(no subject)

[gwydion]

* So that's Solstice, then.


* It's looking like Ron Paul lent his name to racist and anti-Semetic newsletter articles in the 90's. I withdraw my "nice man" opinion, but the fundamentalist wrong bit stands.

* While I'm generally against censorship, my feeling is, releasing the method for weaponizing bird flu is on the very short list of things needing censoring.

* Greenwick's coming tomorrow evening. Yay!

* I finally gave in and moved the pretty shelf out of my room as it was holding up the next phase of unpacking. It's not a particularly convenient location given the current box maze configuration, but it looks to be a sensible spot long term, and I really like easy access to my reference section, and this is the shelf I really want my reference section on, if that makes sense. It's the right shape and size, which is why it's where it's gone in the past.

* I had to send Game of Thrones back half finished again, but made good note of where I left off this time. What else have I been reading? The second Strout novel, the Rift Walker by Clay and Susan Griffith, and some Farmers. Herein lies a story.

When I was small, my parents owned two air conditioners. One lived in the kitchen, for obvious reasons. The other was in my parents' bedroom. I've never been able to sleep in the heat, so when the weather got too hot and humid for me to sleep in my room, we'd make up a pallet on the floor of my parents' room. After my sister was born, they made up a second pallet for her. My spot was right by one of the many book shelves in the house. (I come by it naturally). This shelf mostly had my father's science fiction books and a smattering of mom's mainstream stuff. As I lay there waiting for sleep, I would look at this shelf, and amuse myself with the covers. When I learned to read, I started sampling things off the shelves. It was one of these summers, when I picked up Philip Jose Farmer's To Their Scattered Bodies Go and it's next sequel, The Fabulous Riverboat. I can't tell you which summer it was, but it was likely between third and sixth grade due to surrounding sensory evidence.

I certainly lacked a whole bunch of historical, political, literary, and sociological information one pretty much needed given the nature of the book and it's sequels, but we went to the library once or twice a week in summer, and I had a penchant for research, which I was perfectly willing to do on my own time, and I was not afraid to pull microfilm or wade through adult no fiction on topics that interested me. (Other projects I did for my own edification between 4th and 9th grade include, but are not limited to: PTSD/shell shock/related problems of returning veterans, Lenny Bruce, Kant, Freud, and Ancient Crete). Anyway, I set about learning a whole lot more about Richard Burton, Mark Twain, and a variety of other folks referenced therein. It lead to me slogging through a whole collection of lesser works by Twain and variety of related philosophical works.

I read the first three at least two more times before graduating high school, along with the other novels as they arrived in my house. Each time, with a more complex understanding, and increasing awareness of the serious problems with characterization, particularly of Sam Clemens, as well as of the problematic aspects contained in the books, re: race, gender, orientation, Sam's treatment of Joe, mental illness, etc.. (I have so many questions: What happens to the trans folk? (A question I first formulated my second time through). Is his handling of the problematic elements working or failing? How much is intentional and how much is unintentional? What was he trying to do with Soul City, exactly? On and on. The author being recently deceased, I can't ask him what he was trying to do). I am reading them all again now. I wish I had someone to talk about these things with who's read the damned things. Gah!

* I shan't be seeing War Horse. Long time readers know how I feel about WWI, and I do not think I can stomache sentimentality about any aspect of it. At least in the commercial it looks like sentimental drivel. If any of you see it and it turns out not to be sentimental drivel, let me know.

* This puts into words some things that were bugging me about episode six in particular, but also some larger things bugging me about the series. It's not enough to make me quit yet, but the bloom is off the rose: http://www.fangsforthefantasy.com/2011/12/grimm-season-1-episode-5-danse-macabre.html

* This really moved me: http://lettersfromtitan.tumblr.com/post/14572344490/yayponies-its-a-time-honored-tradition-at-navy

* Lovely: http://litharriel.livejournal.com/508574.html

* He really is just that good: http://lettersfromtitan.tumblr.com/post/14527990848/brilliant-snark-berrybell-hes-just-that

* O.o http://lettersfromtitan.tumblr.com/post/14588580842/helivesunderawaterfall-legionaries

* The stuff Republicans are trying to do instead of or force into the extension bill: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#45745497

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Comments

[il-volpe.livejournal.com]

My aunt and uncle, who are critics, inform me that War Horse is advertised as this sweet story about a boy and his horse, but is actually hideously brutal and grim.

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

Hideously brutal and grim is more appropriate to the subject, I think.

[il-volpe.livejournal.com]

Other critics are describing it as 'sentimental' yet 'unflinching' about the horrors of war. Mary Ann said the horse abuse depicted really upset her. Some other critics described it as upsetting, too. But it's also supposed to be a 'family' film. Beats me.

