lyrical quality and beauty and power to its language that not many fantasy novels manage, as well as a clever narrative structure and a very compelling protagonist. So I was looking forward to this sequel considerably. Was it worth the wait? Ultimately it was a let-down. There are many moments that I absolutely loved, but the book was so over-stuffed and over-long it distracted from those moments, so that by the end of the book I could only remember vaguely that I had liked parts, not really clearly recall what I liked about them. Their impact was smothered. There's also a lengthly section of the book which focuses mostly on Kvothe's sexual escapades, which was utterly unnecessary and irritating. Call me a prude if you like, but I hate it when authors put sex in their fantasy novels. So I'm still looking forward to reading the third book in the series, but this second installment didn't live up to my expectations.

The Mists of Everness, by John C Wright
Another sequel which did not quite live up to its predecessor. The opening half or so of this book is simply brilliant--the perfectly-pitched fairytale opening in particular is genius, especially after the madcap ending of the previous book, and conceptually and visually the book excels as usual. The ending however feels rushed, and not up to standard with the rest of the book, and all in all the first book is much better (although the return of Galen was extremely welcome and well done). Raven is a great character. If you like urban fantasy/sci fi, then check it out.

Book of the Month:
The Queen of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner
I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed Turner's first novel, The Thief, but nowhere near as surprised as I was when I read this sequel. It is simply, brilliantly nothing like you would expect a sequel to be. Most of it consists of just characters talking to each other and sometimes to themselves, action is kept to a minimum, and the main character, well, I want to keep it spoiler-free, but he gets put into situations that you absolutely would not expect. None of this is a bad thing; it could have been, easily, but instead Turner works her authorial magic and weaves out of these elements a story that is breathtaking and captivating, filled with emotion and tension and honest drama, wonderful characters, and of course a protagonist who has quickly become one of my favorite fictional characters ever, Eugenides the thief. It is worth noting that Turner does not let his character stagnate; instead she is constantly challenging him, evolving him, changing him, and yet never letting him stray from his core identity, keeping him completely--and sometimes even painfully--real. The new character of the Queen (well, she was briefly introduced in the last book but only really becomes a main character here) is just as well-defined and interesting, terrifying and cruel and pitiable and sympathetic all at once, no mean feat. There is also a surprising romance which is decidedly unlikely but which Turner again manages to make both real and perfectly fitting as well as properly beautiful. I simply can't praise this book enough. Do yourself a favor and read this series ASAP. After I finished it (in one day) I could not wait to get my hands on its sequel, The King of Attolia, which I am happy to report is equally good. More on that later, though, as it's a June read ;D

MAY

Can you believe I didn't finish a single book in the month of May? I read a few books mostly to the end, but didn't quite manage to finish them, so I had to count them in the June list. I also read a lot of "Wives and Daughters", a novel I still haven't finished.

JUNE

The Wild Knight and Other Poems, by GK Chesterton
If you like Chesterton's poetic style, then you'll like this book. As I love his writing-style, I found much to like here--some really beautiful imagery as well as thought-provoking philosophizing and the welcome scatterings of that unique Chestertonian wit. I recommend "Cyclopean", "The Mariner", "Gold Leaves", "Behind", and "The Woodcutter" as the best of the poems gathered here, but of course your tastes might be different than mine. Any poem that talks about "the green wine of the sea" is great, in my opinion.

At the Mountains of Madness, by HP Lovecraft
What a disappointment this turned out to be! My brother has been badgering me to read it for months, I finally got around to it, and then was heartily disappointed when it was nowhere as gruesome or terrifying as I had hoped it to be. For such a famous story it was surprisingly dull; the characters were beyond irritating, behaving so irrationally I could not really believe in their peril or sympathize with them, and the building up to the reveal of a monster was so blatant there was no shock when it finally arrived, and so everything just felt really anti-climatic. I did get a kick out of visualizing a bunch of flying squid-y monsters fighting abominable snowmen from outer-space, though, I must admit. And Lovecraft seems to have had a phobia of penguins, or something. Basically I kept hoping for something terrifying, horrific, or shocking to happen, and . . . it never did.

The Hidden Kingdom, by Clare B Dunkle
Oh wow, where to begin? This book is so unintentionally hilarious. It should have been called "Magical Stockholm Syndrome: A Novel". The plot is extremely thin, the characters extremely bland, the main romance . . . beyond creepy. I had a good time reading it just because it's so ludicrous. There is a smattering of great dialogue, including a line about forks being insulting to food because it's like you're killing it twice, but other than that . . . it's just a really strange mess.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin
This isn't a bad book by any means. I became interested in it because it seemed to be a fairytale-ish book and won the Newbery Honor. After reading it, I recommended it to my seven-year-old sister and she loved it. But that's its problem--unlike really great children's literature (and Medal winners) like The High King and Johnny Tremain this book is not equally satisfying for an older reader. I enjoyed the narrative structure, with so many fables and stories weaving together and then having an impact on the present of the tale, but ultimately Lin kept things too simplistic, and so stunted the impact and ingenuity of that structure. It's a great kids' book, but not complex or well-written enough to be a great book.

Book of the Month:
The King of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner
Aaaaand Turner wins again! I actually listened to this book in audiobook form, as my library did not have it as an actual book (silly, I know), but the reading was quite good. Costis, the main new character introduced, is excellent. Again Turner delights with the intricate plotting and wonderful character development/interactions which I have come to expect from her, and although I was doubtful she could write a sequel which could live up to the excellence of Queen, she somehow managed it. Best of all, it seems effortless. The language is as lively as ever, by turns hilarious and heartbreaking, and even legitimately chilling. Great stuff here; I'm planning on just buying this and the rest of the series already, because the quality is just that good.

Book Reviews Overdue

2011-06-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

My book reviews for April, May, and June will be combined at the end of this month. Sorry about how far behind I've fallen on things, but it's been a crazy, busy summer, what with all the preparation for returning to school this Fall. In fact, I do not think that I even read any books at all in May--Or, rather, I read plenty of books, but did not finish any of them in May. Look forward to reading my thoughts on "North and South", "The Wise Man's Fear", "At the Mountains of Madness", and more!

In the same way I have fallen woefully behind on my Doctor Who Reviews. To sum up:

I absolutely loved everything about "The Doctor's Wife", it's definitely my favorite episode of Eleven's run so far, and provided the most uncontrived and honest emotional moment of the show (for me) since Ten had to wipe Donna Noble's memory. I love Neil Gaiman's way with words, and his fingerprints were all over this episode, in the best way possible. He made use of the characters so well, and with so many fantastic nods at classic episodes (Eye of Orion, anyone??), I wish he was a regular writer. And FINALLY an episode where the pacing was perfect.
"The Rebel Flesh" was nowhere near as good, but I still thought it was a solid episode, very Classic-feeling with the many supporting characters and the running down long corridors, etc. It was also nice to see Rory get a chance to shine. If you've watched the film "Moon" this episode will probably remind you of it.
"The Almost People" was generally enjoyable, although I felt that there were wayyy too many illogical consistencies. Such as, if all that is needed to destroy the Flesh is a whirr of the sonic screwdriver, why wasn't that done before the end of the episode? It felt like a bit of contrivance to create a self-sacrificial situation that was completely unnecessary. NICE twist to have Amy be a Flesh-creature all along, but I was a bit irritated by that too, because then that means that all the character development and maturity she's been getting this series . . . didn't really happen to her.
I thought "A Good Man Goes to War" was merely okay, again due to massive logistics problems (why not shoot the Doctor the moment he reveals himself to the enormous crowd of people who want to kill him, etc). However, I did like the dangerous edge to the Doctor we got to see in this ep, and RORY. Rory was just utterly fantastic: fighting with a futuristic gun/Ancient Roman gladius combo, his adorable 'I was going to be cool!' reaction when he sees Amy with his daughter for the first time, and his super-cool pre-credits sequence. The revelation about River? Disappointing. It puts even more focus on her character, instead of less, and even steals the spotlight from Amy and Rory in a sense because now they can be known as River's parents instead of characters in their own right. I loved River Song in "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead"; now I just want her gone. I thought Amy was great in this episode too, and it was fun to see the Doctor's Gallifreyan crib (although why he decided to bring it with him on the TARDIS I have utterly no idea). The cliffhanger wasn't really interesting to me, so I have no problem waiting for the next episode, which is nice. If they had made the end of "The Pandorica Opens", for example, a mid-series cliffhanger, that would have been torture.

I'll try to post proper, full-length reviews later. I'm also planning on reviewing Series 2 of "Sherlock" when it airs; I am extremely excited for that show.

That's all for now, folks! My laptop's currently in the repair shop, but once I get it back I'll post up my book reviews; expect them sometime next week. In the meantime I'm devoting all my free time to dance, reading, writing, and attempting to sew a regency gown.

Doctor Who Review, Series 6 Episode 3: "The Curse of the Black Spot"

2011-05-12T09:22:00.000-07:00

I wrote a super-long review of this episode and . . . . then Blogger crashed or something and though it said it saved the review, it actually lied and just pretended to have saved it, so when I came back to this today to finish it up and post it I had only a single sentence. A single measly sentence. Why, Blogger, why?

There's no way I can remember everything I had written down and all the things I had discussed, which makes me a bit frustrated. The main point I was getting at though is that I really enjoyed this episode. The opening two-parter was ultimately a big disappointment to me, as my previous reviews attest, and so the fun of this episode and the historical setting was like a breath of fresh air. I mean, sure they traveled to Sixties America in the two-parter, but I prefer more drastic time traveling which, frankly, the show hasn't done all that much since its 2005 return. In fact, I'd really like another purely historical episode like "The Highlanders" or "Black Orchid" (both Classic Who eps) where the adventure really is just time travel--not about monsters or aliens or trying to scare kids behind the sofas. The idea that DW needs a monster in every episode is in my opinion a misconception. I love a good and scary alien as much as the next gal, but it'd be nice to let time travel just be time travel for once.

On the flip side, I'd also like the show to visit Alien planets more often too. Alien planets that don't involve human colonization would be even better. But that has nothing to do with "The Curse of the Black Spot", so let me get back on topic now.

Lots of funny bits in this one . . . I thought it great that Amy, who's always mocking the Doctor's fashion sense and conspiring with River to deprive him of his hats, took the time to don a pirate hat AND coat before swashbuckling to the rescue in the beginning of the episode. I also really enjoyed Rory's bewitched-by-the-Siren moments. Usually it's him having to endure Amy being interested in or chasing after other men--I mean, she was a kissogram, and then of course there's the Doctor/Amy thing--and so it was refreshing and amusing to see the tables turned for once. And due to the fact that he was bewitched, Rory still has his moral character intact! Yay! It was also good to see Amy being responsible in this episode, fighting for both Rory and the Doctor at various points. It was in this episode that I think I saw most clearly how much she's changed since her appearance in "The Eleventh Hour", and it was very gratifying.

Another fun aspect of this episode was how the Doctor kept getting things wrong and how he dealt with continuously getting things wrong: Just plowing determinedly ahead to the next mistake. It's not often that the Doctor's massive leaps of logic go awry, and even rarer that five or so of them go awry in quick succession, so it was entertaining to watch him trying to keep acting superior despite this. He really did get a pounding to his ego this episode--not only his prided intelligence letting him down, but there's also that moment when he grandly introduces the bewildered pirate Captain to his TARDIS and then discovers she's not working.

The return of the Random Eyepatch Lady was just that--random--but whatever. It'd be hilarious if she's Amy's latest psychiatrist checking up on her and dear Miss Pond has really just been in a padded cell all this time, but I don't think that's where this randomosity is heading. Stay tuned for more on that, I guess!

Now, the Siren itself. I didn't think her that pretty, and I thought her song should have sounded a bit more . . . beautiful, it wasn't anything special. But the revelation that she was in fact a doctor on an alien spaceship reformatting itself to look human in order to cure the humans was great. I have a feeling that the multiple universe/realities idea put forward in this episode will have ramifications in later episodes, particularly to Amy's pregnant/not-pregnant situation, but time alone will tell.

And Rory! He nearly died again! Really it shouldn't affect me any more, because how many times has he 'died' now? Five times? But it still did because, well, I love this guy, and Amy and the Doctor's reactions made it work. I repeat my earlier warning though: There's only so many times you can use death to evoke an emotional response before it gets boring. And that's never a good thing to have happen.

The ending, with the pirate crew, captain, and captain's son taking the metaphorical wheel of the alien spaceship, was great. It made me think of "Enlightenment", one of my favorite episodes of Doctor Who ever ( a Fifth Doctor episode, check it out if you haven't). It also made me think a little of Firefly, though I'm not sure why, maybe the fiddle combined with the starscape? The pirate-y music sprinkled throughout the episode was very good.

All in all, I'm back on board for this series, very pleased with this episode, and eagerly looking forward to "The Doctor's Wife", the next episode and one which is written by Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite writers. Or, at least, that was where I was at when I wrote my first review for this episode. As of now I have in fact watched "The Doctor's Wife" already and I can't wait to review it. I'll spoiler a bit in saying that it is easily one of my favorite episodes of "Doctor Who" ever, and one about which fans of both Classic and New Who can find many, many things to love. So look forward to that!

I also have my Book Reviews for April coming up, I read quite a lot in April actually, so there'll be a good number of them. I'm a bit behind both due to the aforementioned crash and because I've had a bad eye infection all week that rather dampened my desire to blog. The next chapter of "The Outlaw's Hand" (Chapter 15) is almost complete too, so watch for that to be posted here soon!

Doctor Who Review, Series 6 Episode 2: "The Day of the Moon"

2011-05-05T12:50:00.000-07:00

Ooh, so this is very late. This is also a really busy week for me--in fact, this entire month is going to be a whirl of activity. Hopefully it'll be a productive one, too.

I was too busy to watch this episode the day it aired, so I caught it on Sunday instead. I only made one note on my sheet of paper as I watched: "So the best part of this ep so far is 60's Rory. He looks awesome." Unfortunately, after finishing the episode, I'd stay that still remained my favorite part of the entire thing. Overall it was a big disappointment and I ended the episode feeling distinctly underwhelmed. Now, I might be the only person on the internet to feel this way, but it's my honest opinion, and this from someone who was looking forward to Part 2 of the opening a lot. I felt that the pacing was all off in "Day of the Moon", similarly to how I felt "Victory of the Daleks" was a disappointment mainly due to its poor pacing. Twists and turns were flung at us so quickly they didn't have any dramatic impact. I felt no questions--really--were answered, and the solution to the Silence problem seemed both a little out of character for the Doctor--what, he's encouraging that folks everywhere commit murder now?--as well as rushed. Brief moments of terror, like in the orphanage, were too rushed and crammed between other stuff to make a serious impact. The mystery of the little regenerating girl just didn't interest me. The further playing upon the 'Does Amy love Rory or the Doctor' theme just irritated me, because the question has, really, been answered already. So why keep trying to get us worried about things that are already resolved?? Same with the maybe-pregnant maybe-not Amy Pond. I'm just not interested in these issues, which seem extraneous and not really belonging in "Doctor Who". I can watch any old show where love triangles happen or pregnancies or other stuff, I don't need it tacked on here. I'm not sure even why I feel so strongly about this. I just do. Give me aliens and strange planets and distant times and adventure and excitement and good character development; don't give me force-fed drama.

The Silence turned out to be, so far, a disappointing villain too. It lost its subtlety in this episode. They can get wounded by being shot? Amy, the Doctor, Rory, and River were able to chase them for 3 months, all over the continent, without getting blasted by them? Then what's the danger? Even the Daleks are bulletproof. And Moffat, there's only so many times that you can falsely kill off characters before that gimmick no longer pulls at our heartstrings. Did anyone believe for even a second that he killed off our entire cast in the opening minutes of this episode? Yeah . . . I didn't think so.

Some good parts of the episode:
1. Rory. I thought he was brilliant as always, as well as finely acted by Darvill. And did I mention his 60's look?
2. River's 'firsts and lasts' comment, which although nowhere near as effective as that fantastic scene last episode still managed to be saddening. That kiss was a bit much, though.
3. River's jab at the Doctor for waving his sonic screwdriver around during the gunfight.
4. Nixon popping up all over the place.
5. The creepy old man in the orphanage.

But remember how I said I wanted motivations cleared up in this episode to make more sense of the last episode? I don't feel like any of that happened. The Silence is still as confusing as ever, which also contributes to them being less scary than they should be.

My last note: What on earth was with the random there-and-then-gone window in the door of the room with the photos of Amy with a baby in it? And that face which looked through it? This mystery annoys me more than interests me, and I'm not quite sure why; maybe because it seems so unnecessary? If the rest of the story had been tied up and paced properly I wouldn't have minded, but as it is it just seemed like why take up time with small mysterious things that have no immediate bearing upon the story when you aren't even telling the immediate story properly?

Anyway . . . overall I'm not a fan of this episode. I'm very glad that this next episode is a standalone; hopefully we'll get back on track with it. Also, pirates! I'll try for a more detailed review for the next ep, to make up for this slipshod one. Cheers, all!

Doctor Who Review, Series 6 Episode 1: "The Impossible Astronaut"

2011-04-26T04:36:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my first Doctor Who Review! I am posting this a day late because . . . well, I didn’t do much writing on Easter! But in future I think I’ll aim to post my reviews every Monday. This is kind of a recap as well as a review, where I just go through the episode bit by bit and talk about how I saw it. It’s also ridiculously long. I’m clearly not practiced at this yet XD

Okay, and off we go: Welcome to Series Six, everyone, and don't forget to look behind you!

I have to admit that I was less than thrilled with the opening of the episode. It was too slyly risque; Moffat moments like that stick out of the show like a sore thumb, in my opinion. But he then immediately followed it up with a delightful peek of Amy and Rory all settled down and domestic, and then a few seconds of the Doctor on video dancing with Laurel and Hardy, which was so amazing I couldn’t stay disgruntled. I’ll just pretend that opening fifty seconds or so didn’t happen; it seemed way out of character.

The mysterious summons which Amy, Rory, and River received were appropriately exhilarating; we, like them, have been newly summoned to rejoin the Doctor in his adventuring, so I shared their excitement, though seriously--the guards at the Storm Hold Prison must be the worst in the universe. How many times has River broken out now?

An interesting aspect of this episode is its setting in America and how that setting is handled by the British cast and crew. Mostly it works well; the accents were actually pretty fine, and the Oval Office was a great set. I wish I knew what the British audience thought of it; I imagine it is a lot different for American viewers like me. There was definitely a different feel to the episodes though, which I think came from them being set in America: the Oval Office set, though nice, felt really foreign to the world of “Doctor Who”. Strange that that should be so, when I’ve seen the Police Box land on all sorts of alien planets and locales around Britain and rock quarry after rock quarry without blinking an eye! What did you think of the American setting? One thing it had going for it was the sight of the Doctor wearing a Stetson hat (not a common hat in my area of America anyway, but still great).

Let’s pause here for a moment of silence for that very fine Stetson gone, alas, all too soon.

Okay, moving on.

The Doctor invited his friends to share a meal with him, and after they had all eaten and had drunk wine (or, in the Doctor’s case, spat the wine out in disgust) he went alone to meet with a bizarrely creepy astronaut which just strode out of the Lake they had been picnicking beside. Matt Smith’s acting in this whole scene was just sublime--sad, weary, and resigned but steeled. The look on his face when he looked at the Astronaut’s blank visor was heart-wrenching in its gentle, sad empathy: 'Hello. It's okay, I know it's you.' I watched the lifting of the visor three times, but was unable to make out what’s inside. A face? An emptiness? Who knows? Well, I have a feeling we will know by the ending of this Series, but never mind that for now.

The Doctor/Astronaut conversation continues for a little while as his three disciples waited and kept watch, little knowing that they had just partaken of their Last Supper with their soon-to-be-killed leader--VERY SUBTLE, MOFFAT. Maybe I’m just reading too much into it since this is Easter weekend, after all; or maybe airing the episodes on Easter weekend was very deliberate. Who knows?

Disciples or companions, whatever you want to call them, Rory, Amy, and River are very shortly watching in horror as the Doctor is shot. Shot twice. By the creepy Astronaut. It was excruciating to watch. To see the Doctor shot once is horrible enough--remember Ten’s near-regeneration?--but twice? As River herself says a little bit later, that’s cold.

So he staggers to his feet and looks, numbly and wide-eyed, at his hands as they light up with the flames of regeneration. He turns towards Amy, where she’s screaming for him just like all the traumatized kids watching the episode (as well as the little Amelia inside her and the little Doctor-loving kid inside me) are, apologizes as his face is obscured by the golden mist and he begins regenerating, we are all watching with bated breath and disbelief, and then that disbelief is increased about tenfold as we see the Astronaut shoot him yet again and he drops to the lakeshore stone dead.

This was beautifully shocking. Just the fact that it gets so much of an emotional response from me is marvelous. Consider:

1) Logically, the Doctor cannot regenerate yet. I’ve seen the series trailers and keep up-to-date on Doctor Who-related news, and know there has not been any word of Matt Smith ending his run yet (and thank goodness for that, too!)

2) Logically, the Doctor cannot be permanently dead. This is simple enough; the show is Doctor Who, after all.

3) Logically, this’ll all get cleared up in a complicated, Moffat-y timey-wimey way, and the show will go on.

And despite all this cold logic I still got emotional and worried for the Doctor?

Take that, Spock!

Meanwhile, a fourth person has arrived: An elderly, white-bearded man who I for a moment thought was Nicholas Courtney, but wasn’t. Of course he wasn’t; the Brig has left with Sarah Jane for that big Unit HQ in the Sky, alas. It was Canton Delaware III, an American with his own invitation in a TARDIS-blue (that should be a paint color) envelope and a can of gasoline. The gasoline was for the Doctor’s body, which Amy was currently sobbing over like a heartbroken child. Yes, that’s right: the children of America, Britain, and Canada were all treated with the sight of their beloved Doctor getting cremated today. Also to some nice music-work by Murray Gold. I liked the detail of Rory choosing to setting the Doctor’s body afloat on the lake to burn, like a proper Viking funeral.

Delaware leaves fairly quickly, pausing only to deliver this wonderful line in his wonderfully gravelly voice: 'I won't be seeing you again, but you'll be seeing me.'

River notices that there’s a typewritten number 4 on his envelope; there’s a 2 on hers, and a 3 on the Williams’/Ponds’. This, she explains as the trio head back to the diner from earlier, is because the Doctor invited four different groups, not just the three that showed. What was the Doctor playing at? He had mentioned the year 1969 and the moon landing. Did he have a plan? Was it a clue? Were they supposed to save him? Rory is willing to help her figure things out; Amy refuses because in her eyes it’s too late. She hisses 'He’s deaaaaad' with the perfect amount of flat despair. I’m really liking Karen Gillan’s performance in this episode. She’s grieving, but not as though she loved the Doctor romantically, not like when Rory was killed last season. That distinction is really important to me.

Then Rory notices the blue number 1 envelope sitting on an empty table, the trio mill about in confusion a moment, and then who should come waltzing into the room with his 'special straw which adds more fizz.' but the Doctor himself, quite cheerful and not-dead. Amy hugs him. River slaps him. Rory pokes him, just like the Doctor poked the seemingly-resurrected Rory during the last series episode “The Pandorica Opens”. Did anyone else catch that? I couldn’t stop giggling.

The Doctor is confused by these reactions, as he knows nothing about his having just been murdered, of course. In fact, this version of the Doctor is approximately two hundred years younger than that version which was just killed. He was also invited by envelope, presumably by his future self. The plot thickens.

River, Amy, and Rory, although appropriately weirded out, tell the Doctor nothing about his recent demise-in-the-future and instead convince him that he needs to find someone named Canton Everett Delaware III in the year 1969. No problem, he says, that’s an easy year.

'Canton Everett Delaware the Third. That was his name, yeah? How many of those can there be? Well . . . three, I suppose.' Actually, only one. There were three Canton Everett Delawares, but only one can be called the Third, right?

While the Doctor fiddles with the controls and complains that no one is watching how clever he is being, the rest of them huddle under the console and guiltily discuss what to do. River is adamant the Doctor cannot be told about his death, as that would rip a hole in the universe due to time paradoxes, etc. Amy is extremely reluctant to go along with this. Rory does his lovable best to do what seems most sensible. Amy’s Ten-ish dislike of listening to warnings of fixed events and time paradoxes will be important later.

