I Feel Like Someone Hit Me With the Fucked-Up Stick

[handful_ofdust]

Spent much of last night compiling a Professional Development 2007 list of my extracurricular exploits for the knobs at TFS, who (just like every year) are trying hard to pretend they run a semi-real "university alternative"…ie, one staffed by teachers who are out there in the real world, publishing and not perishing. Thankfully, it turns out that while I was convinced I hadn’t done shit this year, I’ve actually done far more than just shit. Or a whole lot of shit, at any rate.

In other news, agincourtgirl’s mother fell down and hurt her hip—broke the ball, I believe—so she’s in the hospital, where agincourtgirl herself is also going to be (or has already been) this week. Her husband Marcello is back in London, moving into the flat they’ll eventually share together. I’m almost caught up on my business/personal email correspondence, and will be going into the deliver said form expeditiously. Hopefully, I can also process those last few Fifth Term Project packages and get those off my damn back, while I’m at it; tonight we signed up for a tutorial at the Geneva Centre, and things are going to accellerate. As they do.

Other stuff:

--Sent "The Jacaranda Smile" off to someone, finally (Mike Allen at Clockwork Phoenix, on the strength of the Mythic Delirium placement and an inquiry on his part). We’ll see.

--A lot of this weekend was taken up by reading Crystal Zevon’s I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, an aural history of Warren Zevon. Hadn’t known what a hopeless alcoholic he’d been for most of his formative years, but believe you me, I’m impressed—I can’t write that much, or that well, when I’m stone cold sober. I often wonder whether knowing I have that particular gene makes me cut behaviour like his a bit more slack than I otherwise might…granted, I still wouldn’t’ve wanted to be his kid, or be around him much. Great material, though.

--Realized the other day that I’ve apparently become a manga person without knowing it, like I always sort of feared I might.;) Granted, since Death Note folded, I only collect two (M. Alice LeGrow’s Bizenghast and Parasyte, which is everything theengineer said it would be, and more), but I did catch myself glancing longingly at all eight issues of Cantarella in the World’s Biggest Bookstore yesterday afternoon. It’s this nutbucket re-interpretation of the life of Cesare Borgia, with added demonic pacts, poisonous blood, guys who may be angels, and Machiavelli as a moth-winged sorcerer rather than a political theorist/Cesare fan. What’s oddly cute about it is the sense that the author finds Renaissance Italy exotic and cool in the same way some Westerners find Samurai-era Japan. Cultural cross-polination, my favorite gateway drug.

--Unnecessary consumption roster: Found $9.99 copy of the Criterion Onibaba at Rogers, and an $11.95 PAL copy of Europa which works in my DVD player at BMV. Score one for the archivist!

Comments

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

What’s oddly cute about it is the sense that the author finds Renaissance Italy exotic and cool in the same way some Westerners find Samurai-era Japan. Cultural cross-pollination, my favorite gateway drug.

Also noticeable in manga with English characters who have odd-sounding names like "Earl Dorian Gloria." Oh, also there's a Chevalier D'Eon manga. It's sort of a supernatural detective story, I think.

I finally watched Paprika this weekend :)

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on the names...like those insane "English" names for the FBI agents in Death Note: Hal Lidner (she's a woman, by the way), Raye Penber (a guy), etc. Or Mello, whose real name (spoiler!) turns out to be "Mihael Keehl"--what? I guess most Asians probably have to deal with "but it SOUNDS cool" syndrome all the time, though; I try to get around it by yoinking and re-using the names of actors or filmmakers, vide Jude Hark Chiu-wai, but I'm sure there are people out there who find it just as vaguely offensive.