I'll probably see it, but likely not in the cinema. I am not sure how it'll work for me. I am pretty lousy at reading human body language, but read most animals very well. Since directors are often not good at reading animal body language, this can turn the animal action in movies all cattywumpus for me. /White Dog/ would be a disturbing and alarming film, except the dog has been trained to snarl, not to act threatening. So the title character of the movie is supposed to fear and hate black people, but the dog actor is just showing his teeth but has friendly eyes, and often enough, a wagging tail. He looks like a joke to me. Horses are kinda flat affected animals, but it's still pretty easy for a director to screw up.

An aside, /Benji/ (1974) is pretty surreal and funny even if you don't recognize that the dog is the only person in the film who is a good actor. (And he was a great dog actor. But also a dog actor working with a director who is and was more interested in animal behavior than in film.) The dog in /Man's Best Friend/ is also really good.

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

Fascinating.

[deepseasiren.livejournal.com]

Because there's so few movies about WWI aside from Flyboys and Gallipoli, I'm definitely up for seeing War Horse and don't care if it's 'sentimental' or not.

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

There are some very old black and white ones, and some BBC things that are understandably big on characterization, but low budget, but yes, mostly, the war has been ignored.

Fly boys was a horrible disappointment. The real stories are so interesting, yet they ignored folks like Albert Ball, who's story would be perfect for a film done with modern effects. Instead they put a tepid script so forgettable I can remember almost nothing. Gah.

I do think we need more films about trench warfare or meat grinders like the Somme. I thing it's important to remember the horrible cost in lives, limbs, blood, and sanity that was payed a century ago so rich old men could dream of glory, how so many countries murdered a large portion of the male half of a generation to no good purpose. It think it's important to think about the horror the first poor bastards felt when they field tested the first flame throwers on unsuspecting grunts who had no clue what was coming or that such horrors were possible. (I have seen the raw footage from German archives).

You get survivors like Tolkien writing about the dead man's marsh, a fictionalized version that gives distance. You get poems. You get other guys writing about everything but the war itself. You get a few people writing later on, turning experiences in later wars into that war instead, another form of distanceing. There is All Quiet on the Western Front, handed to us to read as young teens and then set aside without much thought.

I think the destruction was so great it was hard to look at directly for my great grandmother's generation, and the Great Depression and the so much more necessary WWII overshadowed it and it mostly got forgotten. I think that's a mistake, especially given how man young men and women we destroyed or damaged to make Halliburton and the likes of Dick Cheney richer, and so rich old men can dream of glory. Forget history and the lessons repeat.

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

I'm planning to see Warhorse, but mostly because I know we have tickets to the stage production next year and I want to compare and contrast. (As far as the stage production goes, they pretty much had me at 'life-sized horse puppets which can be ridden' and everything I've seen since then has made me not car one tiny bit about the story because /puppets/. HORSE puppets. That breathe. OMG! (they figured out the horses look wrong if they don't breathe so one of the three-four puppeteers who run each horse is largely responsible for 'breathing' for the horse which involves this whole split ribcage deal that they developed.)

Umm, yes, anyway. I'll be over in my happy stage-craft/PUPPETS! place... and I kinda want to see the movie so I can compare the two.

(Also, I always find it interesting to see the ways things end up adapted from books for both stage and screen. I may eventually get around to reading the book that they're based on.)

From what I understand the 'family' portion is 'but it's a film about /horses/ and a boy who loves his horse and goes looking for him and the horse who loves him and is trying to get home!' with bonus 'educational because it's about History, don'tcha know'. Also, I'm not sure it's particularly more horrific than Black Beauty (which, btw, never go back and try to read again. It turns out that when you're not six with it being read to you a few chapters at a time by your grandmother, it's kind of moralistic clap-trap that hits you over the head with things. just sayin')

Anyway, yes, Family Film because it's based on a YA historical fiction book. You know. Like The Yearling, Black Beauty, Where the Red Fern Grows, Old Yeller... I could go on.

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

I don't blame you. Puppets!

I had that experience with Black Beauty trying to reread as a teen, only it was my mom reading it to me a few chapters at a time whenever I was sick.

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

Also, I've read To Their Scattered Bodies Go, but I don't think I ever got around to the other Riverworld books. (That said, I read To Their Scattered Bodies Go a /very/ long time ago. And then played in an avatar campaign set on Riverworld in highschool, which... was it's own problematic thing in a whole lot of ways.)

I think Ryan's read them as well, though I'm not sure. I do remember it being something that made me interested in Burton for a while there, though.

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

What's Ryan's Read?