After the Doctor rants a little about the nature of time (I loved how he snarled 'Thursday afternoons'; I don’t like them either, Doctor) he informs the others that he’s not going through with hunting down Delaware after all; he doesn’t trust the mysterious messenger, and he doesn’t trust them. And suddenly everything gets even more intense and compelling. The Doctor finally challenges River Song to tell him who she is, no more games, and I’m delighted that he’s getting fed up with her ‘Spoilers’ act now and standing his ground; he doesn’t even really pay any attention to poor Rory; and then it’s up to Amy to persuade him to embark on this adventure that she knows will somehow, someday, lead to his death. This was some beautiful acting by both Smith and Gillan; Just watch both their faces when she says she swears by 'fish fingers and custard', the myriad emotions flitting across their faces and the Doctor’s faint, twisted little smile. Amazing. Only DW could make that ridiculous phrase bear so much emotional power and dramatic weight; that’s part of why I love it so.

One last note on this scene: I loved how quick and concerned the Doctor was when he asked Amy whether she was threatened. It reminded me of how his future self had seemed so concerned to put his Astronaut assassin at ease, too. Oh the empathetic Doctor. You gotta love him.

Wait, another last note: After the Doctor puts his trust with Amy and tells her he puts his life in her hands, she manages to hold herself together until he turns away, whereupon she falters a bit dangerously close to how devastated she feels at knowing she has that trust and is betraying it. And then, in the background, Rory reaches out to silently console her. It’s such a sweet moment for the characters, and again highlights how they’ve both changed since the first series and how close they are. D’awww.

The Doctor meeting Richard Nixon was a hoot: 'Oh LOOK, it’s the Oval Office! I was looking for the . . . Oblong Room . . .' *walks into the side of the invisible TARDIS and topples over* Hilarious.

Once a gang of overly enthusiastic Secret Service Agents are appeased, he then offers to clear up Nixon’s problem. The President’s been getting nightly phone calls from a creepy little girl (well, Nixon thinks it’s a boy, but of course he’s wrong) and wants to know where they’re coming from and what to do about them. 'I’ll take the case!' The Doctor says breezily, channeling his inner Sherlock, and then continuing to say that he’s a consultant for Scotland Yard. Yep, definitely Sherlock. Keep your shows straight, Moffat.

The Secret Service guys aren’t impressed, and start pointing guns at everything that moves, eg. The Doctor and Co. The Doctor tries to talk them out of shooting anything; River exasperatedly cuts him short with an exclamation of 'They’re Americans!', a phrase which here clearly means 'Save your breath, they’re Americans and therefore there’s no reasoning with their violent tendencies.' I wasn’t sure whether to be offended or amused. This was probably the most awkward British vs. American moment of the episode. As the episode was written the British view of Americans seemed to be one of awe but also a feeling of British superiority, which is strange. Luckily it didn’t come up much.

Ex-FBI agent Delaware, who had been meeting with the President at the time of the Doctor’s appearance, is both impressed and amused by the Doctor and gets the SS to stand down, while the Doctor introduces his crew with one of the best lines of the entire show: 'These are my top operatives. The Legs, the Nose, and Mrs. Robinson.' The SS get some great one-liners too, my favorite being “Do not COMPLIMENT the INTRUDER!”

I’ll take a moment here to say that I adore Mark Sheppard in this role as Delaware. He’s hilarious and manages to be cool, even though he wears no bow tie and refuses to fetch the Doctor a fez. Poor Doctor. He’s remarkably hat-unlucky in this episode.

My next note is an all-caps ‘IS AMY PREGNANT??????’ Was my question answered by the end of the episode? Maaaaybe. For now though all we know is that Mrs. Rory Pond is feeling sick and is escorted to the nearest restroom by a SS guy, who waits outside the door. She enters the bathroom--

--AND RUNS STRAIGHT INTO A SILENCE! SILENT! WHATEVER YOU CALL ONE OF THESE THINGS IN THE SINGULAR!

Now, I have this weird paranoia about entering public restrooms on my own, especially when they’re seemingly empty. So thanks for playing off of that fear, Moffat. Thanks so much. Now I can’t blink, visit the library, step in a shadow, see something moving in the corner of my eye, or enter a public restroom without thinking of one Doctor Who monster or another. This show is going to make me a nervous wreck.

Silence aside, it looked like a pretty nice bathroom. Reminded me of the ones at fancy hotels I dance at. My brother marveled at how fancy it looked; apparently men’s restrooms aren’t anywhere near as dolled up. No flowers or anything.

Now, for hilarity’s sake, I’m just going to copy and paste what my original notes, which I typed out as I watched the episode for the first time, said about the next scene, in which we both said hello and goodbye to Random Victim No. 1 of this story:

‘star trek thing!’ haha . . . OH THE FREAKINESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSAAAAAAAAAH OHMYGOSHHOWITMOVESITSMOUTHISOPENINGAAAAAAAAAAHE’SSILENTSCREAMINGFORHEROHMYGOSHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! OHHHNOWITSGOTAVOICEOHMYGOSHHHHHH

I was surprisingly scared and suitably impressed.

What I failed to mention in my original notes is:

1) I really liked the ‘memory editing’ concept and how it was played with here; terrifying

2) “Joy. Her name was Joy.”--Why is this so frightening? My brother agrees with me. Also, the Silence/Silent (I think I’m going to use Silent as the singular) attacks by shooting electricity out of its hands and has a deep voice, two ‘scary’ things that are somewhat cliche in my opinion, but somehow they way it happens and the way that voice sounds makes it completely scary. The tired ‘seen it before’ cliche doesn’t apply here somehow.

I wonder whether the photo Amy snapped on her phone is erased or whether she’ll see it again later. I also wonder what the Silent meant when it told her to tell the Doctor about what he doesn’t know and what he must never know? Is it trying to manipulate her towards its own end? Another question: Why does the SS guy not know what a phone looks like?

Once Amy looks leaves the bathroom she no longer remembers the Silent, of course, just as she has forgotten her previous sightings of this creature twice before in the episode. The Doctor meanwhile has very cleverly pinpointed where the little girl on the telephone is calling from, and when she calls again pleading for help and saying the mysterious “Spaceman” is with her, he dashes into the TARDIS along with his companions, flippantly calling out “Canton, on no account follow me into this box and close the door behind you.” Best invitation into the TARDIS ever? Probably.

Canton’s reaction to the inside of the TARDIS was amusing, as was Rory’s reaction to his reaction (In my notes I have a scribbled ‘Nonchalant Rory, O how I love thee’ which was written about this scene I believe). It seemed like Canton was intended to be standing in for the clueless American newbie viewer right then, and if his out-loud thinking was a bit too blatantly explanatory at times (“So we’re in a box that’s bigger on the inside and it moves through time and space?”) it was also blatant enough to be a cheeky joke directed at those of us who know the show, so I guess I can forgive that. The rest of the episode is extremely newbie-unfriendly, though. Timey-wimey and multilayered almost to a fault, I can’t even imagine what it’d be like trying to start on Doctor Who with “The Impossible Astronaut”. I imagine it’d be massively confusing, but would it make the viewer want to come back for more? I don’t know. Start your friend with “The Eleventh Hour”; it’ll make them appreciate this episode way more when they finally get to it,

The rest of us, meanwhile, after chuckling at Canton’s ‘How long has Scotland Yard had this?’ query, are busily shuddering at the disgusting alien glop hanging off of mysterious alien tech that’s scattered about the Floridian warehouse the Doctor has tracked the little girl’s phonecalls to. The Doctor and River are back to their normal jokey, sniping-with-words antics again at this point, which I’m not sure I like. I’m not a big fan of River Song--I love her in the “Silence in the Library” two-parter, and her death remains one of my favorite DW moments ever, but her attitude in Series 5 really got on my nerves. I loved the Doctor’s ‘I’m tired of your games’ moment with her earlier in this episode, and the fact that the banter is back so quickly--right after we’ve seen the depth of the distrust behind it--was a bit unbelievable to me. Still, this is the Doctor we’re talking about, whose entire character in recent series has been built around his doing and talking about zany, lighthearted, silly things to belie the darkness within, so am not too bothered.

While the banter is ongoing, there is a brief shot showing that the group is being watched by none other than our old NOT-friend the Impossible Astronaut itself. This is interesting, given a later revelation that I will discuss in a moment.

River climbs down a hatch into an underground tunnel to scout for danger. The shot of her clambering down the ladder reminded me of the Second Doctor and Jamie climbing down a ladder into London’s sewer system, I think? Didn’t they do that to find a nest of Cybermen living down there under the city, or are my memories playing me false? Anyway, I couldn’t help but think of Jamie, possibly because I’ve been re-watching a lot of his episodes lately, possibly because he and the Doctor climbed up and down so many ladders they’ve become irrevocably connected in my mind. River quickly stumbles upon a . . . . nest? of Silents. Silence. Silences. They’re doing a lot of wonderfully creepy posing. She scrambles back up the ladder to tell the others, and then--”All clear”, she says calmly enough, though still gasping a little with adrenaline that she can’t remember the cause of. “Nothing down there . . . I want to take another look around.”

AUGH, MOFFAT!

She pops back down, and the Doctor sends Rory after her:

The Doctor: “Rory, would you mind going with her?”
Rory: “Yeah, a bit.”
The Doctor: “Then I appreciate it more.”

Oh, Doctor. Rory’s unenthusiastic and long-suffering “Coming, River,” made me laugh. Also, I was suddenly much more nervous because Rory does have a track record for dying, and splitting up the group is never a good idea.

When he catches up to River, she complains of feeling a bit queasy. Wait, so she’s pregnant too? . . . Nah, of course not. I think the sickness is a side-effect of seeing the Silence. So I guess Moffat was just messing with us hyper-observant fans and trying to make us think that Amy is pregnant even though she was just feeling the effects of one-too-many Silent sightings. All right then, moving on. The two bravely go forward, following the tunnels, and unaware that they’re surrounded and followed by creepy suit-wearing aliens. I care about Rory’s welfare more than River’s at this point.

They reach a locked door. River decides to break it open; Rory is disapproving because he’s the sensible one. Always.

Then, we get the single most emotional scene in the entire episode--yes, more even than the Doctor’s death earlier, because that’s equally as much a puzzle as a tragedy and so works on a few different levels which distracts from the emotional core.

Rory: What did you mean--what you said to Amy? ‘There's a worse day coming for you’?
River: When I first met the Doctor—a long, long time ago--he knew all about me. Think about that. Impressionable young girl and suddenly this man just drops out of the sky. He's clever and mad and wonderful. And he knows every last thing about her. Imagine what that does to a girl.
Rory: I don't really have to.
River: Trouble is, it's all back to front. My past is his future. We're traveling in opposite directions. Every time we meet I know him more, he knows me less. I live for the days when I see him. But I know that every time I do he'll be one step further away. The day's coming when I'll look into that man's eyes—my Doctor—and he won't have the faintest idea who I am . . . And I think it's going to kill me.

With this short conversation we get insight into both Rory and River’s characters. Rory I already understood fairly well, ever since his great lines in “Vampires of Venice” about how dangerous the Doctor makes folks to themselves, but what I felt I learned about River here was wonderfully profound. This woman is brash and often irritating and full of bravado and sassiness--that’s why some like her, that’s why I am just meh about her--but her over-the-top behavior gets monotonous really quickly. She needs vulnerability. And here I finally got a glimpse of the depth of her character hiding behind that sassy exterior, something I haven’t seen since her first appearance with Ten. Suddenly her crazy behavior is pitiful instead of irritating; her frantically living up as much as she can while she’s with the Doctor, to make up for and store for all the lonely and empty stretches of her life between her encounters. Unlike other companions, the more she travels with the Doctor, the less fulfilling it is and the more she wants it. Once given a glimpse of the hollowness at her core and that terrible, prophetic fear of the day the Doctor won’t know her at all (which we have of course already experienced and know will happen just as she says) I still don’t exactly like her, but I do empathize with her again and care about her character for the first time in a long time. And I wanted to smirk ‘Spoilers!’ at her. Really, the whole scene is a beautiful--and essential--piece of acting by Darvill and Kingston. Without the emotional wallop it packed and the slow breather it provided in the midst of all the crazy, creepy, frantically-paced madness, the episode would have been much the poorer for it.

Okay, gushing over. As River finishes speaking the door opens to reveal the interior of the pseudo-TARDIS from “The Lodger” last season! I knew it would be making a reappearance! Neither character realizes its significance, which is understandable since they weren’t in “The Lodger”, but I think River should have recognized a TARDIS, shouldn’t she, seeing as how she’s so adept at piloting the Doctor’s? While she examines the tech, Rory keeps watch at the door. River realizes the tunnels are incredibly ancient and extend across the entire earth, but I don’t see why the revelation surprised her so much: I mean, we’ve already seen the Silurians underground, for goodness sakes, so it’s not the first time. There’s probably a billion other societies living down there too, it’s like we’re living on the outer shell of a swarming beehive of evil!

Speaking of swarming evil, Rory looks out of the door to see a swarm of Silence approaching, looking as creepy as ever--or creepier, even, these underground Silence looked more glisten-y than the bathroom one did. Horrorstruck, he whips around to call out to River, and the words change in his mouth so that he instead calls out that the coast is clear. Augh, you Silence and your memory-editing skills!

We get to look through a Silence’s eyes as it creeps up behind Rory, see the whitely flashing electricity light that means its attacking, and see River look around wildly, and yell Rory’s name. And there we are left for a whole week. Augh, Steven Moffat and his film-editing skills!

Meanwhile, back in the dark warehouse, Amy is getting better acquainted with Delaware, and the Doctor is sticking his head in a box. (Forgot to mention this earlier, but I loved when he was geeking out about the earth space tech he found in the warehouse.) Suddenly the little girl’s voice, the same as in the telephone calls, is heard. The trio go racing off in search of the source; the girl’s wailing that the ‘spaceman’ is going to eat her. Delaware gets ahead, yells, and when the Doctor and Amy catch up they find him knocked out cold. Amy, feeling nauseous again, tells the Doctor insistently that she needs to tell him something important. He rightly points out that now is not the best time, but she insists, and blurts out her secret: She’s pregnant.

The Doctor’s expression mirrors mine. Things start going slo-mo, haunting music plays, echoing footsteps sound, and dreamlike they look up to see the Astronaut walking slowly through the doorway towards them. The Doctor is bewildered; he of course hasn’t seen the thing before. Amy is horrified as it raises its hand just like it did when it killed the Doctor earlier.

Amy lunges for fallen Delaware’s gun! Her hair looks gorgeous in slow motion! The Doctor doesn’t notice, because he’s still focused on the Astronaut and has just seen that the visor is clear and the face behind it is that of the terrified little girl, who is crying for help! His wide-eyed disbelief is unnerving; it takes a lot to shock a Time Lord. He notices Amy now and asks her what she’s dooooooinggg, as the slow motion makes it sound; Saaaaaaving your life! she replies as she whirls around, gun in hand.

The Doctor screams Noooooooooooooo! Amy fires the gun, then screams as she realizes what exactly she’s shooting at! She and the Doctor both stare in slack-jawed horror at . . . . something! In slow motion!

Cue credits!

As you might be able to tell, I’m not sure if I liked this ending or not. It seemed really abrupt and kind of forced, and the slow motion, though dramatic, was also just a little humorous. Slow-mo talking is just inherently funny. This episode was so packed with stuff, without any filler at all except for that irritating scene at the very beginning, that I guess they just couldn’t find a good place to end. I have a hunch that the story will work much better when we can watch both “The Impossible Astronaut” and next week’s episode, “The Day of the Moon”, together.

This episode really felt like a Part One. So much was set up: The Silence, the Doctor’s death, the introduction of Delaware, the return of the pseudo-TARDIS, Amy’s pregnancy, the Astronaut and the girl--but did we get any pay-off at all? Well, not really. We don’t know what the Silence are up to or what kind of threat they pose. We don’t know why the Doctor died or how his death is going to be prevented. I have no idea yet why Delaware is going to be considered the Doctor’s fourth-most trusted friend. Why is the pseudo-TARDIS back? Is Amy pregnant? Has the Astronaut eaten the girl? I DON’T KNOW!

I can speculate, though! I don’t think Amy’s pregnant. I think the Silent manipulated her mind when it wiped it of all memory of itself, and so when she felt the sickness and the suppressed urge to tell the Doctor some important secret (about the Silence and his death) her mind supplied its own answers: she’s pregnant! Seeing as how she drank wine earlier in the episode and River also felt the nausea, I think it’s just a false alarm.

Also, who’s in the Astronaut suit? It was standing silently, watching the Doctor and co., stalking them through the warehouse--was it being worn by the girl then, or empty? Was the girl elsewhere in the warehouse? If so, why didn’t she call out? And is the Spaceman the Astronaut? What if it’s actually the Doctor and the girl’s calling from the future, scared of him? Or something? (That sounds a bit far-fetched even to me, but whenever I hear ‘Spaceman’ I can’t help but think of Donna Noble’s nickname for the Doctor.)

Who shot the Doctor? I don’t think the little girl killed the Doctor. I’m not sure who did. BUT--The mysterious being rising from and then descending into the Lake reminded me a lot of the Lady of the Lake, except the figure within the suit was not necessarily female. Still, I think that the imagery just might be deliberate. Think about it: River Song is a murderess. Who did she kill? The obvious answer would seem to be the Doctor. The Doctor recognized who kills him, and he almost seemed to be forgiving and reassuring whoever it is. The astronaut comes from a Lake. What is Song’s first name? River. What is Amy’s last name? Pond. Pond, River, Lake. Coincidence? Maaaaaybe, but I like to think there’s something going on here. I don’t think it’s as simple as ‘River’s in the suit’ because she was already incarcerated for murder and yet seemed really shocked when the Doctor was killed (so she didn’t recognize the suit as her past self) but what do you lot think?

As to the Silence--I don’t really know what their deal is at all. All I can say for certain is that their existence adds a whole other layer of creepiness to the Series 4 episode title “Silence in the Library”.

I enjoyed the episode, but it was so very full of laying down the bones of the story it didn’t really offer any emotional or intellectual reward except for a few notable scenes that I already gushed about. It served as a brilliant first-half to what seems to be a first-rate story, but just how good this Part One is depends entirely on how good Part Two is. Which means I guess I’ve written just a lot of waffle without coming to a proper conclusion or opinion, but oh, well. Let me know what you think of both the episode and the review: Would you like my reviews to be shorter in the future, or to focus on something more or something less? Do you have any theories about where this episode is going? River Song: like her or dislike her? How about Amy Pond this episode? Do you think she’s pregnant? And something I forgot to mention earlier: River Song claiming that the Easter Island heads were all carved to look like the Doctor’s. I find this incredibly hilarious . . .

I’m looking forward to “The Day of the Moon” and hope that it has many more wonderful character moments like the River/Rory conversation--as well as that it really scares me :D

:(

2011-04-24T01:57:00.001-07:00

I had my hair trimmed for the first time in three years today. I'm in mourning. My hair seems absurdly short now, though it's still past my waist--it was nearly to my knees before, but the ends were getting really ugly and dead. Now my goal is to get it to that length while still keeping the ends as healthy as possible. It still hurts though. I'm kind of proud of my long hair. I remember reading in Gregory of Tours' History of the Franks about how there were a few Frankish noblemen who chose death rather than have their hair cut, and I'm kind of sympathizing with them right now.

Luckily my hair grows quickly, so hopefully it'll be nice and long again soon. My mother just rolls her eyes and says only I could feel that waist-length hair was hideously short.

Heads Up, Whovians!

2011-04-23T13:13:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try to publish reviews of this series' episodes (that's Doctor Who, Series 6, starting today if you didn't know, look it up on BBC America if you have the channel) as they're aired. As I've never really done anything like this before, this is going to be a little adventure, but that's good! I'm still kind of figuring out how this is going to go, but if you are interested, read on. Here's a few pointers on how this reviewing business is going to be run.

1. My reviews will be spoilery. There's no real point in reviewing an episode if I'm not allowed to discuss the details of said episode, right? Therefore you probably shouldn't check out my reviews unless you have already watched the episodes. Unless you really want to.

2. Pictures? It's always fun to read reviews with screencaps, isn't it? I'm toying with the idea of including relevant photographs in each review. It'd be a bit more complicated and more work for me, but it also might be more fun. If you have a preference, let me know!

3. My review; my thoughts only. I'll write my reviews before reading anyone else's, because otherwise I'd probably be tempted to explore other people's ideas and what they took from the episode instead of just my reaction. My reviews will be my honest first reaction to what I just watched, so if that means I miss something obvious that all other reviewers on the internet noticed then I'll just be honestly ignorant . . . we can all laugh about it later XD

4. Classic Who, New Who, it's all just Doctor Who. I am a fan of the show as a whole, and so I don't really differentiate between the old episodes and the new episodes; they're all a part of the same canon and I have favorites all over the place. So I'm not going to restrict my digressions to just New Who episodes; I might mention things from Classic Who if parts of the new episodes remind me of something, like Eleven's adorable Troughton handrubbing in 'Victory of the Daleks'. If you haven't seen any Classic Who, you should, but I don't think my occasional references will be too confusing :)

5. Talk back! Feel free to argue with what I say/geek out/list your favorite quotes of the episode/ask for clarification/correct my mistakes/etc. in the comments! I'm going to be doing this for fun, but also because I love Doctor Who, and I know some of you who read my blog love the show as well. Let's all have fun together!

And with all that said, I am not sure what the posting schedule will be yet--maybe every Sunday, maybe every Monday--but I will be doing by best to keep the schedule regular. My first review, for "The Impossible Astronaut", will be up soon.

(PS: Happy Easter, everyone!!)

A humorous Easter prelude

2011-04-22T20:07:00.000-07:00

During Good Friday service this evening I was sitting with my five-year-old brother, Elhendur, on my lap. He's a very clever, imaginative, and goofy little boy, and halfway through the service was extremely excited when he noticed that my grandmother and aunt were sitting two pews behind us. He grimaced and grinned in their direction for a while, trying to get their attention, and after a few minutes my aunt evidently noticed him, but my grandmother did not.

"I'm going to keep staring at her," he whispered to me, "until she sees me." Whereupon he fixed this ghastly stare and impossibly wide grin on his face and commenced his leering. This lasted about seven minutes, until his five-year-old patience wore thin and more drastic measures were apparently called for.

He tapped me on the arm. At this point in the service there was a hymn being sung and the priest had gone to bring in the Eucharist from where it was in repose after being taking out of the church in a procession the night before for Holy Thursday. So things were somewhat lulled. Still, I was somewhat distracted because I was listening to the choir--which was remarkably good tonight--and so only paid the cunning little guy half my attention.

"Say this," he was telling me. "Say: hibbly dibbly hobbly doo, I make Booma look at you!" ('I' meaning me, and 'You' meaning himself, and 'Booma' being the name my siblings and I give to my grandmother (long story.).)

Not thinking much of the request (I have really weird siblings, okay?), I did as he asked, in a church-appropriate undertone. He looked intently to where my grandmother was sitting, still oblivious.

After a moment he sagged in disappointment against my front, clearly put-out that nothing of note happened. But ever the optimist he then leaned back, looked up at me thoughtfully, and remarked musingly:

'I think you need a broom.'

And that was when I suddenly was very glad that the choir was singing loud enough to prevent anyone else from noticing that my younger brother had just been encouraging me to attempt witchcraft in the middle of the Good Friday church service.

Little kids. You gotta love them.

. . . Even when they matter-of-factly reveal that they think you are a witch in the middle of Mass.

My life's shifting again . . .

2011-04-21T16:41:00.000-07:00

On Monday I begin registering for my Fall classes, and as simply as that I am back in the university-going game. It's been a long time, and my life feels somewhat surreal at the moment: I devote my time to my writing and my family and my dance right now, and yet begin to feel subconsciously the pull of Hawaii and the duties of academia that await me there. There is a great pall of impermanence over everything I do at the moment, which is somewhat disheartening. I hate feeling the sand slipping under my feet.

Another event which has reminded me of how fragile things are is the sad news of the passing of Elisabeth Sladen, our Whovians' own Sarah Jane Smith. The character she played (along with Donna Noble and Tegan Jovanka) was my favorite female Doctor Who companion. The fact that her death comes so soon after that of Nicholas Courtney a.k.a. The Brigadier (who was, along with Jamie McCrimmon, Harry Sullivan, and Rory Williams my favorite male DW companion) just compounds the tragedy. If you haven't watched any episodes with these two, do so as soon as possible, you don't know what you're missing.

On the subject of Doctor Who, is anyone else excited about the new series beginning tomorrow? Well, okay, I know that there are many, many excited people out there, but HOW excited are you? I am absolutely bursting. I'm also very proud that I've managed to keep away from spoilers all this time--no mean feat for me, alas. There's some fish fingers in the fridge; I should make custard tomorrow and take video of me giving the combo a go, that'd be a laugh!

I've probably read over 2,000 pages this month already, which is fantastic. I'll have lots of books to talk about in my next Book Review post. Speaking of which, I'm open to suggestions on what to post about in this blog, since I'm usually either too busy or too lazy to come up with interesting topics on my own (yes, I'm a woman of extremes). A monthly writing update? More in-depth book reviews, perhaps a post for each book (I can always delve deeper when discussing the written word)? More artwork? Television or film discussions? Random day-in-my-life posts? Let me know in the comments!

Well, I'd best be getting to bed now. Tomorrow I have to get up early--maybe make that custard--clean up a bit--dance--maybe run, if this dratted cough will let me--paint--write--and read some more. Good Friday is always very quiet, a time for staying at home with family, for busying oneself with good works, and for a little bit of private contemplation. Then comes Holy Saturday--I've promised my younger sister I'll help her make a cake for Easter, or rather supervise as she attempts to bake one for the very first time, and then of course there's Doctor Who! And then comes wonderful Easter, a holiday I have not celebrated at home with my family for two years now.

. . . And first thing in the morning on Monday is my class registration. See what a jumble of the future and the present my life is contorting itself into at the moment? I need a TARDIS.

PS: I am currently again obsessed with the amazingness that is Jamie McCrimmon. Thanks for that, Linden :D

Book Reviews for March

2011-04-12T02:24:00.001-07:00

I only have three books for you from March, but as of this writing I have four books on the way that I ordered from Barnes and Noble as well as only one chapter each to go before I finish "North and South" and "The Mists of Everness", so there will be PLENTY of reviews for April, I think.

All March books are also by the same author, John C Wright. I got basically all his books for my birthday, and he also authored last month's Book of the Month, "The Golden Age" (have you read it yet?). As each of his books are about 400 pages long, this means getting through three of his books in one month isn't that shabby :)

Orphans of Chaos
I found this book to be a bit disappointing, actually. The premise (four young people are kept trapped in a British boarding school only to discover that they are children of Titans, kept prisoner and hostage by the staff of the school--who are in fact mythological characters like Boreas and Grendel) was great, and this is perhaps Wright's strongest book stylistically, especially in how alive he makes his first-person female narrator; she's perhaps the most completely believable narrator I've read since "David Copperfield". There is, however, a lot of innuendo as well, and crass sexual jokes made by the teen male characters, etc., which really dragged the story down in my opinion. Which is a pity, because the easter eggs for mythology fanatics like myself are also numerous and greatly enjoyable and the narrator's voice is, as I said, superb.

The Phoenix Exultant
Just as strong as the book it is a sequel to, "The Golden Age", this was a novel completely enjoyable from beginning to end. Which is a real marvel because really, NOTHING REALLY HAPPENS. The scene rarely changes. It's very talky. And yet, and yet, and yet . . . it works, really works. I really liked the greater role given to Daphne this time, and look forward to reading the conclusion of the series.

The Last Guardian of Everness
Book of the Month time! This is the best 'modern settings' fantasy I've read since "Prospero's Children", and it's the rare high fantasy set in America, too, which I found quite interesting. It involves manipulating and traveling in dreams, lots of dreaming, as well as an exploration of what happens when the realms of dream and reality bleed together; it's a tale of a very classically influenced version of the apocalypse; it's got magical weapons and corrupt military; yet MORE cameos by such literary and classical figures as Lancelot (sensing a pattern in Wright's work now?); and I will never be able to look at seals the same way again (SHUDDER). There are moments of superb beauty, of frantic action, and moments that scared me more than any book has scared me since I read either "And Then There Were None" or "The Golem's Eye"--I can't remember which I read first :D

The characters are all very well done, and in many ways more alive even than characters in his later books, for they are imbued with a bit more personality instead of philosophy; one of his weaknesses is that of Asimov: The inclination towards using the characters to illustrate a story instead of inhabit it. Thus far he hasn't gone too overboard though, but I'd say that "Everness" fits the standard fantasy novel as far as characters go a bit more cleanly than, say, "The Golden Age". All in all, a fantastic read. It really transports the reader, which is what all good fantasy should do, after all! A warning for language, but other than that I think it was pretty clean. I'd recommend it.

Ho-hum.

2011-04-02T19:08:00.001-07:00

Book Review post for March will be posted soon. Nothing much else to report except I've begun figuring out my class schedule for the Fall, and the Series 6 Doctor Who trailer that came out a few days ago looks amazing.

I'm tired all the time lately. Not sure if it's because I'm coming down with something or because I've been going to bed at about 3 AM every night.

. . . Eh, it's probably both of the above.

The Wise Man's Fear

2011-03-31T00:45:00.000-07:00

The Wise Man's Fear, Patrick Rothfuss' newest novel and the second part of the fantasy story which he began in The Name of the Wind, was published earlier this month--on my birthday, in fact. I am a fan of his work--though not without its flaws it is much more lyrical and the characters are much more interesting and the story is more original than most contemporary fantasy--but I have yet to read the new book, as I'm trying to decide where the best (aka cheapest!) place to purchase it from would be. Anyway, I am going to have to re-read The Name of the Wind before starting the newest volume anyway because it is a long, dense, complicated novel, though it flies by quickly due to the stellar writing quality.

I recommend giving the book, and by extension the series, a try. If you like high fantasy, first person narratives, engrossing characters, Harry Potter, the Bartimaeus series, or simply the art of writing itself, you will find much to love.

If you have already read the first book and are beginning the second, Rothfuss has put up a humorous 'summary' of the 'key' bits of The Name of the Wind on his blog as an easy refresher. It is not merely a written summary, however; it is basically a comic strip retelling of those key plot points. Awesome. You can check it out here: http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2011/02/our-story-thus-far/

As to my own story--it's coming along! New chapter to be posted soon :)

Buster Keaton - Embarassment

2011-03-28T15:20:00.000-07:00

If you haven't watched any of Keaton's films yet, please do. And if you haven't watched 'Our Hospitality' in particular, do! It's a fantastic film.

Happy Tolkien Reading Day!

2011-03-26T02:18:00.000-07:00

Okay, well, it isn't Tolkien Reading Day anymore, but I'm never on time for anything except my college classes, so I'm posting this late. I hope you read an appropriately authored book, or at least excerpts of one, on the 25th! I read part of Farmer Giles of Ham to my younger siblings, along with my brother providing some of the voices. It was great fun. Oh, and my ten-year-old sister has recently been watching LotR for the first time--the condition in my family is you have to have read the books first and be at least 10 years old--and we finished up RotK today. I also put up the 'Maedhros' print I recently purchased from dA on my bedroom wall today. And now, before I go to sleep, I will begin reading 'The Hobbit' again, hopefully to continue into the Lord of the Rings and make a complete read of all four volumes before returning to college in the fall.

I might be overdue on posting chapters of 'The Outlaw's Hand' here. I'll try to remember to recount my written chapters tomorrow to make sure.

Book Reviews for February

2011-03-04T11:54:00.000-08:00

I only read four books in February, but wow, they were all actually really good! That doesn't happen often :)

This makes choosing a Book of the Month very difficult. But I still managed to do it: and here we go!

The Thief, by Megan Whalen Turner
I had this book recommended to me by a friend (see, I do listen to people's suggestions!) and wasn't really sure what to expect. That's a good thing in hindsight, because one of the story's greatest strengths is how it sort of . . . sneaks up on you. The style is deceptively simple, as are the characters, the ostensible objective of the story, everything . . . and then Turner deftly twists, turns, and flips the story until it turns into something highly entertaining and wonderful. I also really liked the pseudo-Grecian setting, which reminded me very strongly of 'Til We Have Faces', by CS Lewis--another good book which I recommend if you haven't read it.

The Golden Horn, by Judith Kerr
The main cast of the first book (See last month's Book of the Month) are transported to Byzantium just in time for the infamous sacking of the city. More character development happens, a few secondary characters are added, more peril is survived, but everything that I loved about the first book--the lyrical prose, the expert handling of the characters, the engrossing blend of high fantasy and historical realism, the philosophical exploration and the integrity of the theology--is still here. There's some dark moments of more graphic brutality related to the pillaging of the city, but they are not offensively written and again serve a point.

The Hounds of God, by Judith Kerr
A very nearly fully satisfying ending to the series. The climatic 'magical' battle was probably the most satisfying I have ever read, and the characters remained as compelling as they were in the first novel, enriched and deepened by the trilogy's arc instead of getting tired and complacent as so often happens in trilogies. A key couple that I had been wanting to get married never did, but did baptize their children, giving something of a mixed message. Also, a romantic 'affair' between two very secondary characters, though brief, was a blot against the main story and served no real purpose to the plot, the only instance in this entire series where Kerr makes a mistake in my opinion. Everything else, however, was excellent. And I really liked how the theological issues were ultimately resolved--with a cameo from St. Francis of Assisi, even! I'd put 'The Hound and the Falcon' on my Top 10 fantasy series' list, definitely.

The Golden Age, by John C Wright
After deliberating I have chosen Wright's 'The Golden Age' as my Book of the Month, and now I'm not quite sure how to describe it. In simplest terms it is the story of a man living in a future society in which people are now immortal and completely immersed in artificial reality. He discovers that he is missing large swaths of memory, and begins to unravel the artificiality of his life, his memories, and his own personality to rediscover an obsessive dream he had been forced to forget and a hidden danger that no one else can see. Beyond that utterly bare-bones description, however, I'm not sure how to elaborate. This is a novel so inventive, so teeming with philosophy, wit, creativity, and pure science-fiction magic, there's basically at least one new concept or invented tech or complex idea thrown at you from every single page. Wright clearly knows and loves his classics--a complex computer program designed to do detective work uses an avatar that looks like Sherlock Holmes, for example, and many characters have significant names from mythology like Orpheus and Phaethon--both aspects of the tale that delighted my own classic literature obsessed heart. Reality and artificial reality is blended so completely it's often difficult to tell the two apart, but that lends a greater power to the protagonist's quest, then--as he peels back the layers and almost unwillingly becomes closer and closer to unadulterated reality it's fascinating. And the protagonist and secondary characters have enough personality and depth to both hold my interest and ground the reader in this supremely inventive, almost insanely intellectual world Wright has concocted. It's like Asimov's 'Foundation' with personality, or good old high fantasy except futuristic and science-fictionized . . . Oh, I don't even know how to describe it. Just read it.

Book Reviews for January

2011-03-04T10:37:00.000-08:00

Aaaand I'm posting this in March. Of course. Because the only thing better than being fashionably late is being unfashionably late!

The Riddle, by Alison Croggon
It's not as laughable as the first book in the Pellinor series, but is ultimately let down by a strangely Jareth-the-Goblin-King-esque Elemental as well as a 'plot twist' that I could see coming a league off and therefore entirely without interest.

The Crow, by Alison Croggon
This is by FAR the best book of the Pellinor series, and the only one I would recommend. It is well-written, explores interesting themes well, features a far more likable protagonist than Maerad, and a tragic plot twist I did NOT see coming at all. It definitely raised my hopes considerably for the final installment of the series . . .

The Singing, by Alison Croggon
. . . Hopes which were promptly smashed into a thousand pieces, ground into dust, and thrown into the garbage. Secondary characters who had been vibrant in 'The Crow' became nothing more than scenery. Nothing unexpected happened--at ALL. Maerad was irritating. A character's dark past that had been hinted at in the first book was never resolved. Basically it was entirely unsatisfying, hollow, and rote. Ugh.

The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle, by Jim Butcher
Another graphic novel? Yes indeed, and quite an entertaining one, too. It's gory and gross but also laugh-out-loud funny, and the art is pretty good--my brother and I were sniggering about some very well-drawn expressions in particular. Butcher has a very smart-alecky, entertaining writing style. I'm going to be calling fast food 'essential wizard supplies' from now on, and that's a good thing.

The Hound of Ulster, by Rosemary Sutcliff
This could potentially serve as an excellent introduction to the mythos of Cuchulainn (one of my favorite legendary/mythical characters--I love Celtic mythology), and which is liberally spiced with usual Sutcliffian moments of poetic beauty, but towards the end of the book Sutcliff seemed to be making a bit too many excuses for Cuchulainn's behavior. She balanced her attempts at making a slightly more sympathetic hero of Cuchulainn and keeping true to the actual stories well in the beginning of the book, but by the end it was too much.

The Isle of Glass, by Judith Kerr
A stellar historical fantasy. This book is beautifully written, original enough to breathe new and vibrant life and immediacy not only into the middle ages but also the theme of elves or fae folk and immortality; elves are so frequently used and abused in fantasy books it's very difficult to do this, but Kerr made her interpretation of the fae folk seem utterly new and yet at the same time utterly classic, and that alone makes me applaud her. There are dark or sordid moments in the story, but always written with careful delicacy, and always to a purpose for the story as a whole. I also really enjoyed how Catholic theology plays such a large part in this story; usually a fantasy writer would disregard theology or use the fantastical elements of the story to attack religion, but this book is respectful and sound. The idea of following an Elven man trained as a priest as he has to come to grips with his immortality in a mortal world, as well as his religious beliefs in a society that believes creatures of magic are without souls, can only be described as brilliant. People don't act anachronistically, but still feel completely real, and the tale is told with a beauty and sensitivity that makes it flow like poetry. This is definitely a cut above most fantasies, and that is what makes it my Book of the Month. (Note: The volume in which I read this book was called 'The Hound and the Falcon', being a 1000+ page behemoth containing all three books in the series: The Isle of Glass, The Golden Horn, and The Hounds of God.)

AT LAST

2011-02-11T12:19:00.000-08:00

The Hobbit cast all gathered together in one fine video Q and A!

[link]

I am so excited right now, I don't even know what to do. Other than watch the video again

What makes me the happiest? . . . The revelation that there's going to be Dwarves singing in the film. That makes me almost ridiculously happy, hahaha.

Also the fourteen guys seem really brilliant together, so . . . basically I can't wait for 2012. Even more.

I made a promise to my friends while the Hobbit was still in limbo a couple years ago that if and when it finally was released I would go to the cinema dressed as the Lonely Mountain. I guess I have to start planning my costume now

(Reposted from my dA page, which explains the little emoticons, haha)

A long overdue 'Farewell to 2010' post

2011-01-01T23:30:00.000-08:00

So the final book count of 2010 is . . . 62! Yep, I managed to read 62 new books this year, a final tally I'm quite pleased with, although I had hoped to read 10 a month. Life, and lack of library access, sometimes gets in the way of lofty ambitions. You'll find reviews for most of these books scattered throughout my blog posts of the last year, if you wish. I'll include a full list of titles below.

Also worthy of notice are the films I watched for the first time this year! I may be a bookwyrm at heart, but I also love film, and so although I don't review the movies I watch really on this blog I still think they deserve a shout-out in this post. I'm counting not just films that came out last year, but any movie I watched for the first time in 2010. I watched 24 films this year. And here are my favorite three live-action films, followed by my favorite three animated films that I discovered in 2010:

Live Action
1. Lawrence of Arabia- A glorious epic, thought-provoking, emotionally devastating, and brilliantly filmed.
2. Inception- One of my most anticipated movies of the year, and it surpassed my expectations. I love films that make you think and that make me emotional, and this was both.
3. Sunshine- It's flawed, sure. But it's also one of my favorite movies now. The climax of this film gives me chills, and there are a few scenes that are absolutely some of the most beautiful and heartwrenching moments I've seen in any film.
Runner Up: (Tie) Memento, (500) Days of Summer

Animated
1. Toy Story 3-I really can't place this film above the other two, but it did provoke more philosophizing from me than any other film. I think on the whole that it stabbed my heart more than won a place in it--affected me profoundly but I'm not keen to watch it again and again, that'd be too painful XD
2. How To Train Your Dragon-I expected this film to be lame, and by the time it got to the 'Hiccup drawing Toothless' scene I was practically in tears because I was so happy and completely taken aback. I really truly love this movie, and would say without hesitation that it's one of my favorite films, period. Gorgeously animated, completely endearing characters, a bittersweet ending that shocked me and was basically the perfect icing on the cake--This is a winner.
3. Tangled-This is the film that probably is closest to my heart, though. The animation is stunningly beautiful, the story basically exactly the sort of thing I love best--self sacrifice, humor, drama, a cute romance, great characters, Alan Menken music, fantastic songs, lotsa teary-eye moments, magic, 'twoo wuv'--I could go on and on, but I have already in the past, so basically I'll just make it clear that my three favorite animated films are basically tied for number one this year for different reasons. Yeah, I can do that!
Runner Up: The Secret of Kells-A less-well-known film, but the hand-drawn animation is stunning and the story is excellent. Add to that an enormous dose of Celtic goodness and you have a winner! I really recommend you track this one down and give it a watch.

And below is a full list of my 10 favorite reads of 2010. I'm not even going to try to crown one of them king, though. Note that some are Books of the Month, and some aren't. Since I'm just grouping my reading into one year instead of separate months for this final reckoning, there are a few times where I read multiple books in one month that I liked better than another book that got the BotM title due to lesser reading material during its month. I'd recommend reading all of the below:

The Mark of the Horse Lord
The Shield Ring
Neverwhere
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
Fahrenheit 451
All Creatures Great and Small
Something Wicked This Way Comes
The Caves of Steel
Prospero's Children
The American Revolution

So there you have it, my favorite films and books of 2010! Now here's to a brilliant 2011, hm? I know I'm super late on posting my newest reviews--or, indeed, anything this year!--so I'll be fixing that over the course of the next few days. My reading is off to a good start though, thanks to some Christmas money and a few trips to the local library. Book reviews for January will be posted soon.

As to film, I'm mostly excited about The Hobbit which of course isn't even being released this year! But there's plenty of movies I really want to see this year, too, most of them frivolous sorts: Captain America, Thor, Cowboys and Aliens, Sherlock Holmes 2 . . . We'll see how many I actually go watch.

Righto, I hope your 2011 is treating you kindly so far, and I look forward to continuing my blogging once more!

Book Reviews for November

2010-12-22T02:00:00.000-08:00

Not much reading done this month, as I was busy with Oireachtas. I still got some reading in though, mostly fantasy books. I've been in a 'light reading' sort of mood. Here we go then:

The Naming, by Alison Croggon
This is a very entertaining book. It reads as though Croggon subconsciously absorbed all her favorite fantasy novels and then regurgitated them into one plotline unknowingly. This should irritate me, but instead it amuses me a lot. The characters are fun at least, even though there's actual dialogue and events clearly ripped from other, far superior works: I recognized The Lord of the Rings and The Tombs of Atuan easily, and then shades of others. Another thing to giggle at is how very often characters seem to drink alcohol. Anyway, despite all the story's very evident faults, I enjoyed it and want to read the rest of the series now. Hopefully Croggon emphasizes her own originality more later on?

1602, by Neil Gaiman
A graphic novel reimagining of Marvel superheroes as men and women living in . . . 1602 AD. The premise alone makes me happy, and the writing is superb. I'd probably enjoy it more if I knew more about all the superheroes featured, but even as I am it's great. The art's pretty good. Overall it's fun but not going onto my favorite books list.

The Pirate's Son, by Geraldine McCaughrean
I can't even remember much about this book, which shows you how poorly written it was. Not worth your time.

The Time Machine, by HG Wells
This is the first Wells book I've ever read, and I enjoyed it a lot. It's pretty short, which surprised me . . . Wells' explanation of how the time machine works was brilliant in its simplicity, I really liked that. Also his portrayal of the future was very thought-provoking and entertaining. I liked the ending too. If you like science fiction I'd recommend this.

Book of the Month:

Prospero's Children, by Jan Siegel

This is an excellent fantasy novel. Siegel is an author who understands the power of words; the novel reads like poetry. The characters are strongly and fully developed and the storyline is fully engrossing and unfolds beautifully. The pacing is perfect, there's nail-biting tension and intense emotion. It also has a distinctly British flavor, which I love. There's mysterious characters, a dark old gothic mansion, time travel, and more. The story did let me down severely towards the end, but the main plot remained sound, so overall it was definitely one of the best fantasy books I've ever read. Highly recommended.

'Tangled' Art!

2010-12-19T23:38:00.000-08:00

I did the line-art with my quill and ink, and then colored it digitally. This piece I did before I even saw the movie, heh.

This one I drew after I saw the movie . . . He's showing off his not-super-strengthed hand, I guess? xD

Also after the movie, obviously.
Cupcakes and dancing and bookstores and fiddle music and . . . basically one of my favorite parts.
I did this with quill and ink as well, I like parchment doodling! And then I colored it with colored pencils. I never really used colored pencils before, so I don't think it turned out as well as it should have, but I wanted a sort of soft and fun pencil look, so I'm happy with it overall. It's colorful anyway :D

I'll try to do another artwork post soon; I've got plenty of not Tangled-related stuff lying around. I even did my first ever watercolor painting today! Which turned out . . . pretty good considering I know zilch about technique and so basically learned as I went along, hahahahaha.

The Dinosaurs Are Coming Back!

2010-12-17T18:51:00.000-08:00

I just found out that the British television show 'Primeval' will be returning on New Year's Day! I am so ridiculously excited about this, because series 3 ended long ago and on a cliffhanger, the show was canceled for a little while, and then was resurrected, and basically it's been a long time of waiting for more of it. It's not the best show out there, but it is one of the ones I'm most fond of, because--uh, it's got humor, geekery, and dinosaurs! As I've mentioned in a past post, dinosaurs rampaging through the modern world was a frequent nightmare of mine when I was a kid, so I adore watching it on television now, hehehehe.

I'm of course worried about the new characters and whether they'll be as good as all the other ones have been so far, but I'm so excited I don't even really care. Becker, Connor, Lester, and Abby will be back, so it should be good :D

And did I mention the dinosaurs?

Christmas Feis!

2010-12-12T21:18:00.000-08:00

Thank goodness for the written--or typed--word, because I'm coughing so much right now I wouldn't be able to manage saying all this aloud with my actual, you know, voice. I wasn't too dizzy today, which is a huge relief, but the coughing is not getting better at all. It might be getting worse. I had a hard time getting through the Christmas feis today, but it was worth it in the end because it was so much fun seeing everyone and all. I managed to win my treble reel composition competition--wow, that sounds pretentious, hehe. Basically the competition rules were you invent your own treble reel step and then perform it, and I got first, which still amazes me because I liked other people's steps too and I didn't even really get to practice mine or anything or even finish composing it until right before the competition today because I've been sick! I'm very grateful. The prize was a box of Cadbury chocolates (YES) and fifty dollars, so . . . heading back to see "Tangled" again? Maybe! :D

Most memorable moment of the day, however, was when I brushed against a pillar, and glanced at the arm that had done the brushing to see it COVERED IN ANTS. Hundreds of ants. I'm still shuddering; I hate ants something fierce. I don't even know how they transferred so fast. Uugh, I managed to sweep and shake them all off in a kind of frenzied panic, but I've still got this horror that there's still some on me, somewhere. I hate ants.

The weather was really warm today. It didn't feel like almost-Christmas at all.

Vertigo

2010-12-08T11:45:00.000-08:00

No, not the Hitchcock film. I've been feeling terribly dizzy and light-headed for four days now. It's aggravating because I'm supposed to be inventing some Irish dance steps this week for my school's Christmas feis on Sunday, but it's hard for me to get any actual practice in because when I try to dance I lose my balance. I managed to get about twenty minutes of work in this morning before I just felt too sick to continue. Bother.

Christmas time is almost here! We've put up our Christmas tree, the same artificial one we use each year. I wish we could have a real tree, but it isn't as safe for the little kids and I have a grandmother who's allergic to pines. Our fake one will still look festive once we hang all the ornaments and ribbons. Right now the little kids are enjoying throwing beanie babies into the branches.

I really want to watch "Tangled" again, but I probably won't be able to because my parents want to watch it and take my two youngest siblings (not counting HR), so I'd have to stay home to mind the baby. I've been listening to the soundtrack constantly, though, and even doing a little fanart because really I'm that obsessed. I'll try to make time in the near future to do a separate blog post for art I've done lately. There hasn't been really that much, because I've been busier with writing, but still. It's difficult having so many activities one is interested in pursuing, because there's always the danger of spreading oneself too thin!

A Little More NaNoWriMo

2010-12-06T00:52:00.000-08:00

I'm currently abed with some kind of sickness, I think it's a cold--basically I cough with every other breath, am extremely dizzy, and overall just don't feel good. Thank goodness for the "Tangled" soundtrack and fuzzy bathrobes.

Anyway, I'm trying to make the most of being ill by writing more of my NaNoWriMo novel. I made the 50,000 word count in November (insert celebratory dance here), but I didn't actually finish the book, so . . . I'm still working on it. My goal is to finish it by the end of December.

I'm not posting the full book on this blog, as I mentioned earlier, but I thought I'd post the occasional chapter or two, so here's another chapter! I posted chapter one earlier; this is chapter five, and it ends part one of the book. Enjoy.

Chapter 5: The Outlaw’s Hand

She understood, by the time they neared the outlaws’ camp enough to see the warm glow of its hidden fires, why they had chosen to make this desolate place their refuge. The treacherous sliding of the stones beneath each step, and their sharpness, meant it would be nigh upon impossible to guide any horses in this direction, severely crippling the king’s military advantage. The tumbled maze of stone was also a perfect place for concealment, filled with shadows and crannies, tall shelfs of rock she had to crane her head back to see the tops of, and so many winding ways around the stones it would be extremely difficult to attempt any organized, concentrated attack, even if the soldiers were afoot. A thousand questions burned upon her tongue, but she knew well enough to keep silent once the two outlaws had agreed to escort her to their hidden encampment. They did not trust her, she knew, and to ask any questions like the ones she really wanted answers to--whether they always lived in this place or moved around, how many men were currently fighting under One-hand’s direction, what their own names were, and whether they had featured in any of the stories she knew--would be the utter height of folly. The very fact that they had not blindfolded her or made any attempt to disguise their passage was ominous. She knew enough from her talks with Kerl to know that they were not merely being polite; if she proved untrustworthy, she would not be leaving their camp alive.

She processed all this without fear, the same dispassionate resolve that she had felt while revealing the scar at her throat still with her, like a glass she was watching the world through, sharpening every crack in the stones, every shadow, every sound, but distancing her too, so that though she was keenly, brilliantly focused and aware of everything around her, none of it felt real enough to touch. Even her peril would have seemed far away if she had not been so acutely aware of how closely her guides were watching her every movement.

The tallest of those guides, the man who had been first to speak to her and who seemed to be the leader of the two, flickered a grin her way as though sensing the direction her thoughts were tending. It was not an invitation to friendship, but it was not an unkind smile, either.

“The sentries on this side have already seen us approaching. They will have signaled the fires; you are expected.”

“I did not see anyone,” she said, startled into replying. His grin became a little less guarded, a little more genuinely amused.

“That is the point,” he said.

They reached the firelit circle of the camp much more abruptly than she had anticipated; one moment she could see nothing but the rumor of light, and the next it was all around her. It was very quiet, but in a hollow, expectant way which betrayed that the men sitting around the fires or lounging idly against the surrounding rocks had only lately fallen silent--in anticipation of her arrival, she realized. They were all looking towards her, most of them quite openly, their faces all slightly blurred and seemingly identical in the weird-patterning play of fire and dark. Her guides led her forward into the midst of the men, who all moved aside and out of her path, the same look of intent interest on each face, of curiosity, but without a word spoken. Then the bearded man held out a hand to prevent her from walking further, and the one who had smiled at her continued to pick his way through the rings of fire alone, moving from one to the other like a cat moving from stone to stone across a running stream. She heard a few of the men murmur questions as he passed them, and one laughed, but he made no reply, and soon he had gone beyond her sight behind a standing stone to where yet more small fires blazed. She took a deep breath and, not knowing where to look, let her eyes wander without paying much heed to where, being more intent upon her right hand which she still held loosely near the pocket where her mother’s ring was sewn and her knife was concealed.

She did not have to wait long. Soon the man returned, and with a strange look at her which she did not know how to read, he spoke. She had expected him to speak softly, and so was startled when he instead used a raised voice, deep but clear and carrying. He was speaking not only to her, but also for the mens’ benefit.

“You will come with me, lady. Cole, you are to return to the outer lines, and if the men have questions, tell them as little as you can but enough to satisfy them. Understood?”

“You are understood, Martin,” the bearded outlaw said, with a curt little nod, and he turned at once back towards the darkness and disappeared into it, almost silently, his feet sure upon the treacherous stones. She turned back to face the man he had called Martin, and the question must have been clear upon her face for he offered her a little smile again as he beckoned her to follow him.

“He is waiting,” he answered.

The many glittering eyes that had watched her so far followed her as she followed Martin, and she knew it was because although she felt as though she was stepping into a story, for all the men here it was as though she had stepped out of one. How many times, she thought, had they whispered amongst themselves about their leader’s capture, and wondered how it was that he had been taken? Had he told them all? How much did they know? All the agonizing days back home in Kope when the stories had been building around her and Gold-Head and what had transpired that night in the tavern, she had never once thought of the kind of stories which would be building just as surely here, in the place where he came from.

In the dimness between the fires she stumbled, bruising her ankles, but she did not accept Martin’s outheld hand. It was a much smaller fire that he led her to, separate from the others by just enough distance to be noticeable, and she saw only a few men sitting around it, black shapes with no faces, or only half-faces, limned and carved with red light, and one held a flute of silver in his hand, and one was leaning with his face in his arms as though asleep, but none were speaking, and she looked from one to the next in a strange almost-frantic anticipation, eager but shrinking, and shy but not abashed--

And then he was there--

Dangerous things are not always beautiful, Kerl had said. Beautiful things are not always dangerous, she had replied. But there were also those rare things which are both dangerous and beautiful, and those were the most deadly of all.

She was surprised to see Tamarin looking so much the same as he had all that time ago--oh, a lifetime, it seemed!-- from the clothes he wore to the color of the firelight upon his face and in his eyes. And here she stood, guarded by a swordsman and in peril of her life, firelight upon her face also and her heart pounding. It was all the same, she realized, and she must look much the same also, despite her unwomanly garb, but she felt different. She had chosen freely, this time, and had won a smile from the man who they had called Martin, and she was not afraid.

One-hand, he had been renamed, and as he stood to greet her she felt her eyes drawn to the empty space where his sword hand had been, shaken to see that emptiness even though she had known she would find it. The actual flesh and bone of his arm was hidden by his long sleeve, so she saw no scarring, but that was almost worse. She looked up and saw that he was watching the direction her eyes had gone with a wry, bitter patience, and bit her lip in anger at herself. He had clearly had to withstand many gawping stares towards his empty wrist before, and her own staring had done nothing to commend her to him. His eyes were shadowed, but there was a hint of sarcasm in his strange voice when he spoke.

“So,” he said, “my hand has returned to me. Somewhat prettier than before, too.”

She had imagined, all the time she had wandered in the wilderness searching for him, what he would say and what she would reply, but she had not imagined this. He was watching her face very closely, and so she found herself speaking the plain truth, instead of any of the pretty or impressive speeches she had composed in her head before.

“I waited all winter,” she said, “and I have been unhappy in knowing the debt I owe, but they said you had died, and so I could do nothing. When I learned the truth, I had to come.“

He made a dismissive gesture with his one remaining hand. The movement was graceful, as all his movements were graceful. But it was the grace of a dragon and a swordsman, not a dancer or an artist.

“You need not have come.” he said. “Know that what I did, I would have done for any innocent person those lakshistha dragged into the matter. It was not your affair, and it was not your blood to spill. That is all.”

And it is still not your affair, he seemed to be warning her, though there was no reproach in his voice, only the laconic, blunt gentility of a man who says plainly what he means to say and no more. And, of course, a swift flash of anger that she recognized in the word lakshistha even if she did not recognize the word itself. Later she would learn it was a curse of a particularly venomous kind, taken from the tongue of the Ali’oi of the eastern kingdom. Tamarin kel-Athor, as he was named in that land, was indeed far-traveled. Lakshistha is translated literally as ‘slow burning’, as in, ‘They Who Burn Slowly In Aara’. Though courteous enough to her, Tamarin held a bounty of gold for his head for good reason, and he did not forget nor forgive an injury.

“I know you would have done the same for any person,” she answered him. “But I happened to be that person. And even though I became involved only by chance, I wanted to apologize.”

“Apology accepted,” he said, not angrily, not gratefully, just spoken words with nothing fathomable behind them.

Even so, she felt the dismissal like a chill, and forgoing all attempts at niceties went directly to the heart of her reason for seeking him out, suddenly not caring that the other men could hear her.

“Let me stay with you,” she said.

To his credit, he did not look surprised. After a short pause, he nodded towards Martin without looking at him.

“Stay here, brother. You,” he said to her, “follow me.”

He led her a short distance away, far enough to speak in relative privacy beyond the circle of light cast by the fire. When they halted, they stood closer to each other than they had before, and she did not know what to say. She waited, sensing that he needed to be the one to speak first. After some seeming hesitation, he did.

“There are women who take the outlaw name,” he said, looking tired. “And of them I even have two under my command. But it is not common. And there are dangers to this life, which you should not accept lightly, no matter what debt you think you owe me.”

“I do not accept lightly,” she said. “I have given up everything I had to find you. And I trust you.”

“You trust me?” This is where, in the stories, he would have laughed at her, but although the slight bitterness had crept back into his voice again, he remained serious. “And yet you stand before me with a knife in your hand. Yes, I know. And Martin knew, and Cole knew. It is part of this life; either we are observant and survive, or we are careless and . . .”

She was careful to not look at his maimed wrist, and he did not finish his sentence. She was a little embarrassed at the transparency of her attempt at self-defense, but she tried not to show it. The little blade glinted as she drew it from her pocket and held it out to him. He did not take it.

“So you knew that I was armed, and yet you left Martin behind.” She said, “And that could mean, as I see it, any one of two things: Either you are confident that, even with one hand, you could easily subdue me if I sought to slay you--which confidence I am fairly sure is well-merited; I am no swordswoman yet--; or you trust me.”

She drew a quick breath.

“They would have killed me. All my life I have lived as one of the small people in the world, and yet I never really realized fully what that meant until the king’s man nearly killed me, and then when he did not, paid me for my time. I was a seamstress before, and after that night I became handmaiden to a fine lady, and she treated me kindly in her own fashion, but it makes no difference no matter how I try. I could never be happy like that again. They did not know me, and would have killed me; you did not know me, and yet you gave your freedom and your hand for me. Do not send me back to their world, with that knowledge still weighing upon me. Let me remain here. I will learn to fight for you, in place of the hand you lost; I will serve you faithfully, and stand against your enemies steadfastly, for it will not be servitude, not when you are the only one who treated me like a creature of worth, and when I owe you my life.”

“You need not know how to fight. All you need is a strong enough hatred. Is there anything you hate enough to fight against?” He asked, watching her closely with something almost like a smile tugging at the left corner of his mouth.

“Yes,” she said.

“Look at me,” he said. She obeyed, and he looked long and searchingly into her face, as she thought of William the captain calling She’ll do, from the bright open doorway, and of the weight of a silver penny in her hand. At last he stepped back.

“It may be,” he said quietly, “that when we think of hate we think of the same things, you and I.”

There was a little night wind skittering amongst the stones, and the men at the fire had begun talking amongst themselves again, the low rumbling of their voices indistinct at their distance. The moon had risen above the thick clouds it had been clogged in and in response to both its silvery light and the reminder it gave of how late the hour was getting, the outlying fires were beginning to be stamped out. He looked at her.

“What is your name?” He asked.

“Aude,” she replied, shifting the weight of her rucksack from one shoulder to the other.

“Then I give you welcome, Aude, and--I thank you.”

They made their way back to his fire together, she walking upon his right hand side, and the voices of his captains rose like moths towards a light at Tamarin’s return.

Disney's Tangled Soundtrack TRACK 18 "The Tear Heals" (Score)

2010-12-04T23:37:00.000-08:00

I get more emotional every single time I listen to it. I don't know why. Gaaaah . . .

A Spoiler-Free Review of "Tangled"

2010-11-28T00:43:00.000-08:00

First of all, let me just say it right away: I LOVED this movie. It is now my third-favorite Disney princess film, after "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Little Mermaid". Perhaps even tied with "The Little Mermaid". There's only one thing holding it back from placing higher than Mermaid: the songs. They're fun, and sometimes beautiful, and fit just fine within the framework of the film, but they aren't Ashman/Menken quality. I'm still absolutely buying the soundtrack and have had a few songs stuck in my head the past few days, particularly "Mother Knows Best (Reprise)", "I See the Light", and one pricelessly hilarious line from "I've Got a Dream". I also was a little disappointed that the last shot of the film *MINOR SPOILER* was of a character other than the two protagonists, *END SPOILER* but I can forgive the film that because the rest of it was so splendid.

All right, now a brief summary of reasons why I loved "Tangled". I do mention a couple extremely minor spoilers, but have included warnings where they appear, so if you don't want to read them, you can easily navigate around them. They do not give away anything essential to the plot. :)

1. Rapunzel. Not much is really given away about her personality in the trailers. It was a surprise to me, therefore, to realize at the end of the film that she's somehow become my second-favorite Disney princess--yes, beating out Ariel! I think the difference between her and Ariel is while Ariel was willful, Rapunzel is sweeter, though no less brave. Rapunzel is both hilarious and heartwrenching to watch because she is constantly attempting to define herself throughout the film, having been trapped in her tower all her life without any way of connecting with other people, apart from being emotionally abused by the villain of the story, Mother Gothel. What I really liked about her is how often she acts not on rationalized thought, but instead upon intuition, a 'gut feeling', if you will. Interacting outside her tower is an entirely new experience to her, and sometimes she's scared, and sometimes she's confused, but she's quick and intelligent and even though she has to slowly gain confidence in herself, she never hesitates in moments of trouble to do what she instinctively feels she must. The entire movie she's basically making one leap of faith after another, and that's sometimes taken advantage of by other characters, but it also is what saves her and develops her. One of my favorite moments of the film *MINOR SPOILER* is where she starts an impromptu dance in a market square and ends the dance in Flynn's arms; there's this shot of her dancing with a blissful smile on her face, her eyes closed and face uplifted, which to me was pure poetry, and really summarized her character for me. After trying to meet him throughout the dance, she only manages it with her eyes closed, letting her feet carry her as they will. *END SPOILER* She's a wonderfully endearing, complex, sometimes sad, sometimes hilarious character.

2. Flynn. I can't say too much about his character without heading into spoiler territory, but it was very enjoyable to watch his character arc progress. He and Rapunzel basically make the cutest couple ever, and he's both a hilarious character in his own right and surprisingly easy to form an emotional attachment to considering how little backstory he gets in comparison to Rapunzel. After watching some trailers I was worried he would be obnoxious, but he wasn't at all, so no worries there.

3. Mother Gothel. Again, I cannot say too much about this villian without giving away important plot points. I will mention something I found very interesting, however; I thought she was an extremely wicked villain, and quite scary, definitely one of my favorite Disney antagonists now. My brother, however, wasn't that impressed by her; he prefers Frollo and Ursula. So what I'm wondering, is whether she was designed specifically to work better with a female audience? I loved her subtleties and sweet venom, but he didn't find them that interesting I think. I won't say more for fear of spoilering, so just let me know what you think, if you've watched the movie.

4. The music. Alan Menken can do no wrong? Eh, maybe. There were moments where I missed the chillingly powerful beauty of "Beauty and the Beast"'s score, sure. But the more I think on the music in this film--a slightly more intimate, fun feel pervaded most of it--, the more it seems to fit it. And there were plenty of chill-inducing moments, too *MINOR SPOILER*; watch for the dancing scene, a beautiful moment involving Rapunzel's parents, and many of the darker scenes in the film, as well as one sweet romantic moment too. *END SPOILER* The magic is still there, definitely. The track 'Kingdom Dance' on the soundtrack is one of my favorite pieces of music ever.

5. The animal characters. I don't really have a peeve against animal sidekicks like so many people seem to, but whatever. These guys don't talk, but their facial and body language is plenty eloquent enough. I was worried they'd distract from the human story, but overall they enhance it, so yay :)

6. The animation. I watched "Tangled" in 3d, and I would say it is definitely worth spending the extra money for. The animation is astounding. The characters are as expressively and gracefully animated as hand-drawn characters from the Disney Golden Age, and that old artistic feel of 2d is somehow apparent in the scenery and location designs too, but all with the added warmth and detail and vibrant color of CGI. I honestly don't know how they did it. This is a CGI film that feels 100% fairytale, and I thank Glen Keane for that fervently. Rapunzel's hair is gorgeous, and speaking as a girl with very long hair I really liked watching how it moved and how it looked when it was wet, etc. All very well done. I no longer can really say I wish it was in 2d, hand-drawn animation, which I suppose is the highest praise I can bestow.

7. The story. Obviously I can't say anything about this really. But let's just say that I'm a sucker for romance, adventure, and self-sacrifice, and this story had them all.

All right, so that's all I'm going to say right now! I might have been able to think of more earlier, but I'm tired now and it's late so I'm just going to end here and get back to NaNoWriMo-ing. If you have watched "Tangled", comment and let me know what you thought! And if you have not watched it--what are you waiting for? Go ASAP; this is not a film you want to miss.

Book Reviews for October

2010-11-23T13:15:00.000-08:00

I'm flooding the blogosphere with posts today, but hopefully no one's getting irritated at my sudden talkativeness yet. I would have put this off a day or two in interest of nice post spacing, but then I figured that it'd probably be best to post my Book Reviews for October before November is over, so here you go!

How to Train Your Dragon, by Cressida Cowell
I nearly chose this to be my Book of the Month. I knew nothing about this book series before I heard of the movie adaptation that came out earlier this year, and then I didn't even want to watch the movie. I ultimately did, however, and what a glorious surprise it was. "How to Train Your Dragon", the movie, is now one of my favorite films ever. That being said, even though I loved the film, I had read that it was basically nothing like the book it's 'based' upon, so I was not interested in reading the book at all either. When my younger sister got it for her birthday, however, I caved and decided to give it a try. The result? I know can proudly say I love both the book and the film. Yes, they are very different, but each is unexpectedly moving and funny in their own way. I strongly recommend this book. The author's writing style is very refreshing--witty, surprisingly poignant at times, and never dumbed down for children in the way that so many kids' books are nowadays. There's a smattering of crude juvenile humor in it which I could have done without, but overall it was such an unexpectedly delightful read, I loved it anyway. There are moments of real beauty here, and I'm interested in reading more of the series now.

The Road to Civil War, by Brian Michael Bendis
My brother is very fond of graphic novels and even attempting to start his own webcomic. He's also a big fan of Marvel, and so he borrowed this from the library. I read it just because . . . eh, because I'll read pretty much anything as long as it's within grabbing distance. I am not well-versed in the ways of comic books, so I can't really compare this with any others, but I did enjoy it. There was a lot going on in the storyline, the art was mostly excellent, and there were some moments that made me chuckle aloud. Pacing was very good, and the script was stellar. It made for an entertaining half-hour or so of reading and looking at the pictures.

Flashforward, by Robert J. Sawyer
I'm a dabbler in science-fiction. If it gets too science-y, I lose interest. If it gets too silly, I lose interest because I can't believe in it any more. For me, the characters should always be the focal point of the story. So at first this seemed like a real winner to me: a story about a fascinatingly novel concept, with strong, sympathetic characters and a clever mind game running throughout the book. You might know the general premise from the television show which was loosely inspired by this book (the two are not much alike at all): During a science experiment the entire planet loses consciousness for a few minutes, everyone's collective consciousness leaping forward in time a few decades. When people return to the present, all sorts of scientific, sociological, and philosophical ramifications occur. All this was brilliantly entertaining, but then I felt the story fell apart in the last few chapters. I find this happens to most science-fiction books I read: they are let-downs at the ending either because the plot is suddenly vapid without the science, or the science flat without the plot. This was the latter, and what a shame it was. I cared intensely about the characters at the beginning of the book, but by the end I didn't care about them at all. Still, if you are a fan of science-fiction you might enjoy this book. It does contain scatterings of sexual content and language, so be warned.

Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon
This book hurt me more than any other I read during October. There was so much going for it--a historical time-traveling story going from post-WWII England to 1800's Scotland? YES PLEASE!--and so much research was obviously done, and so many characters were almost interesting--but Gabaldon absolutely butchers it. In the end the plot is just an excuse to write about graphic sex practialy every few pages, and that was such a heartbreaker for me because the book could have been wonderful. I have absolutely no desire to read this book again, nor any other part of the series. How sad.

The Widow and the King, by John Dickenson
This is a difficult book to review. The imagery and style are generally beautiful, a little reminiscent of Ursula K LeGuin and Madeline L'Engle, but distinct from each, and there were many elements to the story itself that I liked a lot. The story, however, flowed instead of progressing, so despite a large variety of characters I was interested in and liked, I ended the story feeling like I had been cheated out of knowing them better, as the author never really delves into any one deep enough, instead spreading himself too thin between them all. The story skips from person to person without letting you know how big a role each person will have, which is ain interesting narrative experiment but in the end just made for uncomfortable reading, as I couldn't tell who to form an emotional attachment to. Also there was a major character I simply couldn't care for until the last few chapters of the book, and a minor character that flitted on the edge of being major the entire book who I really liked and was frustrated by how his role in the story ultimately played out. Some serious editing and tightening of the story wuold have made this book amazing; as it is, I recommend it and am interested in reading the author's other book, but am still sad that it was not anywhere near as good as it should have been.

The American Revolution, by Bruce Lancaster
A history book is my Book of the Month! Who'd have thought it? But it's true! If you are interested in learning about the American Revolution at all, please read this book. It's an absolute gem and definitely one of the best history books I've ever read. Very clear to understand, solidly researched, and it manages to draw forth emotion from the reader, to make the reader invest his or herself in the events and people described without straying away from facts in favor of narrative power. I loved it. For instance, when Lancaster is describing the secret nighttime American retreat from New York, he writes of the boatsmen who ferried the army across the river: "this performance [all night ferrying men 2 miles across the river in constant danger of British artillery fire] of Glover's and Hutchinson's men had none of the desperate intoxication of the charge of Lord Sterling, Gist, and the Marylanders, none of the bitter heroism of unnamed, uncounted men who turned to face bayonets with empty muskets. But it had a grim, dogged glory of its own" (149). You see that? That, right there, is poetry, my friends. In a history book. I actually got emotional while reading a passage near the end of the book describing the American army triumphant. I copied it out because I loved it so much, and so can include it here for you as well:

“There was a new tenseness in the crowds of onlookers as they turned to look at the bronzed, fringe-shirted men, staring in sudden comprehension that pages of their on history were being leafed through before their eyes. Here came Lafayette with Vose and Wyllys and Laurens, bringing on the New Englanders. James Linton led out New Yorkers under Goose van Schaick and Philip van Cortlandt, Jerseymen with Elias Dayton, Rhode Islanders with Jeremiah Olney. The trim panache of Anthony Wayne ushered in Walter Stewart’s Pennsylvanians, and loose-striding Virginians swung by under Thomas Gaskins, followed by Mordecai Gist’s Marylanders. Traces hissed, ironshod wheels thudded over sand, and here came fat Henry Knox heading the Continental artillery, with John Lamb of New York and Virginia’s Edward Carrington, released by Nathanael Greene to serve on Virginia soil.
The passage was dazzling, hypnotic. People stood on tiptoe to pick out leaders who, up to now, had been largely names on a smeared newssheet. They looked for Parson Muhlenberg, so closely identified with their own troops, rigid Baron von Steuben, the Georgia Colonel Samuel Elbert, the devoted Chevalier Duportail, or Moses Hazen of the Canadian regiment. Now they saw them all, men of whom they had heard or read, under whom or with whom sons or husbands or brothers had served.
Tramp of foot, thud of hoof and grind of wheel seemed to mutter out the whole story of these men and their absent fellows, of the American army in which they served, and the cause for which they, and their country with them, had endured so much for so long. There were sinister undercurrents that told of divided counsels, of selfishness local or widespread, of men who had made a profit from the sufferings and deaths of others--harder tones of plots, betrayal, and downright treason. But there were other, brighter chords telling of earlier days when men shouted that there must be no more Virginians or New Englanders or Carolinians, “but all of us Americans!” Repeated were the uneasy yet determined tones of Minutemen waiting on scores of village greens through an April night of ’75. The rowlocks of the Marbleheaders could be heard, creaking as they saved a beaten army to fight again. Icy ruts crunched under gun wheels along a winter road to Trenton, and unseen forest trails crackled as men glided forward to close on Burgoyne. The voice of a British prisoner of war could be heard, telling of a wide, poverty-stricken district where whole families had but one blanket, having parted with the others “to supply their soldiers, yet you would be surprized with what cheerfulness they bend to [such sacrifices] to obtain that idol, Independency.”
So harsh and ugly tones, bravely triumphant or eternally enduring tones told the story of a people and its army, that army whose men were always too few and were always just enough” (336-7).

This book is interesting, informative, and poetic; it makes the times and peoples of the American Revolution real and immediate, stirs real emotion in the reader, and is extremely well-researched and supplemented with a grand variety and selection of quotes from contemporary materials. And so it is absolutely my Book of the Month.

Doctor Who Day

2010-11-23T13:12:00.001-08:00

Is today!

So go brush off your favorite episode or two and make some TARDIS-shaped cookies or wear a bowtie or something. And in a little more than a month the Doctor will be back in the Christmas special, too. Huzzah!

I'm going to watch 'Caves of Androzani' and make a pot of tea, I think. It's suddenly gotten much colder here; I'm currently wearing two pairs of socks and two sweaters, which just doesn't usually happen in this area. And my toes are still like ice. Bleh.

"Tangled" Tomorrow!

2010-11-23T00:48:00.000-08:00

I am so extremely excited about this film, it's unbelievable. It's an obsession. I'm terrified it won't live up to my expectations. Augh, why do I do this to myself?

Here's a shiny new trailer--Japanese, no less!--which is a million times better than the standard American trailers. Why couldn't the American trailer been more like this one in tone? It gave both me AND my 16-year old brother goosebumps. Take a look. The audio is in English, never fear, although the voiceover is Japanese. I tried to get my brother to translate for me, but he was able to manage translating only about 60% of it.

I've been kidding my younger sister and saying that we shouldn't comb our hair until we watch the film. My younger sister is 10 and has never had a haircut, and my own hair is down to my knees, so we are major Rapunzel fans.

Sacramento was gorgeous and fun. The drive there and back went pretty well, all things considered--we got a new 12-seater van, which was really strange, especially since I was sitting in the back and found out the hard way that my parents in the front seats can't hear me when I'm way back there unless I yell at the top of my lungs. HR, my 6-week-old baby sister, cried sporadically but overall was extremely well-behaved. I'm very proud of her.

I did not recall in my championship, but I did place 22nd. To be ranked 22nd in the entire Western Region is not a bad thing; sure I wish I had placed high enough to be recalled, but I am grateful I was able to dance at all, and enjoyed myself. I haven't been to any big competitions in a long while.

My little siblings weren't that excited about the competitions, since they go to feises all the time; dance is old news now. Instead, they were excited about other things: a horde of cows we saw (and smelled) on the drive; trying to translate the Latin painted on the walls of the cathedral we attended Mass in; howling with laughter when the wind blew my umbrella inside-out during a rainstorm; seeing magpies for the first time; collecting the bright-red fallen maple leaves. I liked all that too, as well as the cold weather; it was nippy, but so refreshing a change, especially seeing all the fall colors.

There was a basketball court at the hotel we stayed at, so my dad got a basketball from the front desk and we all trooped outside to play. The littlest kids have never played basketball before, so it was fun teaching them and seeing them attempt to dribble and shoot a ball which is basically as big as them. Then we had an impromptu game after dividing up into teams. It was fun until my 16-year old brother for some reason decided to pass the ball to me by throwing it as hard as he could at my face while I was standing about two feet away from him. I was afraid I had broken my nose at first, but it seems okay now, though still very sore if I touch it. That was the end of the game for me, anyway.

Now I will spend the rest of the month focusing on exercising, "Tangled" (I am saving to buy the soundtrack and graphic novel), Thanksgiving, and my NaNoWriMo novel. Said novel is currently only at 15,000 words, partly because I spent the last week or so devoting all my writing energies to writing a birthday story for one of my sisters (it ended up being 38 pages long), and partly because of how dance has been eating up my time this month. I wrote a lot more on the car trip though, and I'm determined to get back on track. Somehow. I'll do it. I WILL.

"Tangled"!

2010-11-15T00:32:00.001-08:00

First of all, I am soooooo excited for this movie, it's almost absurd. As a "Beauty and the Beast" devotee I have the bar raised incredibly high for "Tangled", but I honestly think it'll clear that bar just fine. Everything I know about it just makes me fall in love with it more. Have you seen the clips Disney has released?

Only three words really to say about this clip: ALAN MENKEN MUSIC. Oh, and Rapunzel is adorable.

And the animation is beautiful too!

As for the characters? I LOVE them.

And the songs?

I can't wait to hear them in full! I'm going to be like a little kid at the theater.

If anyone else out there is as excited about this film as I am, here's a few giveaway contests you might be interested in; follow the links for the details: http://tanisharenee.blogspot.com/2010/11/disneys-tangled-giveaway.html and http://thedirtytshirt.com/walt-disney-pictures-tangled-giveaway

Before I can watch "Tangled", however, I have to get through Oireachtas, which is next weekend! I'm extremely nervous, and I'm not sure if it's more terrifying or reassuring to know that this time next week it will all be over. Today was a five-hour dance practice, and I'm still exhausted from that.

So, this will be a very busy week for me. I might not even post again until after the Oireachtas is finished! If that is the case, wish me luck everyone, and see you again on the other side!

NaNoWriMo Novel, chapter 1!

2010-11-05T22:04:00.000-07:00

I will post the entire thing, chapter by chapter as they are completed, on the Radish Room. For those of you who aren't members on that blog, however, I'm going to post excerpts here. Here is the only complete chapter I will be posting, Chapter one.

Working title is "The Outlaw's Hand". I'll try to post a summary later, but I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out exactly how to summarize this story, so we'll just see.

Enjoy, hopefully, and comments are always awesome!

The Outlaw's Hand, Chapter One

The rain fell upon the town in a dogged, dispirited shower too heavy to be properly called a drizzle, but not quite enthusiastic enough to merit the label of torrent. It coursed down roofs of chipped, slanting shingle; soaked thatched roofs until they turned a sodden, dark color promising a healthy growth of mold and mildew in a few weeks; and slipped spitefully down even the flipped-up collars of the few men and women unfortunate enough to be still outdoors, hurrying through the narrow streets from work or to it, without any roof at all. There were not many of them, but such faces that showed were all stamped with an expression remarkably similar to the rain itself: surly and cold.

The largest gathering of people to be seen, numbering maybe fifteen in the darkness, was huddled outside a tavern which gave testament to the sort of clientele it serviced with the absence of any lettering upon the large, crudely painted sign which depicted a green fish stabbed through by a wicked-looking hook, garishly bright blood dripping from its sagging mouth. Some called the place The Bleeding Cod, others The Hooked Fish, but most just called it trouble. Sailors on leave, fishermen newly back in port after days at sea, and other types poor enough to be illiterate and to possess appetite without palate gave the tavern a steady enough stream of business to keep it running comfortably, but it still exuded an air of dilapidation rather than prosperity. Its bulbous and warped glass windows, so old and grimy as to be nearly as opaque as the walls which they were set in, were at the moment filled with a brown-yellow light, like smoke lit underneath by a sullen fire. The puddles in its little courtyard, lit feebly with that light, were iridescent with oily rainbows.

It was not the sort of place which typically drew bystanders, since any men passing were either of the type to go immediately within, or to hasten past before any brawling started. The crowd outside was not dispersing, however, but instead was growing, heedless of the miserable rain. There could have been a few reasons for this phenomenon, the first being the sound of a raised voice inside the building, which instead of being the usual bawdy slurring was sharp, authoritarian, and even through the thick stone walls had a clear accent not commonly heard in seedy port towns. Even more unusual, however, was the large number of horses standing and blowing steam in the slick and oily tavern courtyard. They were sleek, powerful beasts, and obviously well-trained to judge by their remaining in a stolid formation even though only a ragged boy--most likely a street urchin whose services had been bought temporarily with a tossed coin or two--stood guarding them, The rain dripped irreverently from their combed manes and tails, and soaked determinedly into the livery they wore, but even so the richness of the cloth and harness was unmistakable, and gleaming proudly upon each brow, breast, and flank was the winged crest of the king.

The girl, when she came hurrying around the corner and within view of the crowd, might have been dimly aware of some kind of disturbance and excitement taking place at the tavern, but the rain had drawn her hood up and her eyes down, and so she saw neither the horses nor the king’s crest they bore. But she did hear the sudden metallic crash which sounded from within the tavern just as she drew abreast of it, and, startled, she both involuntarily slowed her step and raised her head, taking in all at once both crowd and horses, crest and boy. While fights were not exactly uncommon at The Bleeding Cod, the sounds they made were far more likely to be the heavy, meaty cracking of fist against jaw or the crash of a wooden stool being used as a makeshift club, not the clear, cut-glass music of steel against steel. One of the larger of the bystanders, a wide-mouthed hulk of a man whose pierced ears and seamed, leathery skin clearly marked him as one of the tavern’s would-be patrons, took notice of the girl as she stood frozen and staring, and with the leering nonchalance of a man trying to endear himself to a woman, did his best to fill her in on the situation.

“Ye might want to be finding a different way home tonight, miss. That’s the king’s own men in there, and ‘tain’t for drink they’ve come. Came riding up like a storm they did, and burst straight-way through the door, swords out and shouting, though some went round the back and sides of the place too. I’ve some mates inside, meself, and I was to meet them, or I wouldn’t be here, but it’s not them your fine king’s boys are after; word is they have managed to trap--Hold, and where is it you be going?”--For the girl, instead of lingering to be regaled further concerning what was happening within the tavern, had begun to hurry away down the street, slipping a little on the wet track of mud the dirt street had become and clutching the empty basket she carried tighter in her arms. She had not gone more than two paces, however, when the tavern’s sturdy door was thrown open with such abrupt strength it rebounded with a loud crash from the tavern’s slimy wall. There was a sudden spill of yellow light upon the ground--real light, not the oil-slick dribbling from the windows. For a brief split of a moment, she saw the hard black silhouette of a man in the bright doorway. But then she felt a sudden firm grip upon her arm, and she before she could even cry out she was dragged through the crowd, which scuttled to make way, through the hot, steaming mass of horses in the little yard, and up to the man who still stood in the bright doorway. She had barely the time to comprehend that her captor was mailed and helmed, clearly one of the soldiers who had been in the tavern, and she had only just begun to struggle, when they reached the door. Bewildered and angry, and not a little afraid, she tried to speak to the man waiting there, but he scarcely even glanced at her face. His own face was lean but strong-jawed, and it was ridiculously elongated by the tall helm he wore, upon which a captain’s badge gleamed.

“She’ll do,” he said to the man who held her, in a voice both agitated and hard. “Take her in. Quickly, quickly--”

And the door was yanked shut once more, leaving the bystanders out in the rain once more, and hiding light, king’s soldiers, and girl all from view.

Once inside, the smell of rain and mud and wet stone was instantly replaced with that of sweat, sour drink, grease, and, more peculiarly, onions. But stronger than any of those smells was the smell of blood newly-spilled, so strong it stuck to the back of the throat like smoke, and could be tasted upon the tongue. To one side of the dingy common room, that farthest from the roaring fireplace, was a small and ragged group of men. They were mostly patrons, looking somewhat bemused and foolish, though there was also in their midst an immensely fat, immensely distressed-looking man who was probably the owner of the place. Standing before the windows and blocking the door were the king’s men, their swords up and wary but as yet unmoving. Upon the floor, almost tangled among the soldier’s booted feet, there lay in their still hot and stinking blood the bodies of two men, their skewed helms and the badge upon their surcoats flickering redly in the firelight. And backed into the farthest corner of the room, beside the fireplace, blade still red-running in his hand, stood another man.

He was not tall, but he did not stand like a small man. His clothing was very plain and very weathered, and he wore no cloak, though one hung discarded upon the back of a nearby chair that had somehow managed to stay upright during what looked to have been a fierce struggle. He was not breathing hard and did not seem agitated in any way despite the half-ring of king’s steel drawn up about him, but there was a dangerous, eager light in his eyes that was very like to that of a wild beast which has lately killed and which knows it must very soon kill again. His face was darkened by the sun, as were the backs of his hands and what little could be seen of the proud line of his throat, and his hair was long and dark.

One of the soldiers, the most senior under the captain, had been speaking to him in a low, wheedlingly reasonable tone of voice when the captain returned with the girl. His jaw was grey and stubbled, but his voice did not sound old.

“Give yourself up, man. The place is surrounded. You will not win out alive.”

“I have done so before,” the man replied cooly.

“Ah, but that was in Altressor, was it not? To each land its own, but here we do not allow men who are enemies of our laws and our king to escape. It was over for you the moment our man recognized you in the street.”

“So you told me once before,” the man answered, “and yet there lie two of your men dead. If you are so sure I am taken, why do you hang back as though afraid? I shall tell you: It is because you are afraid. But of the stories, I wonder, or of the man?”

The soldier was saved answering by the captain unceremoniously thrusting the girl forward, his left arm wrapped around her so that her arms were pinioned tightly to her sides, and a thin knife glinting where he held it poised against the quick-beating hollow of her throat.

“Not as afraid as she is, eh, Gold-Head?” He said, coldly. “Drop the sword, or she dies.” 

“Sir! Please, sir, I was only passing, I was not looking, I swear I was not--”

“Silence,” he growled, tightening his grip on her arms. But she still struggled, furious at how pitiful and scared she must look to this roomful of armed men, and terrified all the same. She did not want to die.

“Please, sir, I have to be home, my mother--” She felt the sudden tang of king-forged steel at her throat, and a red wire of pain burning there. With a hideous sound, partway sob and partway gasp, she froze.

The man beside the fireplace had also gone very still, his sword held half-up in guard, but his eyes fixed upon the thread of blood trickling down into the girl’s collar.

“Ah,” he said. He had a peculiar voice. “So not even you can quite entirely believe your own propaganda, Matthew? That’s good.”

He did not wait for a reply. Quite calmly, he let fall the blade, and it rang upon the stones of the hearth. He raised his hands carefully into the air. Before the echo of metal had quite faded, they were upon him. He was slammed down across one of the few tables still standing and whole, and she saw a few quick flashes of silver as various knives and other weaponry were retrieved from his person. His hands they bound with a leather belt.

When, after a surprisingly short time, they dragged him upright again, he was pinioned, weaponless, and breathing a little erratically. There was blood upon his mouth from where his face had struck the tabletop, but his voice and carriage was just as courteous and bitter-calm as they had been before. He nodded to where the girl still stood, rigid in the hands of the man who held her, her eyes as round as coins.

“Go on, Matthew. Let the child go. She has served your purpose.”

Instantly she felt the vice-like grip upon her arms slacken, and the cold touch of metal against her throat was gone. The captain shoved her from him, impatiently rather than contemptuously, and replaced his knife in the leather sheath at his hip. His long face was alight with satisfaction, but his entire attention was now bent upon the captive swordsman, and as quickly as she had been dragged into the whole wretched business, she was now dismissed. Forgotten for the moment, she stood in the firelight, pressing trembling hands to her throat and then staring blindly at the red upon them when she drew them away, as the dead men upon the floor were dragged away and the tavern-keeper, plucking up some feeble semblance of courage at last, began to attempt to needle the captain about paying compensation for the broken furniture and the bloodstains upon his already filthy floor.

They gave her a silver penny for her trouble. Numbly, she took it, and when the youngest of the guardsmen lingered to offer to walk her home, she accepted the offer with the same wordless numbness. Several times on the way he attempted to engage her in conversation, bubbling and ebullient with the triumph at the tavern, but she replied not a word.

A lamp still burned in her mother’s window, when at last she stood upon the threshold of her own house, in her own quiet street. The young guardsman there took his leave of her. He was a handsome lad, with thick auburn hair and green eyes, and even though garbed in the leather and heavy steel of the citadel and king’s service, he walked with a spring in his step.

She stood watching him, dreamlike, until he had quite gone into the darkness, and then, shifting her empty basket upon her arm and smoothing her skirts, she tried to open the front door. More than a half-score times did her shaking fingers slip useless upon the latch. Suddenly, she wished she had cast the silver back in the courteous face of the man who had given it to her, and that she had walked the dark road home on her own.

2010-11-03T00:57:00.000-07:00

I've been wondering today about what book Belle is reading in the beginning of 'Beauty and the BEast'. I mean, Belle is one of my heroes (heroines?) and so I've wanted to know what her favorite book is since I was very small, but for some reason the question has returned to puzzle me today, I'm not sure why. When I was small, I was convinced that the book was "The Princess and the Goblin" by George MacDonald, but I couldn't really tell you why that is.

Three more weeks until "Tangled" is released, and I can't wait! A song, a romantic duet, has been released online by Disney, and it's utterly charming. I'm trying to not remember that before I can watch the film, I have to get through Oireachtas, which is the weekend previous . . . too scary a notion, that!

Another scary notion? The idea that NaNoWriMo is only 2 days in, and I'm already behind. Only by 700 words or so, but . . . eesh. I'm going to stay up now before bed to get caught up. Yes. Song currently running through my head: "Hushabye Mountain" from "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". One of my favorite movies, but I haven't seen it in a while, I wonder why I'm thinking of it now?

Book reviews for October coming up soon! And there's actually quite a lot of reviews this time, too!

The Hobbit!

2010-10-22T19:20:00.001-07:00

Aaaaah, so 'The Hobbit' is FINALLY greenlit, and yesterday the first round of casting was announced. We now know who our Bilbo, Thorin, Fili, Kili, Dwalin, Gloin, Ori, and Bombur are. I, being a devoted Tolkien fan and scholar, am absolutely thrilled. I read 'The Hobbit' for the first time when I was five, so it's been a dear friend of mine for a long time. Can't wait to see what the films are going to be like! My only difficulty now is not going onto spoiler-y sites to look up set photos, clips, interviews, etc; I want to see the two movies relatively unspoiled, but I also have zilch patience. I guess I'll just see what happens and how much I can resist the siren call of theonering.net. I'm even debating with myself about whether I want to look up the rest of the casting announcements when they arrive or whether I want to remain blind about the rest of the cast. I don't know!

Anyway, Martin Freeman is Bilbo. I was, originally, rooting for James McAvoy to have the role, but then he got cast in a X-Men movie of some sort so I figured that was out of the question now . . . And I also watched the new BBC miniseries 'Sherlock' over the summer. In 'Sherlock', Freeman plays John Watson, and it was my first time watching him act. Basically, based on his performance in the miniseries, I'm absolutely happy with him as Bilbo, and think he will do a great job. If you haven't watched the series, maybe check it out (I think it premieres in America soon) so you can craft your own opinion.

Also, Richard Armitage is Thorin. Something I'm loving about the casting so far is how varied all the actors look, not only physically but also age-wise. The thirteen dwarves will really be an ensemble of thirteen characters who will hopefully be all distinct and nuanced persons we can really connect with, and not just thirteen Gimli-clones, which I'm very pleased about. I liked Rhys-Davies as Gimli in LotR, but he mostly left the emotional weight of the story to other characters like Aragorn or Sam, and so dwarves based solely around his character just wouldn't work in 'The Hobbit'. Armitage is actually a tall, stately-looking fellow, but I love that he'll be Thorin. He's a great actor. If you like period costume dramas in the tradition of 'Pride and Prejudice' or 'Jane Eyre', do yourself a favor and check out the 2004 BBC production 'North and South'. It's a beautifully done miniseries, and the male lead is played by Armitage. Although the performance is a little old now, it'll still give you an idea of his capabilities.

I made a pact with some friends that when 'The Hobbit' comes out I'm going in costume, dressed as the Lonely Mountain, so now I can actually look forward to that, hahaha. Not sure how I'll pull it off yet, but I'll do it! It's a little sad that my most-anticipated film is still two years away, but at least it's finally getting made now after so many years of stagnancy. It'll be twelve years since FotR first opened in theatres, can you believe it? Wow.

Speaking of movies I'm looking forward to, there's a few left this year that I'm eagerly anticipating:

Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I love the Narnia books, and have liked both Narnia films pretty well so far, so I really want to see this. I've heard rumors about plot changes that are a bit weird though, and I doubt it can beat the awesomeness of the original BBC miniseries from years ago. Still, I want to watch it, partially because I hope it'll be good anyway, and partly because I just want to support the Narnia franchise so that later books in the series--most notably The Horse and his Boy and my favorite, The Silver Chair--will also get the film treatment. I really like the Edmund and Lucy actors, and Eustace looks like he'll be great, so hopefully it'll be a fun film!
Tron: Legacy. I like the original 'Tron', and so I'm stoked about this. I'm not usually one to put visuals over story, but--The effects look amazing in this movie! That's all I'm going on at the moment because I don't know much about the plot, but hopefully with Pixar helping out it'll be worth watching. Anyway: Cool music, cool visuals, fun actors, sequel to a film I already like--Yeah, I wanna see this one.
Tangled. This is a later addition to the 'I want to watch this' party, but I'm actually more excited for it now than I am for the other two. The reason? I have chosen to believe the directors, numerous early reviewers, and the evidence of my own eyes from reading an already released junior novelization of the film that this movie is going to be a humorous fairytale musical but in the tradition of classic Disney, instead of choosing to believe it will be the kind of Shrek-esque movie that the trailers apparently want viewers to think it is. I am so in love with the movie I hope this movie to ultimately be, I'm worried I'll be disappointed even if it's good. But anyway. Do I wish it was animated in traditional 2d? Well, yeah. Am I going to hold that against it? Not at all. I'm hoping they managed to get an artistic look from their 3d animation, since art is of course not limited to one dimension specifically. I linked to a trailer even though I think the trailers are doing an atrocious job of teasing what the film will actually be like (I mean, pop music? What??), but I'm also going to link to some interviews and reviews (here, here, and here) so you can get an idea of why I'm actually excited for this film. Also, Alan Menken's score is apparently a fusion of medieval style and 1960's folk rock. YES.

What do you think of 'The Hobbit' casting? And are there any films you're excited to see in the last few months of this year, or does nothing look appealing? Leave a comment! ^_^

Daytime Thunderstorm!

2010-10-19T11:11:00.000-07:00

There's thunder. Really, really loud thunder. And lightning. Very bright lightning. And rain. Lots of torrential rain. All happening outside my window right now.

I'm not sure yet whether to be scared or excited about this, to be honest.

. . . Okay, I'm excited :D

2010-10-13T00:16:00.000-07:00

Just watched 'The Constant' with my brother. He'd never seen it before, and I've seen it many times because it's one of my favorite episodes of television or even moving picture in general ever, and I still got all emotional and happy at the end. It's so cool to watch the scene with Faraday and Desmond in the hallway at 'Oxford' and know that I stood right there while in Hawaii, hehe. Anyway . . .

Newest baby in the family has been born! She's healthy and cute, so everything's going well. I'm holding down the fort at home right now with more or less success while mummy and baby recover and my dad stays at hospital with them. Tomorrow will be a major cleaning day.

7 Days

2010-10-08T01:49:00.000-07:00

In one week at the most I will have another little sibling to cuddle! I had lots of fun today spending time with other siblings. We played outside: A challenging game they invented called 'Hen, Chickens, and Fox' which was basically a complicated, crazy game of tag and surprisingly fun; hide-and-go-seek; a game they invented based on 'How to Train Your Dragon', and a few others. I then took the two youngest on a walk, which was so relaxing and pleasant . . . I should go on a walk every day. Everything just seemed to mellow down, become peaceful and calm . . . I made lemonade for them as a treat when we got back to the house, and then we all made cupcakes together! I had never tried this particular recipe before, but it was delicious and chocolate-y. I had such a wonderful day today, and the little ones were talking and talking about how much fun they had. I hope to make my newest sibling as happy once she is born.

Now I'm going to grab a half-hour or so of writing time before bed, and then will probably read more of my Revolutionary War history book before actually turning off the light. That's another luxury I've been starving myself of lately, in addition to taking leisurely walks: Reading in bed.

I just finished watching the latest episode of "Fringe", which is why I'm up so late. Seriously, "Fringe" has been amaaaazing this season. I'm so glad I decided to stick with this show after the lacklustre opening episodes of the first season, because it's incredibly good now. Especially Torv; I really disliked her character in the beginning of the show and thought her acting was horrid, and now I both love BOTH versions of Olivia and am consistently wowed by Torv's acting. So good.

All right, back to my book now!

Book Reviews for September

2010-10-04T00:15:00.001-07:00

Ha! You thought I'd never get back to doing these, didn't you?

I did my research on my library's online catalog before visiting it a couple weeks ago, so I actually got a good amount of books, as mentioned in an earlier post. That's the way you have to do it on the mainland, apparently. Otherwise you'll never find anything you want, grr.

So I managed to squeeze a few new reads in this September. It'll be a short list, but a little is better than nothing!

HMS Surprise, by Patrick O'Brian
This is definitely my favorite of the Aubrey-Maturin novels I have read so far. It's very exciting, and almost unbelievably well-written. Although written in the 1970's, I think, you could easily be fooled into believing it's a bona-fide 1800's novel. Mind-blowing. What makes it more than merely a really well-done period novel, however, are the wonderfully three-dimensional characters (especially Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin themselves, but also the infuriating and yet pitiable Diana and a few others) and the extremely wry and unexpected darts of humor that O'Brian weaves into the story when you least expect them. This novel has the added plus of moments of genuine pathos, particularly the Diana/Maturin subplot and one moment during the crew's stay in India that I'll not describe further in case you care to read the book for yourself. To sum up: I'd recommend this it, and I have now added 'Use the phrase "You have debauched my sloth!" in conversation' to my bucket list. The whole Maturin and the sloth side-plot (there's lots of subplots and side-plots in this book!) had me crying with laughter. The only negatives in the book are the fact that the very stylized writing could certainly be wearisome to some readers, there's some hard old sailor swearing, and the story is more set up as a chronicle of a certain amount of time in the main characters' lives, which means it's not really tidily plotted with loose ends tied up and all. This can be seen as a strength or a weakness of the story, depending.

Nathan Hale, by M. William Phelps
I on occasion enjoy a good biography, and this is a good biography. I've long been interested in Nathan Hale, so I was delighted to find a biography that looked good at the library. I like learning about history from the original contemporary sources, eg. reading Thucydides and Xenophon to learn about Greek history instead of just reading modern history books. So I always appreciate it when historians quote letters and things like that in biographies. There's a good scattering of quotes like that in this biography, as well as a lot of stories about Hale as told by his friends and family, along with excerpts from his diary and stuff. The book seems well-researched, and is engagingly written. Phelps doesn't try to glorify Hale, but he doesn't try to tear him apart to 'reveal the man behind the legend' either, like so many biographies do to their subjects. Instead, he does his best to give the reader a basic understanding of the contemporary events and issues, and to let Hale speak for himself, which I really liked. The book sometimes get a bit circuitous though, because of all the information the author tries to cram in.

This leaves The Dreamer (Vol. 1) by Lora Innes as the Book of the Month!
I won't say too much about it now, since I already raved about this webcomic earlier. But basically it's a time-traveling romance/adventure story, with a heavy emphasis on wallowing in American Revolutionary War history. The characters are wonderful in both times/realities(?), the script is extremely solid, and the usage of history here? Simply fun. Innes' devotion to detail in both her script and her art is that of a real history fiend, which is lovely. There are plenty of historical characters in the story as well as original chararacters, though: Thomas Knowlton, Alexander Hamilton, William Howe . . . Nathan Hale himself actually features as a very prominent character, which is just another bonus. I found the printed collection of the first few books of this webcomic at the library and snapped it up to peruse it in hard copy form for the first time, which is why I decided to include it on this list. The colors are much brighter in book form than on the internet, details are easier to see, and there's a cute little sketch summary of the American revolution on the front pages which serves as a run-down on what you need to know in order to fully appreciate the historical setting of "The Dreamer". I'm not usually a webcomic person, but this book is both entertaining and informative, with all the historical cameos a history geek could wish for. Definitely give it a look!

Why I Shouldn't Procrastinate

2010-09-30T02:55:00.000-07:00

I'm busily working on my little brother's birthday card. Since it's in the wee hours of the morning now, it is already his birthday. This is why I should not put off making cards and things until the last minute; I always end up losing sleep. To make things extra difficult, he asked that his card be butterfly themed. I don't know why. He assigned each sibling a theme: Dragons, Dinosaurs, and so on. I got the butterfly card. Problem is, butterflies are just about my least favorite things to draw. That might sound silly, but I mean it. I've just got a block when it comes to drawing butterflies. Even back in first grade, I remember being frustrated with them. I simply cannot draw a good butterfly.

So now I'm painstakingly trying to copy butterfly shapes and colors from various reference pictures online and having a ridiculously difficult time of it. He had better like this card when he gets it tomorrow ^_^

I'm listening to the "Inception" score while drawing. This helps a little bit.

The blisters on my feet, especially on my right foot, are really, really nasty and painful, but I'm trying to do everything I can to speed-heal them so I can compete this weekend without making an utter fool of myself onstage, eg., limping around instead of dancing. This is, scarily enough, a very real possibility, since I was not even able to put my soft shoe on my right foot at class today, let alone a hard shoe! I tried looking up tips online about how to heal blisters quickly, but I just ended up finding a bunch of articles warning me to take blisters easily because if they get infected they can lead to death or amputation. I'm paranoid enough without reading stuff like that, thank you kindly.

I think I'll finish this card tomorrow morning. I mean, today morning. Later. When the sun is up. Right.

'Night! Or . . . Morning! Whatever you like.

2010-09-29T02:32:00.000-07:00

I found this quite funny; source link at bottom right. Oh, Zelda. I should play that game again sometime, I was so close to finishing it when I had to leave it in Hawaii ;_;

For the record, I was the world's worst chicken flier. Couldn't aim the stupid things.

Hot . . .

2010-09-28T23:30:00.001-07:00

You know how I mentioned it was chilly a little while back?

Scratch that. Yesterday broke records with a high of 113 or somesuch insane number. It is hot, hot, hot, HOT. When the wind blowing feels like an open oven scorching your face, you know you have problems.

And this is the beginning of autumn? Sigh.

Oireachtas Coming . . .

2010-09-26T19:03:00.001-07:00

Oireachtas practicing officially started today, and I have the aches and pains to prove it. Plus, after losing my beautiful old hard shoes at my last competition due to a mix-up and REALLY poor management by the feis committee, I have a brand new pair to break in which, as any Irish dancer can tell you, means I'm going through a torturous time. I mean, I have blisters on my heels. Blisters, Gandalf! And I never get blisters any more, or at least not for a good many years. It's sad :(

Dance itself, however, remains wonderful. Frustrating at times of course, but always well worth the effort put into it, and more. Blisters become calluses, with a little time. I'll be fine.

Books! I've already finished my Nathan Hale biography, the first of the O'Brian novels I borrowed, and am now happily devouring both "The Mauritius Command" and my book on the American Revolution. So there will be a real proper Book of the Month this month, as well as a good number of reviews, huzzah!

As to writing, I've been determinedly plodding along, and it's going splendidly, actually! I'm really excited to actually be making this much progress in my novel. In addition, I am just getting more and more excited about NaNoWriMo! I've written up a little blurb about the story I'm planning to write--the type you'd see on the back of a book--but nothing more than that, so I can have enough creative freedom to actually write the 50,000 words without hitting a block. I'm trying not to plot ahead at all, which is difficult for me, but hopefully will prove a helpful exercise. I'll post the blurb here once October hits.

I'm currently typing this with only half of my attention; I'm mostly absorbed with an animated short I'm watching on Youtube, "The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello". Steampunk and silhouettes and adventure and creepiness, oh my! A friend recommended it to me, and I'm loving it so far.

Tomorrow I make a birthday card for my littlest brother, who will be turning five this week! And then I'll read some more, write some more, and attempt to make tapioca pudding with the contents of a really old box of tapioca I found in a kitchen cupboard the other day. Hopefully it'll be yummy, instead of poisoning me or something. We'll see, I guess . . .

PS: Just finished the film. Strongly recommend you check it out :)

Phoenix Requiem

2010-09-19T17:49:00.000-07:00

I advertised the fantastic webcomic "The Dreamer" on this blog in my last post. Now I'm going to recommend yet another, "Phoenix Requiem", which can also be reached using a banner on the sidebar of this blog. The art took a little bit of warming up to, but definitely improved over time, as before long the panels became absolutely gorgeous. Also, it's like a pseudo-Victorian fantasy, so that gives it major like points as well. The beginning's a bit slow, but the intrigue that comes later is well worth it.

Also, the artist/author gave one of her main characters very Tennant-esque hair, and was awesome enough to pay tribute to her inspiration in the following piece:

Gotta love that.

(Picture taken from artsangel's dA gallery, here. It's worth a perusal.)

LIBRARY!

2010-09-18T22:28:00.001-07:00

I went to the library today! Yes, this means I finally have a plethora of new reading material. I've been beaming all day.

I discovered a fantastic webcomic last week called "The Dreamer", available here: http://thedreamercomic.com

In brief, it's a gorgeously drawn and very well-written story about a 21st c. era girl who seesaws between living a normal high school life in the 21st century, and living during the American Revolution. The conceit is that whenever she falls asleep, she dreams vividly of her Revolution-era existence, but when she is awake, she is in modern times. Of course, the question is, are they really just dreams? Both lives seem very real, and are both filled with compelling characters, not the least of which is an American soldier who claims he has known her since childhood and who is in love with her. I really like the story's style: the cameos by historical figures like Alexander Hamilton, the complicated but sweet romance, the deftly alternating moments of humor and pathos and action. I'd really recommend it. The author/illustrator's name is Lora Innes, and she is obviously in love with history, for her illustrations are lively and accurate and her characters are all very endearing but appropriate to their respective times. I have a banner link to her site on the right hand sidebar of this blog now. Check it out!

As a person who really likes learning about Revolutionary War/Civil War history myself--and who likes the clothing styles of those times, too--this has really restoked my own interest in the time period and the people who lived then. This is reflected in the reading material I picked up at the library today.

So, complete list of books I have to read now:

"The Dreamer: The Consequence of Nathan Hale", by Lora Innes (the first issues of her webcomic have been combined into a print copy, so I'm more re-reading this!)
"The Fortune of War"
"The Surgeon's Mate"
"The Ionian Mission"
"Treason's Harbor"
"Desolation Island"
"The Mauritius Command"
"HMS Surprise", by Patrick O'Brian (not in that order. I'm returning to the Aubrey-Maturin series in a big way, folks!)
"The American Revolution", by Bruce Lancaster
"Voices of the American Revolution", by Kendall Haven (I prefer reading about history from contemporary sources whenever possible, hence my liking for Rousseau and the Federalist Papers)
"Nathan Hale", by M. William Phelps (Biographies! I also love reading good, thick biographies)
"Alexander Hamilton", by Ron Chernow (Hamilton has fascinated me ever since I was small, so it's about time I read a book entirely devoted to him, even if it's . . . *checks* . . . 700+ pages long!)

I also borrowed "The Amulet of Samarkand" audiobook, since I've been wanting to give it a listen for years. I'm currently listening to Chapter 6, and the reading is very good so far.

At last I have more reading material! I've been floating on air all day because of it. I even have proof:
See? That is my happy library face being happy.

So if you don't hear from me for a few days, it's not because I'm in trouble; I'm just reading and reading and reading. Oh, and "Fringe" and "Supernatural" both return next week, so that might have something to do with it too ^_^

Ta!

It's Sunny Today

2010-09-10T11:20:00.000-07:00

. . . which is nice, of course. And it's also a bit chilly, at least inside. That, to me, is the best sort of weather: chilly, crisp, and sunny.

Tomorrow is one of my little sister's birthday, and she has requested that I make her pretzels for reasons that I'm not aware of. I've never made pretzels before. But I'm going to give it a go anyway! I'm working on a few art projects right now, one of them being her birthday card. The other is a crossover project I challenged my brother to, where we have to combine the two films "Ratatouille" and "How to Train Your Dragon"--both of which are among my very favorite films, and both of which are rather similar to each other if you think about it. That's not a bad thing :D

I've been playing "Lego Star Wars" on the Wii--it's very, very fun--and in the game, if you shoot C-3PO, he loses a leg and starts hopping around, leading my littlest sister to start calling him 'The Hopping Droid'. It's pretty funny.

Work on my novel continues apace, and it's coming along. Very exciting. Even more exciting is the prospect of doing NaNoWriMo again this year, I can't wait! I am so determined to reach the required word count this year. Mm-hm.

And that's all really, nothing much else has been happening. Oh, I finally went to the library last weekend, only to discover that the library had absolutely NONE of the many books I was looking for. That was a huge disappointment. Hawaii libraries are SO much better than the ones here. Sigh.

Okay, I'm off to go dig the yeast out of the back of the fridge now . . .

It's September Already? Wow.

2010-09-02T00:20:00.001-07:00

Hello again, everyone, it's been a while! Life's been keeping me busy--mostly battling off one infection after another, it's ridiculous--but I hope to start blogging more regularly again now. If I were back in Hawaii now, this would be my second week of my Junior year; as it is, I am keeping the brain cells busy by writing, dancing, studying for my driver's license, and, of course--reading!

Sadly, I have STILL not managed to snag any new reading material. An entire summer without one trip to the library--I just might explode with the frustration. As a result I STILL have no Book of the Month feature to regale you with. I will, however, list for you all the books that I have been reading. I've read them before, which is why they don't count for my list of new books read this year, but they were good enough for me to read them again--some for the second time, some for the umpteenth time--so perhaps you'd be interested to have a list of titles:

The Shield Ring, by Rosemary Sutcliff
The Amulet of Samarkand, by Jonathan Stroud
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett
Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
The Pearls of Lutra, by Brian Jacques
The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho
Watership Down, by Richard Adams
The Book of Three, by Lloyd Alexander
The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle

So, as you can tell, I've been re-reading a lot, and mostly lighter books too. Perhaps that is what comes from being around kids 24/7 now; I lapse back into enjoying books written for young adults and children instead of centuries-old literature. This is in no way a bad thing, as all the above books are among my favorite books ever (or at least most of them are) and settled snugly on my shelf next to my Iliad and War and Peace and Moby Dick, but it's still interesting. I go through 'reverting back to obsessing over childhood favorites' phases at time. I guess this is one of those times.

Dance is going well, but I'm trying to figure out a design for my new competition dress; mine is about 4 years old now, and in a competitive arena where dresses go out of style in mere months . . . yep, I'm wearing a relic. My family and I always design and sew my own dresses instead of shelling out a fortune on designer dresses like most other people do, so my dress has lasted longer than most, but it does look old now. Sigh. I've also promised my little brother that I'll dress up as Toothless the Dragon for Halloween so he can ride on my shoulders as Hiccup, so I have that to figure out too!

(Absolutely not-relevant side note here: I'm currently watching Star Wars on my computer as I type this, and just realized that one of Vader's officers is the same actor who played that American rocket captain in "Tomb of the Cybermen"! The one with the annoying fake accent who kept calling Victoria 'Vic'! This just made my day.)

I've been writing a lot, and even though it's pretty hard considering I've got a spot of writer's block, this means my novel is coming along now almost despite itself, haha. Yesterday I baked banana bread; my six year old sister was disappointed initially, but now says she loves it, especially with cream cheese. My little four year old brother however loves banana bread, and basically was asking me if he could eat it every five minutes after it came out of the oven until it was cooled enough to be cut. I do like baking! And making soups, too. I really want to make this lentil soup from a recipe I found recently; I like lentils almost as much as I like baking :)

That's enough rambling from me from now, so I leave you now only with a promise that I'll try to post more regularly and interestingly this month. Oh, and I've been drawing and doodling a lot, so I'll start posting those too.

And I'm 19 1/2 today. I should have made a cake or something, haha. Does this mean I get a wish half-fulfilled today? Hm.

Sun In My Eyes

2010-08-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

My littlest sister--she's two--just came over to me where I'm sitting on the floor of my bedroom working on a story. She took my face in her hands and very gently and solemnly turned me to face her. Then, with a very sweet look of concentration on her face, she told me "Here, take the sun--" and very carefully mimed putting something into both of my eyes. And with a satisfied smile, she walked away.

This is part of the reason why I love spending time with my littlest siblings--their imaginations are so strong and boundless and joyous, they can come up with a beautiful idea like placing pieces of the sun into people's eyes. What a powerful notion, and one I know I could never have thought of on my own. Just like the time my four-year-old brother wished me goodnight and then added 'I will go find sweet dreams for you!" I have a little sister who puts the sun into my eyes, and a little brother who spends his dreamtime collecting sweet child-dreams to give to me, since I am now too old, alas, to find any of my own. I am so very fortunate to be their older sister.

Inception - 12. Time

2010-08-12T13:16:00.000-07:00

Such good music in this film . . . I really want the score now. Augh. I have these two tracks playing in my head constantly, haha. Not a bad thing, I suppose, but I want this music on my iPod so I can play it constantly throughout my day ;)

INCEPTION

2010-08-07T10:49:00.000-07:00

I finally got to watch it yesterday! And I love it. I had high hopes, but was as unspoilered as I could manage, and the film both surprised me at times and met and even exceeded those expectations. I didn't find it confusing, since the pacing was excellent and the levels of the story seemed pretty clear-cut to me. It was just a captivating mind puzzle and adventure and (in the tradition of "The Prestige") pulled the very mind trick of its title upon the viewer by the end. I don't often say this, but--I want to watch it again!

I don't want to say any more about it, because then I'd end up spoilering, since I'd start gushing. But it's my favorite movie of the year, along with "How to Train Your Dragon" and "Toy Story 3".

A quick note about my 'Book of the Month' feature: Due to a really busy dance schedule and my eye infection last month, I didn't actually get to finish any new books. I did however get my dad to read "Til We Have Faces" for the first time, so I suppose that can be July's official book on my blog, although I won't be posting a review of it since I've read it many times before. But I'm already reading plenty this month, so hopefully I'll be able to make up for July's dearth in August.

"Sherlock"

2010-07-28T20:23:00.000-07:00

Well, my eye's still extremely painful and swollen, but I went to the doctor's today and was prescribed some eyedrops. I desperately hope they work, because I don't know how much more of this I can take. On the plus-side, my fingers are pretty much healed now. The thumb's still bleeding, but it's hurting less. It's been a crazy, crazy week.

I didn't know the BBC was making a modernized Sherlock Holmes series until a few days ago, and when I did find out, I was pretty skeptical. I'm something of a Sherlockian, and modernizing classics usually just feels cheap and gimmicky to me--not something I can enjoy. I was also a bit intrigued though, for a few reasons:

1) The actors playing Holmes and Watson
2) Stephen Moffat is one of the series creators
3) The preview didn't actually look that bad. In fact, it looked . . . good?

So, last night, when unable to sleep due to my eye hurting so much, I tracked the first episode (which apparently aired on the BBC on Sunday) down and watched it. And I actually really, really enjoyed it! It wasn't perfect by any means, but it was extremely good. The dialogue is quick, witty, and well-written as well as well-delivered. Both Holmes and Watson are spot-on, and I think I can say with confidence that they are the best Holmes-Watson duo I have ever seen on screen, save only perhaps the Soviet version. Although living in the present-day, their personalities are perfect, as well as their mannerisms, ways of speaking . . . I loved it.

I didn't appreciate the few 'Holmes might be gay!' gags in the script. Sure, they were just intended as humorous nods towards those fans who maintain it's the truth, but I cannot stand that viewpoint which is irreverent to the characters and canon. I was able to ignore them for the sake of the rest of the story's excellence, and luckily there aren't that many. There were other, more welcome shout-outs to canon-fans, like a surprise appearance from one Mycroft Holmes and a tantalizing hint at the future appearance of Moriarty.

The story itself was very predictable to me, and probably to anyone who's read "A Study in Scarlet", but the actors' performances as well as the style with which the episode was told kept it from being dull. I don't know if it'd be predictable for anyone who hasn't read the story, but anyways. By the end I was both impressed and amused at how the writers changed and updated the canon and yet kept the spirit and the characters the same. Watson isn't an idiot, and instead is a very capable doctor, war veteran, and excellent shot with a gun, as in the original stories (even if he is missing his mustache), and Holmes may not smoke a pipe in this version but he has the perfect blend of charisma, arrogance, and cold intellect, as well as a glimpse or two of an emotional vulnerability which is entirely canon. All in all, the episode (entitled "A Study in Pink") was a perfect opening to a new Sherlock Holmes saga, I can't wait to see the next episode this Sunday, and I hope more episodes are made after these three.

Interested? Then watch these:

Trailer:

Scene from "A Study in Pink":

My Life as a Cyclops

2010-07-27T00:48:00.000-07:00

I've got a stye in my right eye, so my vision is currently both painful and impaired. Not only that, two fingers on my left hand are swollen and painful, apparently after contracting an infection of some kind. And on top of that, I have a dentist appointment tomorrow. Life is not treating me kindly the past few days.

On the brighter side of things, my feis over the weekend went really well. I got to spend time with friends, dance with friends, and managed to nab second place in my Championship, which is no mean feat considering I'm still newly back into the competitive field. So hopefully my various ailments will clear up soon so I can get back to practicing.

I still have not seen "Inception", so please don't spoiler me. That's yet another thing on my to-do list once I can see properly again.

Augh, eye hurts, so I'm signing off. I'll come back again once I can both type and see without pain :(

Books I Currently Want to Read:

2010-07-22T23:05:00.000-07:00

The Napoleon of Notting Hill, by GK Chesterton
The Light Beyond the Forest,
The Road to Camlann,
The Minstrel and the Dragon Pup,
Chess-dream in a Garden,
Flame-colored Taffeta,
Bonnie Dundee,
Song for a Dark Queen,
Brother Dusty-Feet,
Sun Horse, Moon Horse,
Blood Feud, by Rosemary Sutcliff
Phantastes,
Lilith, by George MacDonald
True History, by Lucian
The Mahabharata
The Achilleid,
The Thebiad, by Statius
The Throne of Scone, by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison
The Color of Magic, by Terry Pratchett

Toy Story 3: What Starts as a Review Ends as a Meditation on Why I Cried

2010-07-20T23:39:00.000-07:00

I finally got to watch "Toy Story 3" today, after months of waiting. Going to the preview screening of the first half of the film was awesome, but of course it meant I was stuck on a cliffhanger for a looong time, haha. I read a few reviews before going, but deliberately stayed away from spoilers; I prefer to see movies without knowing that much about them beforehand, which is also why I'm staying away from "Inception" reviews right now. I couldn't help but gather, however, that TS3 made numerous people cry. I thought this a good sign, but of course people have cried in past Pixar films too--my younger brother still tears up whenever he watches "Up", and Jessie's song in "Toy Story 2" is heartbreaking every. single. time. I expected "Toy Story 3", therefore, to continue Pixar's tradition of creating thought-provoking, heart-touching, funny and sweet and complex and beautifully multi-layered films (with the exception of "Cars". Sorry, I just don't connect with that one).

So did it? Well, in my opinion--yes, absolutely. It was funny, scary, excellently plotted and paced, gorgeously animated, and forms a very fitting and natural end to the Toy Story saga. I remember watching the first "Toy Story" when I was four years old very clearly, because it was the first time I really lost myself in a film. I had favorite movies before then, and I had loved films before then too, of course. But while watching TS in the movie theatre, I quite literally lost myself in it. It was only when my friend's mom nudged my shoulder to offer me popcorn towards the end of the movie that I came to my senses with a jerk, suddenly aware of being in a large, dark room, surrounded by strangers. I was disoriented, dizzy, and confused. I had forgotten where I was, being so swept up into the story on the screen that I had temporarily entirely left my own.

That experience hasn't ever happened to me again. Sure, there are movies I absolutely adore and have been swept up into--the Lord of the Rings trilogy comes to mind, as do many others: "Star Trek", "Ratatouille", "Pan's Labyrinth", "The Princess Bride", "Lawrence of Arabia", and most recently "How to Train Your Dragon"--but I always, at least at the very tip of my subconscious, am aware that I am watching something on a screen, am aware of my surroundings, am aware of my own body and self independent from the story I'm watching. That kind of pure absorption only happens to me now when I read a really good book. Perhaps a magical experience like that cannot happen more than once. Perhaps I've grown up too much.

"Toy Story 3" did not make me forget where I was while watching it. I laughed, and listened for the sounds of other people laughing with me. I glanced at my siblings sitting next to me to gauge their reactions to certain spots. I readjusted and readjusted my 3D glasses (Yes, I did see it in 3D, but it was on discount and definitely worth it). TS3 didn't work the magic of making me lose myself utterly in film. What it did work was the magic of making me cry.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a hardened sort of film-watcher. It's actually painfully easy to get me emotional. I've teared up while watching many, many films. The beginning of "Up" made my eyes swim. I still get a painful lump in my throat when I watch Frodo farewell Sam at the Grey Havens. "Ice Age" has a few scenes that almost bring me to tears. It is, however, difficult to get me to actually weep. I could probably count the times that's happened on one hand. But it's time to add "Toy Story 3" to that select list, because it didn't just make me drop a tear or two. I had tears streaming down my face, dripping from my chin. I had to clench my jaw to keep from sobbing aloud. I wept even as the credits began rolling, and when I did manage to finally compose myself, I tried to talk about the movie with my mom on the drive home and started crying again.

I was stabbed in an emotional solar plexus I didn't even realize previously that I had.

St. Augustine, in his "City of God" and "Confessions", condemns plays and fictions as sinful, because they can compel us to feel emotions for things that are not real, thereby (according to him) hardening our emotions against distressing realities. St. Augustine was a great theologian and a great man, but I think he's not quite right on this one. It's true that film can, in some ways, desensitize us, but it can also strike our hearts in ways that make us better people. During the scene that caused me to cry in "Toy Story 3", I was overwhelmed because I sympathized with Woody and acutely felt what his character was going through, but in addition to that, I sympathized with Andy, just as fully as I did the toy protagonist. That in itself doesn't really disprove Augustine's argument about fiction damaging the viewer. What does, however, is that the grief I felt wasn't really just about pictures on a screen; it was about myself. When Andy's brilliantly animated face subtly flickers through a myriad of expressions, I knew what he was feeling, and knew it like a knife, because I have felt it too. I didn't ache for Woody just because he was a character I liked; it was because I've had to struggle with goodbyes and uncertainties as well. What Pixar manages to do in this film is not merely get me to sympathize with the characters, but actually through them sympathize with myself. That may look like Andy and Woody up on the screen, but it's also me. I see hard choices and issues and fears that I've had to tackle in my own life, the things one usually just grits one's teeth about and plunges through somehow without letting emotion get in the way--and it's like living those moments again, but now I can shed a tear or two not only for the hurt but also in relief because I know I've made it through difficult times and I can see that reflected in the story unfolding before me, too. Okay, so perhaps Augustine would still think I am a nutcase. But as Gandalf so wisely says, 'Not all tears are an evil.' I cried, sure, but I'm not embarrassed about it. It was something of a healing experience, as silly as that sounds. The last act of the film was one of the most perfect moments of cinema I have ever watched. One of the most painful parts of growing up is struggling to say goodbye to a childhood that slips away so gradually you tend to lose it before even realizing it's gone. "Toy Story 3"'s final moments basically serve as a beautiful distillation of childhood, mine, yours, and everyone's; childhood in a concrete form that you can really say goodbye to and finally get some real closure for.

So I guess I did kind of become absorbed in the film after all, but not to the point of losing myself, as I did all those years ago when I was a five-year-old kid on a playdate with a friend. This time, I lost myself in the film deep enough to find myself in it. And that's a special kind of magic all of its own.

A Brief Bit of Background For My Novel

2010-07-20T01:30:00.000-07:00

Just look at all the alliteration in the title of this post, oh joy!

Seriously, though, here's some of my novel. Well, not the novel per se, but rather a very shoddy rendition/summary of an important bit of history which will play a large role in at least a few main characters' personalities and actions. I plan to use a more polished rendition of this legend in my book itself as a sort of prologue, or introduction into the story. I say legend now because of course this version of history is obviously romanticized and important only to the heirs of Eitoken himself; most men at the time of my novel couldn't care less about Elves, ancient oaths, and anything like that. A main theme of my book is the nature of a story itself: What makes a story important? What makes it true? How important in deciding both is the simple act of believing? I love reading old histories like those of Tacitus and Herodotus, where the line between fact and fiction is beautifully blurred (we modern readers cannot always tell what parts of a story are true, and what are fantastical, often having to decide for ourselves what to believe), and therefore am extending that sort of mentality into my own novel, particularly in the character of Eifton, one of Eitoken's descendents. He fiercely believes in the old legend recounted below, even if no one else in the world does. And this belief strongly influences his behavior. To paraphrase one of my characters: "It is the custom now to wait and watch because the story tells us we must. But the story was only written so because to wait and watch was already our custom. There was a time when we created that story, Eifton; but now it creates us." Do men create stories, or do stories create men? Can a man decide whether to be creator or creation, or does he have no choice? This, I suppose, is the real heart of my novel. Anyway, I hope you enjoy even this brief and unpolished legend. I will post more of my novel periodically, but not too much, since I wish to keep it secure of course. Much more will be posted on the writing blog I set up, "The Radish Room".

(PS-Since this legend is currently written as reference for me more than in its final, novel-prologue style, it's probably going to be confusing. Lots of name-dropping, and a general feeling of in medias res. I'm very interested, however, in just how confusing it is, so I can know what information I should add in, and what I can leave out--keeping in mind that some things will be explained in detail in the first real chapters of the novel. So comment and let me know what you think! I'd really appreciate it ^_^)

It was in the waning, desperate years of the first war between Elf and Ieldra when the Elven princes Isfalor and Athelye sent out missives to the clans of men asking for aid in war, for they had always had most friendship with men since the days before the sun and moon. But many long years had passed since the days of Tor the Elf-friend, though no grey yet touched the hair of Isfalor called Fairest of the Edyire. Men had begun already to grow proud, and to name lands with new names as though for the first time, and to forget the deeds of their far fathers, and friendships made between the Elf-folk and their sires. So it was that the summons went unanswered, save only by one man.

He would be remembered as Eitoken, He Who Watches Always, and was at the time a only a poor man, though well liked in his clan, and the summons--borne by a rider dressed all in silver and red and with harness of red gold, who leapt as it were from the embers of the fires where stories were told to children about the Elven folk and their deeds--set his heart ablaze with desire to look upon the great war hosts of the Eldest race and to count himself among their number in the great conflict to come, and to see also for himself the faces of the lords of that host, who were older than the sun and moon, and yet not old to look upon. So when others would have bade the call no heed, he sprang to his feet and swore then his aid, and his enthusiasm caught in the hearts of many and shamed still more, so that with it was a force of nearly all his clan he came to the encampment. There he was brought into the presence of the three princes Athelye, Otiru, and Isfalor tallest of them all, and the King Arael their brother, and their sister the lady Mihrenna, who glittered in the lamplight like a withe of steel shot with starlight. They bade him courteous welcome, but it was Isfalor who was most pleased. And Eitoken was enchanted by the prince’s comeliness, spirit, and courtesy.

So Isfalor would have assigned Eitoken and his men to Otiru’s wing, as that was the weaker, but Eitoken spoke up in protest and said: “I serve thee, lord, and fight for thee, lord, and follow thee, lord, or not at all.” And the Elf’s captains looked with shock at the Man, surprised at this ragged, crude arrogance, and thought it ill of him to have such pride. Moreover, they were somewhat angered at the Man’s presumption to their lord. But Isfalor smiled, who smiled so seldom then, and answered “It shall be as you wish, son of Man,” and gave orders that some of his own soldiers should fight alongside Otiru, and for Eitoken to be, with his men, equipped and stationed among the Elves of his own force.

Battle came, and ever Isfalor was where the fighting was hottest, and the greatest assault was against his army, for the fear and the fury with which the Ieldrae held him who had been the first of the Elven people to know hate. And Isfalor and the warriors of Ehrunien suffered heavy losses, but wreaked havoc upon the enemy, and did not waver. Eitoken fought so he was close by Isfalor, and so saw when the prince’s horse was shot from beneath him, so that he fell--but he in falling leapt from the saddle so that his feet were not tangled in the harness, and so he avoided being crushed, though he did strike the ground. But Eitoken saw, and leapt forward to the prince’s defense, keeping the enemy back for the few moments it took for Isfalor to recover and get to his feet.

The Ieldrae ultimately were routed and fled, and routed most due to Isfalor. But many of his men were killed, and all save three of those who had followed Eitoken were dead. And Eitoken, exhausted with the long fighting, wrapped himself in his cloak and slept for two days.

It was then time for him to depart, but first Isfalor summoned him. And when he came, he saw the prince had done off his battle gear, though his hair was shorn always for battle, and he was richly attired in forest green and red gold. He greeted the man kindly, and with the honor due to a great friend. And he said, “You alone answered the summons, and ‘twas thou who swore to fight for my banner and none else. And well did you prove yourself to me, then upon the third day of the fight. Perhaps without your aid I would now be slain, and this but a little while ere the wedding of my sister. Accept my thanks.” And Eitoken bowed, bewildered and delighted, and said nothing. And then he said, haltingly: “I think you would not have died.” Isfalor looked and saw the child-faith and worship in the man’s eyes, and was silent a moment. Then he said: “You remind me of one I knew long ago”, as though speaking to himself. And then he took from his belt a slim stabbing-dirk of gold, brother to his own sword, and held it out to Eitoken, saying, “Take this as a sign of my favor, and of thy faith. And one day shall I call thee, and for the love for me which you bear and that gift of my regard which I have given to then, then do thou come, and we shall go forth to battle together once more, you and I. And thou shalt go upon my right hand like as a brother, man and elf, and there shall our glory be wrought, and none shall withstand us!”

And he gave then to Eitoken a little gift of land, at the the south-eastern border of the Elvare, and granted to him and all his heirs dominion over that dark wood, and safety from all its perils, that they might travel it and see its wonders which he had loved when he himself was young. And Eitoken took both dirk and land, and with those three faithful of his men and their wives he raised what would come to be known as the Mistkeep, and he and his heirs dwelt there forever, awaiting the summons.

It never came, for that battle was the last of Isfalor’s life, and not long after he would be slain in ambush by Iestol in the high passes of the Elvare. That deed spurred the Elven folk to so great a fury that they destroyed the Ieldrae in battle utterly save only those who retreated into the deepest tunnels of the Labyrinth their old home and hid there for many generations of men; this was the long peacetime between the two wars, and broken only when Calhui Eldrason, the halfblood child of Alinando Ieldra and Caerwen princess of the Elves, slew the Elven high king and stole the Crown from him to deliver it to his father’s people. And this second war wrought the ruin of the Elven people.

And all this time the Masters of Mistkeep remained in their quiet corner of the world, ever faithful to their charge, and ever waiting, for Isfalor the prince of Ehrunien was long dead, and no one else remembered the man Eitoken and the oath given to him.

I was going to go to bed early . . .

2010-07-16T05:08:00.001-07:00

. . . but instead had a quarrel with my younger brother that left me feeling angry, frustrated, and bitter, so I decided to stay up all night instead watching the rest of "Fringe" in an attempt to blow off steam. The result is that it's almost dawn and I've finished the entire second season. Am I feeling happier? Um, well, no, because the finale was infuriating. This show is very fond of switcheroo-ing characters, I've caught onto that by now. So I was pretty irritated at the main characters for being so dense as to not realize they had been made victims of a trick-swap, when it was almost painfully obvious to me. Especially since the team's been fragmented for so long, I really want them together again. It just isn't as fun when they're separate. I almost cheered aloud when that character who died earlier (and who I mentioned in an earlier post, I think) reappeared, albeit changed, but was pretty upset when the whiz-kids were killed off so flippantly--especially the guy who manipulates sickness, I was so happy to see him back. Sigh.

I'm so torn. I really wanted to see Peter and Olivia happy together at last, but I also really want to see more of Alt-Charlie.

Anyway, I thought the "Brown Betty" episode was utterly loopy and ridiculous but somehow very charming, though not quite as fun as "Supernatural"'s spoof episodes. I actually wanted more singing *shrugs*! And the finale was well-paced and enjoyable, basically non-stop adrenaline, but I was pretty frustrated by it too, haha. How much I ultimately like it will depend on how next season goes, I think. The doomsday Peter-cyborg(???) idea seemed like it was dismissed way too quickly, so I suppose it'll be back later. Which I guess means there'll be more universe-hopping in the future? Hm.

Oh, and I loved, loved, loved the "White Tulip" ep. I was dizzy with all the time-travel-y twistiness by the end of it, but that means I had a good time :)

I'll be heading to bed at last now, and with a headache, too, as well as with my eye-doctor appointment waiting for me later today--joy. I hate it when my anger just simmers and drives me mad, because it makes me do strange things to exorcise it. Like watch "Fringe" all night. I can't bear to sleep while angry; it makes for such unpleasant dreams.

Final verdict: Yes, I will be watching "Fringe" when episodes air in the Fall. I'm curious as to how the show writers are going to balance all the craziness that's now set to happen, and whether a story so filled with duplicate characters and multiple plotlines can really be as good as it needs to be. It is similar to "Primeval", but more intellectual, and less cartoon-y fun, so both are great. I wouldn't say I like it as much as "Doctor Who" or "Lost", but I do like it a lot, enough to keep watching. Yay John Noble!

Also, favorite quote? "Death! Delicious, strawberry-flavored death!"

Awesome.

Hello Again

2010-07-15T19:50:00.000-07:00

So I'm on episode 2.17 of "Fringe" now, and the second season is miles better than the first. Not that the first was bad, but the characters are more comfortable to watch now for some reason, perhaps because they've finally settled into themselves, grown comfortable with their own personalities. I'm seriously loving all the 'alternate reality' stuff.

Today I took the siblings out to play on a grassy field by my house. My youngest brother begged me to take him, so I did, and then only a few minutes after arriving at the grass he threw an enormous tantrum because he wasn't chosen as the first person to be 'it' in our sibling game of freeze tag, so I had to cart him back to the house. I think he's napping now; he was in need of a bit of sleep, I think. It was pretty embarrassing to be walking down the street carrying a squirming, shrieking child who kept yelling 'NONONONO' at the top of his very-strong lungs. He's had a piercing scream he can summon at will ever since he was very small, though he hadn't used it in a while . . . not until today, anyway. I was afraid someone would think I was kidnapping the kid.

I'm typing this at my desk, which is situated right beside my bedroom window. Outside the sky is pink and purple with sunset, but it's a bruised and dusty sort of sunset, not a glorious one. There isn't any wind. It's been very hot the past few days.

I'm pretty tired myself, actually. I haven't been getting as much sleep as I should; I'll try to rectify that tonight. Just remembered that I have an optometrist appointment tomorrow, and I don't want to have weary eyes for that!

And the Days Go By . . .

2010-07-12T01:52:00.000-07:00

I seriously need to start working on my novel. I mean, I've been writing, sure, but not as much as I should. Starting tomorrow, I'm determined to treat this like it's my full-time job. The fairytale is coming along nicely; I hope to have the next part posted tomorrow, but we'll see; I have dance and things tomorrow that will take up time.

Dance is actually taking up a lot of time lately; I'm determined to get into the best condition possible for Regionals this year. Of course the practicing and training is hard work, but to my own surprise I'm finding it rather fun. Not that I don't usually enjoy dance anyway, but it can be wearisome to drill and work and work like that. Now, however, I'm enjoying the hard work. I think it's a side-effect of being forced to be largely inactive for long periods of time. After not being able to practice every day while in Hawaii, I better appreciate the simple fact that I CAN train hard, and am thus more likely to make use of that fact.

This week I finally got around to watching "Fringe", something I've been considering for a while. The first couple of episodes didn't really grab me, but I kept at it and, eleven episodes in, I'm enjoying the show a lot more than initially. It took a bit of time for me to warm up to the characters, I guess . . . or something, maybe the show's tone or pacing. (By the way, I was both delighted with and distracted by the usage of music from "Sunshine" in the Pilot episode. One of my favorite science fiction films ever!) Anyway, I'm having fun with it now. Even if I keep squealing "Denethor! Denethor!" every few minutes, hahaha . . . Still, this Walter Bishop fellow seems like the sort of guy Denethor might have been reincarnated into if such things happened . . . father-son issues, high intelligence, a dangerous interest in dangerous and weird powers/sciences . . . need I go on?

Anyway, now that I've wrested the keyboard back from my inner geek, I can turn my attention to other recent news. Nothing really important, I suppose: I stayed up until 3 AM baking cookies a few days ago, painted my younger sisters' nails, am now almost halfway through "Portrait of a Lady", and have been drawing a lot lately. I've also taught myself to crochet, so perhaps I can finally make those Doctor Who dolls! I made a little mad scientist already; I will post a photograph or two of him later. I still need new charcoal, drawing paper, and calligraphy ink. This weekend I hope to see "Inception", after looking forward to it for months. But first, of course, I need to attend to that writing. So much life to do, but so little time to do it in! Life sometimes just doesn't seem big enough for itself. But I'm sure it is; it's just I have to train my mind to use it properly and to its full potential.

Doctor, Doctor

2010-07-09T18:24:00.000-07:00

My dear friend Linden over at Willowcliffe Studios recently requested that I draw two of her favorite Doctors, Five and Ten. Since they are two of my favorites as well, I was more than happy to comply, although it was a bit scary since I've never drawn them before! It was a fun project, but I hope to do better in the future :)

Book Reviews for June

2010-07-06T12:02:00.000-07:00

Hello again! Although I had a plethora of free time this month (in theory, any way, with school out of the way), I have only read two new books. There are a few reasons for this: Firstly, I have very limited access to new books at the moment, and Secondly, I'm working on finishing a load of really long and/or dense books that I started last summer but was unable to finish due to being in Hawaii. So instead of speeding through a tall stack of new books, I'm currently reading "Le Morte d'Arthur", "The Portrait of a Lady", "The Pioneers", "Great Expectations", and other books like that which require a bit more time to get through than, say, "Neverwhere"--I'm making progress and enjoying myself, but have not quite finished them completely. Also, I've been really busy taking care of siblings, cooking, cleaning, dancing, and writing. Yes, writing! I should have the next part of "The Sons of Cwendor" available both here, on Facebook, and at "The Radish Room" sometime over the course of the next week, so stay tuned!

Anyway, here's my reviews of my two reads of June.

Heir Apparent, by Vivian Vande Velde

My brother really likes this book; I also like it, just not as much. The premise is an entertaining one: A girl playing a full-immersion fantasy role-playing computer game must win the thing before a computer error crashes the system--and thus fries her brain. This book would be especially entertaining for fans of such computer games. I've played (and enjoyed) a few, so some of her frustrations, like how whenever she dies in the game she has to go all the way back to the beginning and start anew, were hilarious. Unfortunately, however, to make a book with such a premise really effective, the player's difficulties must be believable. I had worked out a way by which she could win only a few chapters into the story, and it took her almost two hundred pages more to finally come up with a way to win on her own--which ended up being remarkably similar to the one I had theorized way back when. This ultimately made the story become very tedious at times, as I was impatient with the heroine. Also, the ending is a bit lacklustre, and there's some political, preachy aspects of the plotline that I didn't care for.

Fahrenheit 451

My only other read, and thus my book of the month! I actually did really like this book, though. It's scarily accurate in its depiction of a futuristic society where people walk around with music-playing 'seashells' plugged into their ears all day, obsess over television shows which are projected on screens which cover living room walls 360-degrees, and pedestrians are so rare, they can be arrested. Sound familiar? The story is intense and thought-provoking and sprinkled with terrifying moments, beautiful moments, and sharp sorrow, as well as being an overall ode to books and reading. Bradbury's writing is so poetic and lyrical that I sometimes was confused by it--when he first started talking about a Mechanical Hound, I thought that was a metaphor for something, like the Locusts of the "Martian Chronicles", and it took me a while to realize that, no, this really WAS a robotic dog!--but when that is my biggest problem with a story, that means the story is very, very good. I strongly recommend this book. It's not as good as "Martian Chronicles" in my opinion, but it's certainly as good a read as "Something Wicked This Way Comes".

Amy!

2010-07-02T00:33:00.000-07:00

Amy Pond, to accompany my Rory Williams sketch which I uploaded earlier. I originally wanted this piece to be more complex, this portrait being the centerpiece of the image but with smaller scenes surrounding that I thought important to the character, but . . . the paper was very small. So this is what I ended up with. I might draw those other scenes and add them to this later with Photoshop, but I'm a bit scared of computer art, so maybe not. We'll see.

I guess this means I really do need to attempt an Eleventh Doctor now? I'm scared of that, too.

Book Reviews for June are almost done, so be on the lookout for that post. Also, I've been writing more, so updates on "Sons of Cwendor" and a bit more creative writing should be up for view here shortly as well, so don't be a stranger!

Rambling and "The Big Bang" [NO Spoilers]

2010-06-27T01:00:00.000-07:00

So I watched "The Big Bang" today. I won't give out any spoilers apart from saying that I liked it. And so did my little sister who had never watched a full episode of DW before. Her verdict was that it was clever.

I'm currently slogging through yet another horrid cold, which is hateful, especially the racking coughing. This does mean I'm getting more writing done, which is the silver lining I suppose. At least I'm beginning to breathe normally again, so I'm hoping to get some dance practice in tomorrow.

I had a great time at the Irish fair last weekend; I bought a wooden sword that looks like Anduril, since my mother still won't let me get a real sword on the grounds that there are too many little kids in this house. It's a simple thing, but I mean to sand it and paint it and stuff to make it look really good. I also got really sunburned because I was busy putting sunscreen on little siblings and so forgot to get my own shoulders . . . they're peeling, and it's really irritating me so I'm trying to ignore it.

Nothing else much of note has happened lately. I went to a used bookshop today and nearly bought the first 3 Aubrey-Maturin novels, but that's a slippery slope considering how many of them there are, so I didn't buy them after all. My two-year-old sister was talking a bit about Mario from the Nintendo games (my younger brothers are obsessed with those games and she likes to watch), and she told me quite seriously that "Mario is the bluest boy in this angry world." It almost sounds deep, but I don't know what she meant. You can puzzle over that until next post :)

"The Pandorica Opens"-Not Spoilery, Really . . .

2010-06-19T23:44:00.000-07:00

AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*Head explodes*

. . . Not much else I can say. Oh, except, I seem to be feeling utterly depressed and absolutely excited at the same time, which is a rather bizarre feeling; I didn't even know those two emotions could work in conjunction like this.

And "Never underestimate a Celt"--One of my new favorite quotes ever.

"Doctor Who" Season Finale Approaches!

2010-06-16T13:19:00.000-07:00

First "The Pandorica Opens" clip released. I'll be at a dance competition all weekend and so will have to watch the actual episode late, alas! The Doctor's "element of surprise" ramble in this clip is hilarious, though. And *spoilers* Yay for Classic Series monsters!! *end spoilers*

More Artwork

2010-06-13T12:22:00.000-07:00

This is a bit of still-life charcoal work that I did for my art class. I really hated doing the pattern on the cloth, which is why it's a bit wonky. I drew the cloth itself, with all its folds, one classtime, and then next classtime it was all moved, so I basically had to reinvent the pattern since it no longer matched my folds. Bother it. That's what I get for choosing to draw the set-up at a weird, cloth-central angle!

More "Who" art--child Amy Pond, waiting for the Doctor to come back. This blocky style isn't typical of my work, but it fit how I wanted to draw the piece, and I had a lot of fun contrasting the lights and darks, which is why I love charcoal anyway. And I had red conte crayon at hand, so I was able to add the red highlights :)

Rory!

2010-06-12T19:14:00.000-07:00

So, I'm gonna start posting my art more frequently (hopefully!), especially since I'm trying to focus my energies on artwork a bit more now that I am taking a year off school (this goes hand in hand with the focusing more on writing thing).

Ta-da! It's Rory! I sketched him last night while watching "King Kong". It's my first time attempting to draw him, so I think it turned out pretty well all things considered. Also, I'm more a charcoal person than a graphite person, so this is my best pencil drawing in a, uh, looooong time :)

I'm starting a series of Doctor Who paper dolls, just for fun. It's entertaining so far. I'll post pics when I'm done with the first one; I'm experimenting with Photoshop for the first time to fix the coloring errors I made when I was just coloring with pencil.

In the Kitchen, Mostly

2010-06-11T01:21:00.000-07:00

Nothing much to report about the last few days. I baked biscuits today, and yesterday I made cream of mushroom soup for lunch. All my siblings of course didn't want to eat it, so I tried to think of a way to get them more enthused about it. My solution: Dye it green!

The end result was that half of them loved the colour change and ate it happily, while the other half only became more adamant in saying they didn't want it. So I guess the experiment was a success?

I was watching "Tombs of the Cybermen" today with Lathspell, who had previously never seen it before. He's enjoying it so far, which makes me happy. Oh, and I practiced dance for about forty minutes today, and would have worked longer, but my toe is really hurting me again, so I decided it'd be most prudent to go ice it instead. I hope I can compete in top form at the competition in a few weeks' time. My left ankle is also being a bit dodgy.

Nothing else to report, really. Life's just moving along at a nice pace, and I'm starting to study the DMV manual, and perhaps am thinking seriously about getting my driver's license at last, oh no! Yeah, I'm nineteen and don't drive . . . I happen to like the bus system in Hawaii, but now that I'm back home, where things are a lot more spaced out, I really do need to start transporting myself places under my own power. I just don't like the idea very much. Drivers are crazy here. The only other bit of daily life that could possibly pass as news right now is that I got distracted while adding sugar to my tea at breakfast this morning and as a result ended up with three heaping spoonfuls of it, haha! It tasted like tea-flavored candy . . . I was very energetic the rest of the day, and put that energy to good use by cleaning up the kitchen, the front hall, the living room, and most of the dining room. I have to learn to not talk about books while preparing breakfast; it never ends well!

Writer's Block?

2010-06-07T23:57:00.000-07:00

Well, no, I don't really have a block in my way so much as a field of mud. Despite my best efforts, everything is going so very slowly, and so tediously, which makes me suspect that they are therefore not my best efforts after all. I'm planning on giving up Facebook for July to see if that makes any changes, but for now I'm just continuing my life as usual, just trying to write every day and get back into the swing of writing seriously every day.

Today I baked banana bread, which I have actually never done before. I just guesstimated how much nutmeg to use, and was terribly anxious the whole thing would come to pieces when I flipped it out of the baking pan, but it stayed together nicely and tasted great spread thinly with margarine. It made me very happy, and my siblings and parents liked it too. There's just enough of the loaf left to eat at breakfast tomorrow alongside my usual grapefruit, so I'm looking forward to getting a yummy start to the day!

My brother's currently reading "The Tempest" for the first time, and I think he's enjoying it. My nine-year-old sister is just starting in on "The Return of the King", how exciting for her to be reading that amazing book for the first time! I wish sometimes I could rewind the clock just to read my favorite books for the first time. There's a special feel to reading them a thousand times, a sort of worn and comfortable and happy feel, but the first read is always so exhilarating, and alas, it only happens once. At least I got to read LotR for the first time when I was six, completely unaware of what would be in store for me on the next page--She's grown up surrounded by LotR movie posters, books, movie books, art books, and a wall I papered entirely with newsclippings from when the films were being released, hehe. So she's known who Frodo and Gollum and Aragorn, etc., are since birth. That's got to make for a different reading experience.

I myself am reading--well, nothing really. It's very bizarre. I desperately need new books to read--Namely, Chesterton's "The Napoleon of Notting Hill", the next few books in the Aubrey-Maturin series, a long list of Sutcliff books, more works by Faulkner after "As I Lay Dying" whet my appetite for his work back in April, Silvius' "Achilleid", "Seven Against Thebes", and sundry other reads. I'm still reading "Le Morte d'Arthur", but the going isn't very fast, and I'd like to be able to leapfrog between five books at once like I usually do. I started "Guy Mannering" yesterday, but so far it's not really caught me, though I'm sure it will eventually--that's generally how Sir Walter Scott books go. I'm going to start reading to my sisters at bedtime again, but the problem is that we had just started "The High King" when I left for college two years ago, and never finished it, so they want me to finish it now, but I feel obligated to begin the entire Prydain series over again from "The Book of Three" because otherwise they won't understand everything that happens in "The High King", the best book in the series, because they'll only have fuzzy memories of who everyone is, especially side-characters like Prince Rhun and Magg. What a muddle.

The good news is that I've FINALLY begun writing chapter one of my novel today. Remember I referred to my current authorial state earlier as a slogging through a field of mud? Well, it's coming along. I've been expending all my extra thought on the problem of this beginning for the past week, and I think I finally made a breakthrough this evening. I have written most of the first few chapters, as well as eighty pages all told of the actual novel, but the very beginning has always escaped me despite innumerable rewritings and has left me rather stymied. I think, however (although I have thought it before) that today I've begun the process of conquering it, which is a glad thing indeed. I'll try to get it all written tomorrow, and then on with the story! I'm determined to use this year off of school to write my novel, and of course NaNoWriMo is quickly approaching again! This time I'll be ready for it. I have a few ideas about what I wish to write, but I'm determinedly not thinking too much about it because I want to be free enough to write 50,000 words quickly without worrying about niceties of plot and things.

Any other happenings around here? Um, no, not really, other than "Vincent and the Doctor" continued "Doctor Who"'s winning streak for me that really began with "Vampires of Venice" and hasn't let up since, huzzah! In fact, "Vincent" might be my favorite of the new Doctor's stories so far, but I'm not sure. "Amy's Choice" was also excellent. And "The Lodger" looks to be nothing but more goodness. But "Vincent" made my eyes tear up a few times, and was all-in-all very well done indeed. Scenes like the one below were amazing (don't watch if you haven't seen it yet, of course!).

My only critique for this series really is its fondness of Earth. Very, very few stories have been set outside of Earth (Okay, "Amy's Choice" was kinda not Earth, but it kinda was still), and although I've loved the time traveling, which I felt wasn't done enough with Tennant, I miss the space traveling. And with the finale taking place at Stonehenge (yaaay, Stonehenge, I remember going there! It was very windy and very wet), it seems the series will be sticking with Earth until the end. At least it's broken out of the previous series' fondness of London, though, ha. Hopefully next season will have more planet-hopping action. And more aliens that are truly evil, too, not just misunderstood creatures :)

Oh, and I keep meaning to post some art on this blog again, but I keep forgetting, and though I have remembered now, it's late and time for me to be getting to bed, so it'll have to wait. Good night!

PS-I just realized that my last post was number 200. Wow.

Book Reviews for May

2010-06-04T16:59:00.000-07:00

Well, this will be an itty-bitty post, since I only found time to read four books in May. This was due in large part to how busy I was: finals, packing, and settling in at home for a year-long stay! However, quantity does not necessarily equal quality, as April proved! So, here are my book reviews for May!

Black Ships Before Troy, by Rosemary Sutcliff
I might have mentioned before that my dad got me a box full of Rosemary Sutcliff books for my birthday this year, and I have yet to finish reading all of them. But managed to read some more of them this month--in fact, they're the only books I read this month. This was the first, read during finals week! Basically it's a retelling of the entire body of Trojan War mythos, so it tells not only the story of "The Iliad", but also about the Judgement of Paris, Achilles' death, Ajax's suicide, and of course the Trojan Horse. I adore "The Iliad". So a retelling of its stories needs to be REALLY good to satisfy me (I've rejected a few other 'redoings' of the tale already). I'm happy to report that Sutcliff does a fine job. Again, however, it would only serve as an intro to the stories, and is by no means a replacement of them. This book is clearly written for children, albeit written well.

Outcast, by Rosemary Sutcliff
More excellent Sutcliff writing, this time in the form of an original story about a Roman boy who after being orphaned in a storm was adopted into a British tribe, only to be cast out when he reaches adulthood. His subsequent trials and tribulations as he struggles to find a place for himself in a world where both his adopted culture and the culture of his blood rejects and abuses him are pretty harrowing. He's enslaved, he's duped, he's beaten, he's starved, and he has pretty much the worst life ever. But it's all excellently written as usual; a little bit reminiscent of "Ben-Hur" in its plot, but with more heart. The ending was a little weak in my opinion, because I didn't feel it made sense after everything Rome did to him, but the story was strong. Definitely a good read.

The Sword and the Circle, by Rosemary Sutcliff
This is the first in an Arthurian trilogy by Sutcliff, a retelling of the Arthurian legends from the story of Merlin uncovering the red and white dragons in the earth to when Perceval arrives at Camelot shortly before the beginning of the quest for the Holy Grail. Now, I have a confession to make. I have not yet finished reading Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur" in full, although I'm in the middle of it. I have, however, read "The Mabinogion", Layamon's "Brut", various medieval lays telling the stories of Arthur and his court, and other more recent works like "The Once and Future King" and Tennyson's "Idylls of the King". Thus while I can judge that Sutcliff's book is a great retelling of the stories, I cannot really tell how much originality she injects into the stories. She gives motives for characters which I find fresh and interesting, but I don't necessarily know which are canon and which are of her own devising. Nevertheless, it's a worthy read. Her descriptions are, as always, beautiful, and her rendition of the Lancelot-Guinevere-Arthur triangle is reminiscent of White's. I especially liked her Merlin and her telling of the Tristan and Isolde story. I have a question though: She describes Lancelot as ugly. White describes Lancelot as ugly. Is this canon or not??? Where did Tennyson's raven-haired Lance singing 'tirra-lirra' come from then??????

Warrior Scarlet, by Rosemary Sutcliff

Book of the Month time! It's also, incidentally, the winner of my "Worst Cover Art EVER" award, but let's gloss over that, because the story was magnificent. I want to rip off the cover of my copy and draw my own cover to paste in its place.

"Warrior Scarlet" is set in a prehistoric Britain--prehistoric, but not at all primitive, which is something I love very much about Sutcliff's writings. The culture is elegant and beautiful, as well as strangely and instantly relatable, and the story is engaging and poignant as well as surprising, and the ending was very satisfying. I would have loved to have an entire story set around the supporting character of Talore the one-handed Hunter, but never mind that now. Drem is a wonderful protagonist, and his struggle to become a warrior of his tribe despite his withered spear-arm is both believable and engrossing. The girl who is adopted by Drem's family--I forget her name at the moment, though I know it began with a B--is also an excellent character and significant presence in the story despite her appearances being rare.

I don't want to spoil the story, so I won't really say any more. But I do strongly recommend it. This is a definite case of "Don't Judge a Book By It's Cover"!

May was the month of Sutcliff. This is not a bad thing, but I hope to add a bit more variety to my reading schedule in June!

Hey

2010-06-04T12:30:00.001-07:00

No time for anything more than a quick hello right now, I'm afraid, but a quick hello is better than nothing at all! My laptop's still messed up, but I'm probably going to start using it again soon anyway, which means I'll be able to post more frequently. Also, I am aware that my monthly book review post is late. However, my reviews and stuff are all on my laptop, so I've been unable to access them! Look for the review post soon.

I played hopscotch with my siblings yesterday; it was very clear and hot outside, but in a very different way than in Hawaii. The sky was more white than blue, and the air was very dry. We also blew bubbles and drew chalk pictures. And Lathspell and I both speedily drew our own versions of Faquarl the djinn from the Bartimaeus Trilogy; mine's better, of course. Maybe I'll post it later, haha.

Also, I still want to post photos of my artwork that I did over the course of last semester! All the pictures are, you guessed it, on my laptop. So expect a flood of posts in the near future; I have a lot of catching up to do.

I'm really, really home.

2010-05-29T17:01:00.000-07:00

My grandmother left to go to the airport about an hour ago, so now I really am home, settling back into normalcy, my old pre-college routines. It's a bit weird how comfortable it all feels. I thought I'd be experiencing a bit more of a culture shock or something, but nope. I haven't gotten as much writing done yet as I had been planning, but this week is when I really settle into a new schedule instead of just sleeping in every morning and watching my favorite films on dvd repeatedly, hehe. The new daily to-do list:

1) Practice my dance at least an hour
2) Read
3) Play with the siblings
4) Write at least a page of my novel
5) Go running

Of course I'm also going to mix baking, needlepoint, and art in there too, along with schooling my siblings. I haven't been able to draw since coming home because I used up all my charcoal in Hawaii, and left all the art supplies I bought in Hawaii there too, which is sad. I hope to make a run to a good art supply store soon!

Also, I hope to go to the library soon. I really miss the school library and even the Hawaii public library system, because it was so easy to keep a fresh supply of new books in my room at all times. Now I'm stagnating and hunting the backs of my own bookshelves for reads I never completed or forgot to complete. So far my search has turned up "Rob Roy", "Portrait of a Lady", and "Warrior Scarlet". A nice selection, sure, but I also want to finish the Aubrey-Maturin series and read some more Faulkner after falling in love with "As I Lay Dying" last semester!

Still, being back at home is mostly pleasant. I'm really enjoying my dance practices again, and am feeling much more motivated at classes than I used to, I think because after being starved for so long, I really appreciate anew just how much I love Irish dancing and how much it means to me. I've also enjoyed hanging out with my siblings again; today in the car Lathspell and I spontaneously burst into a rousing rendition of a medley of songs from "Les Miserables", I introduced my youngest brother to the joys of playing in a ball pit at his cousin's birthday party despite his initial reluctance to jump in (having a very serious four-year old cross his arms firmly across his chest, glare at you, and say "I refuse!" to your suggestion that he play in a ball pit is an extremely adorable and hilarious experience!), my two-year-old sister saw I was wearing a necklace and a straw hat to the party and so insisted I find a necklace and straw hat for her too (I did), and my dad is borrowing "Eagle of the Ninth" to read while he chaperones my eldest brother at a home school high school ball tonight (I can't wait to hear what he thinks of Sutcliff's writing when he comes home!). Also, I really enjoyed taking the siblings to see "How to Train Your Dragon" last week, and they've already scoffed the first batch of chocolate chip cookies that I baked and are demanding that I now prepare scones, lembas bread, and watercress soup. I think I'll tackle the lembas bread tonight. We haven't had it in a while, and it's very good!

Happy Birthday, Katherine!

2010-05-21T21:31:00.000-07:00

My only great-grandmother still living turns 98 today. What a changing world she has lived in! A blog post is not really the best tribute I can offer her and her amazing life, but it will have to do. How wonderful to live so long--and, more importantly, so well.

Home Again

2010-05-18T23:52:00.000-07:00

Already Hawaii feels like sooooo very long ago. I've been home a few days now and have begun to settle back into the routine here. It's fantastic to have little kids everywhere again, and although I'm still jetlagged, I'm still managing to get a lot of stuff done. Yesterday I took my siblings--most of them, anyway--to see "How To Train Your Dragon", and they loved it. It was their first time watching it, but I was also enjoyed seeing it again. I've promised my youngest brother a batch of cookies, and am determined to figure out how to make a cupcake version of Zippy's delicious haupia cake. Also, I have discovered so far that I got an A in Art, an A in Nutrition, and an A+ in English 321, so my grades are very satisfactory so far, even to my perfectionist self.

The only damper on all this happiness is that my grandmother spilled soda on my laptop on the plane, and so I'm terrified that he (yes, my laptop is a he, his name is Gareth--in hindsight I should have perhaps given him a less ominous name) is damaged. He's been shut off since the incident, so I do not know yet. He has all my writings and photographs and videos on him, and is infinitely precious to me, so please pray that he is unharmed--It's not really just a hunk of electronics you'd be praying for, it's a very important part of me.

As a result, I have not yet embarked upon the 'write a page every day' odyssey that I had set myself for my time at home. I did save my novel onto my flash drive before shutting down my computer, so hopefully I'll transfer that to our home computer soon and can get started on it.

I'll catch up with you again later! I am about to catch up on my weekly episode of "Lost" now. Oh, and I saw "Amy's Choice" on Sunday, due to me being in the air over the Pacific on Saturday, and it was excellent. The next two-part story looks great too--the return of the Silurians, yaaaay!

Done!

2010-05-14T16:09:00.000-07:00

I've actually survived finals week yet again! I still find it hard to believe . . . I guess the Doctor is right, we humans really are capable of amazing things ;)

I'm utterly exhausted, so I'll leave you now to take a quick nap before getting all my packing done. I got three hours of sleep last night and three the night before, so I'm pretty wiped out. And I leave on the plane early tomorrow morning, so all that packing that I've been unable to do due to being busy studying? That needs to be done pronto.

I wrote nine pages of essay for my last English exam today, six for yesterday's exam, and two for Tuesday's. That's a lot of essays in a very short amount of time. My wrist still hasn't recovered. Oww.

One Down, Four to Go

2010-05-10T20:20:00.001-07:00

I have completed my Russian 202 course, what a relief! The final exam went pretty well. Now I'm studying for my exam on Dante and Arthurian legend, which is tomorrow--And this studying is MUCH more enjoyable than studying for Russian, I can tell you that much!

A new trailer for "Inception" was released today. I've been wanting to watch this movie ever since I saw the first teaser, and it's just looking better and better with every trailer and poster. I hope it's as excellent as it seems, because this new trailer? AMAZING.

I didn't even really like "The Dark Knight", so that's not a factor here--this film just looks like it'll be intelligent, mind-bending, well-acted, and--what makes me most happy in this age of film adaptations and tired sequels--original. Exciting!

Happy Mother's Day!

2010-05-09T14:55:00.001-07:00

I'm going to call my mother on Skype later today. Moms are great in general. And mine is awesome. So Happy Mother's Day, all ye mothers!

Yay, I was right

2010-05-08T20:05:00.000-07:00

Today's episode of "Doctor Who" was definitely one of the best of the new series, and perhaps even my favorite--it felt so like classic Who! But again, what a PITY that they're sticking with individual 45-minute stories! The story ideas are so good, I want them to be four-parters, then they'd be brilliant. Still, this just might be my favorite of the series so far. I love Rory.

And the promo for next week? TERRIFIC. And I'll be watching it in California, because when it's made available, I'll be somewhere flying above the Pacific. Just how surreal is that, huh? Still unbelievable.

I've been doing a lot of boring painting today, and now I'm doing Russian. I need to get started on planning my exam essays too, though. Augh, it's so frustrating to have so much to do and so little time. I need a time machine of my own.

It's also frustrating to think this is my last Saturday in Hawaii for over a year, and I can't go out and simply enjoy the island. That makes me very sad. For I will miss this place, even though I'll be glad to be back with my family and my dancing again. Hawaii's part of my home now, too.

Wow :)

2010-05-07T01:57:00.000-07:00

Tonight's "Supernatural" episode was just as perfect as "Lost"'s this week. What a great week for my television shows in general then--I hope "Doctor Who" on Saturday is up to par! The episode looks good from the trailer though, so I'm looking forward to it and trusting it to not break this perfect 3-for-3 record. And Rory will be back!

Seriously, though, "Supernatural" continues to amaze me. While I don't agree with much of the theology, I don't mind it because it's fiction and I enjoy thinking about what I do believe in connection with what's presented in the show--where it lines up, and how, when it deviates, I can compare the two and pick out the truths in the fiction. It doesn't attack beliefs so much as choose to do its own thing for the sake of its fictional universe and the story, and since I can therefore easily separate it from the 'real world', it's okay in my book. So it's like I get good fodder for meditative reflection, which is always nice; I get a fantastic apocalyptic storyline that is impressive in the consistency of its quality; I get absolutely awesome characters to both root for and root against (the acting as well as how the characters are written is almost universally perfect); I get top-notch dialogue that can be both hilarious and heartbreaking with effortless ease--this show has jumped into my small and select group of favorites so quickly, it's ridiculous. But that's okay. I'm super excited (and worried and in suspense!) about the finale next week. And I'm super excited for the next "Lost" episode too. This kind of convergence of excellence does not happen often, so I'm just kinda basking in it right now. I mean, that whole submarine thing on "Lost" and the Horseman of Death making eating pizza in Chicago look chilling on "Supernatural" all happening in one week? Awesome.

I got a letter from one of my besties today, which was wonderful. I'm in the middle of writing one back already, but I'm almost out of calligraphy ink, so I have to tip the bottle whenever I dip my pen in. Hopefully it'll last for the whole missive. Also, it's my brother's sixteenth birthday today. That's bizarre. I shouldn't be old enough to have a sixteen year old brother.

Of course, I'm kind of using this entire post to ignore the elephant in the room, so I'll stop ignoring right now and get straight to it: Yes, my final exams are all next week. Keeping me in your prayers would be appreciated. Yes. It's hard to believe that this time next week it will all be almost over, but there we are. Time is such a fickle beast. It slows down, it speeds up, it casts illusion over me.

I'd best be getting back to studying then. And then a quick shower before bed. Tomorrow I have no classes, but my Russian professor agreed to have a final exam study session/review and I fully intend on being there.

(PS: Yes, I included a photo, because it's been way too long since I put any photos on this blog and I'm getting tired of just words, haha.)

jkabsfv;aeol;kfjwoklfrwo;pq!!!!!!!!!!!!Kj1!!!! (Or, My Reaction to "The Candidate"

2010-05-05T00:24:00.001-07:00

This entire post, of course,--or at least most of it--is SPOILERS.

1) I'm ashamed to admit that I seriously screamed at the television a few times, haha, that rarely happens. Especially when Sawyer was about to do . . . that one thing. Toward the end. Yes.

2) So--Many--Parallels--To--Earlier--Episodes--Mind--Explodey--

3) SAYID. 'Nuff said ;(

4) I didn't lose it until that shot of the two hands letting go. If you saw it, you know what I'm talking about.

5) LAPIDUS??? Is he still in the game? He's been useless, but he's so charismatic anyway, I hope he's okay.

6) I want to go back to Team Richard/Ben/Miles, which will be happy perhaps to know that the whole blowing-things-up idea has been taken care of without them.

7) I'm liking Jack more and more and more with every episode! This is a good thing.

8) I'm letting my island-feelings interfere with how I see characters in Sideways World. Not only was I happy when Sideways-Desmond ran Sideways-Locke over in the school parking lot a few episodes ago, during this episode when Sideways-Locke was telling Jack his sad story about crashing the plane and injuring his father, I could only think that I wanted Jack to call up Sideways-Desmond and tell him to finish the job. Grrrr.

9) I was RIGHT all along, Team Jacob for the win!

. . . And good night. I have art homework to finish. My only consolation right now is that after what Sayid said we have more Desmond on the way. Whether alive or dead remains to be seen, but at least he'll be back.

The Faerie Carousel

Pondering between classes

New Year's Resolutions

My Grades for Fall 2011 are in

Happy Christmas, fellow Tolkien-lovers!

Posters!

After only 3 hours of sleep last night

Top 10 Books that I want to see turned into (awesome) Movies

"The Fall" set to Poets of the Fall

Book Reviews for October

This is me right now.

1 HOUR TO NANOWRIMO YOU GUYS

I need to post more often

Book Reviews for September

Book Reviews for August

Book Reviews for July

I took a walk to the library today

The Mirror: A Poem

The Star Spangled Maaaaan!

Yep, it's Summer

Book Reviews for April, May, June

Book Reviews Overdue

Doctor Who Review, Series 6 Episode 3: "The Curse of the Black Spot"

Doctor Who Review, Series 6 Episode 2: "The Day of the Moon"

Doctor Who Review, Series 6 Episode 1: "The Impossible Astronaut"

:(

Heads Up, Whovians!

A humorous Easter prelude

My life's shifting again . . .

Book Reviews for March

Ho-hum.

The Wise Man's Fear

Buster Keaton - Embarassment

Happy Tolkien Reading Day!

Book Reviews for February

Book Reviews for January

AT LAST

A long overdue 'Farewell to 2010' post

Book Reviews for November

'Tangled' Art!

The Dinosaurs Are Coming Back!

Christmas Feis!

Vertigo

A Little More NaNoWriMo

Disney's Tangled Soundtrack TRACK 18 "The Tear Heals" (Score)

A Spoiler-Free Review of "Tangled"

Book Reviews for October

Doctor Who Day

"Tangled" Tomorrow!

"Tangled"!

NaNoWriMo Novel, chapter 1!

The Hobbit!

Daytime Thunderstorm!

7 Days

Book Reviews for September

Why I Shouldn't Procrastinate

Hot . . .

Oireachtas Coming . . .

Phoenix Requiem

LIBRARY!

It's Sunny Today

It's September Already? Wow.

Sun In My Eyes

Inception - 12. Time

INCEPTION

MORE Videos (And Links)!

"Sherlock"

My Life as a Cyclops

Books I Currently Want to Read:

Toy Story 3: What Starts as a Review Ends as a Meditation on Why I Cried

A Brief Bit of Background For My Novel

I was going to go to bed early . . .

Hello Again

And the Days Go By . . .

Doctor, Doctor

Book Reviews for June

Amy!

Rambling and "The Big Bang" [NO Spoilers]

"The Pandorica Opens"-Not Spoilery, Really . . .

"Doctor Who" Season Finale Approaches!