By the numbers
Sep. 18th, 2006 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petronia1) Happy (late??) birthday, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
moderntime! I should have remembered to say something in email. ^^;
2) Still no kiriban! I changed it to 801. XD
3) Have moved from drinking genmaicha to drinking kamairi houjicha - or as denizens of the Middle Kingdom refer to it, oolong. No, I didn't know there was such a thing as Japanese oolong either. It's very good. *g* Next time I'll get a packet of twig tea.
4) I will be flying to Shanghai on October 2nd and leaving on October 29th. Will be seeing Miss Fiona during that time. ^^v Also will be in Singapore from October 19th to October 24th. Please, if I know you,show me where the food is HANG OUT WITH ME. XD I want to meet people! Drop me an email at petronia gmail. I'll be getting my phone unlocked and bringing it with me in order to be contact-able, though might switch to a Chinese SIM card depending.
I have enough time to make a day trip to Malaysia but not as far as KL 'mfraid.
5) Ouran ep.23: unexpectedly the sequel to ep.22. Oh, yakuza dude, you TOTALLY DIDN'T THINK THAT ONE THROUGH DID YOU. Also, my sides, they ache.
6) I find it conceptually convenient - maybe too conceptually convenient - to think of Beth as she thinks of herself, i.e. not a human being really. There's an underlying structural and thematic similarity to Perdido Street Station that becomes apparent if you think Gwynn:Beth::Isaac:slakemoth. The slakemoth is female, IIRC, but it's been a long time since I read PSS.
Whereas Raule might as well be a composite of people in my personal acquaintance.
I don't normally write fic for novels anyway, and I definitely wouldn't want to write fic for this one (it falls into the Vagrant Story category of "if I were going to do that, I'd be better off writing my own book"), but I want to draw fanart for it pretty badly. XD Or maybe just to see fanart from someone more competent than me. I have this perennial problem of wanting to recreate works of art described in fiction, because I see them in minute detail in my head, but just because I imagine the style as Botticelli with a touch of Bronzino doesn't mean I have the ability to reproduce it.
Over the weekend I also started an FST. It's much easier to represent the atmosphere of the book through the metaphors of tonal and harmonic complexity than... any other way, really. XD Probably I'll make it a mostly instrumental soundtrack, like the Heist FST. Lots of strings and brass and sharps and flats (and there are aesthetic choices to be made, like who do you cast as Toleda? An important question XD).
Part of the impetus was me thinking how a key passage in the novel resembled a more baroque (by several degrees of magnitude) version of the vision I always have while listening to "Ichso". I 'see' music in colours and diffuse shapes but it rarely goes beyond the sort of thing you get in Windows Media Player visualisations. "Ichso" is one of the more elaborate ones, or maybe just more literal: I'm chasing a red thread through a city of narrow, twisting streets and ever-changing, geometric buildings. The thread lengthens by itself as I spool it in from the other end, hanging in mid-air and turning corners of its own volition. It moves at a brisk, but unhurried and constant pace. I don't know where it's leading me. The landscape shifts from the Mediterranean Cubic style of Escher to industrialised and back. Sometimes the thread disappears, but as I continue forward it returns to my hands with dream logic. There's a definite drugginess to the scene, although this sort of thing isn't my cup of herbal tea.
I don't know if I want to put all twelve minutes of "Ichso" on the FST, though, it seems a tad self-indulgent. XD
7) I've just been poking at my tagged fic and okay, formalistic/stylistic concerns aside, I've written four stories this year that are about the same thing as my![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
blind_go fic. There's a reason why I'm not offering drabbles to people who guess me right. XD (The other reason being, you can just ask for a Christmas card. There's no need to be shy, it wouldn't be open to the entire flist if I were bothered at the possibility of the entire flist responding. XD)
moderntime! I should have remembered to say something in email. ^^;2) Still no kiriban! I changed it to 801. XD
3) Have moved from drinking genmaicha to drinking kamairi houjicha - or as denizens of the Middle Kingdom refer to it, oolong. No, I didn't know there was such a thing as Japanese oolong either. It's very good. *g* Next time I'll get a packet of twig tea.
4) I will be flying to Shanghai on October 2nd and leaving on October 29th. Will be seeing Miss Fiona during that time. ^^v Also will be in Singapore from October 19th to October 24th. Please, if I know you,
I have enough time to make a day trip to Malaysia but not as far as KL 'mfraid.
5) Ouran ep.23: unexpectedly the sequel to ep.22. Oh, yakuza dude, you TOTALLY DIDN'T THINK THAT ONE THROUGH DID YOU. Also, my sides, they ache.
6) I find it conceptually convenient - maybe too conceptually convenient - to think of Beth as she thinks of herself, i.e. not a human being really. There's an underlying structural and thematic similarity to Perdido Street Station that becomes apparent if you think Gwynn:Beth::Isaac:slakemoth. The slakemoth is female, IIRC, but it's been a long time since I read PSS.
Whereas Raule might as well be a composite of people in my personal acquaintance.
I don't normally write fic for novels anyway, and I definitely wouldn't want to write fic for this one (it falls into the Vagrant Story category of "if I were going to do that, I'd be better off writing my own book"), but I want to draw fanart for it pretty badly. XD Or maybe just to see fanart from someone more competent than me. I have this perennial problem of wanting to recreate works of art described in fiction, because I see them in minute detail in my head, but just because I imagine the style as Botticelli with a touch of Bronzino doesn't mean I have the ability to reproduce it.
Over the weekend I also started an FST. It's much easier to represent the atmosphere of the book through the metaphors of tonal and harmonic complexity than... any other way, really. XD Probably I'll make it a mostly instrumental soundtrack, like the Heist FST. Lots of strings and brass and sharps and flats (and there are aesthetic choices to be made, like who do you cast as Toleda? An important question XD).
Part of the impetus was me thinking how a key passage in the novel resembled a more baroque (by several degrees of magnitude) version of the vision I always have while listening to "Ichso". I 'see' music in colours and diffuse shapes but it rarely goes beyond the sort of thing you get in Windows Media Player visualisations. "Ichso" is one of the more elaborate ones, or maybe just more literal: I'm chasing a red thread through a city of narrow, twisting streets and ever-changing, geometric buildings. The thread lengthens by itself as I spool it in from the other end, hanging in mid-air and turning corners of its own volition. It moves at a brisk, but unhurried and constant pace. I don't know where it's leading me. The landscape shifts from the Mediterranean Cubic style of Escher to industrialised and back. Sometimes the thread disappears, but as I continue forward it returns to my hands with dream logic. There's a definite drugginess to the scene, although this sort of thing isn't my cup of herbal tea.
I don't know if I want to put all twelve minutes of "Ichso" on the FST, though, it seems a tad self-indulgent. XD
7) I've just been poking at my tagged fic and okay, formalistic/stylistic concerns aside, I've written four stories this year that are about the same thing as my
blind_go fic. There's a reason why I'm not offering drabbles to people who guess me right. XD (The other reason being, you can just ask for a Christmas card. There's no need to be shy, it wouldn't be open to the entire flist if I were bothered at the possibility of the entire flist responding. XD)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 06:49 pm (UTC)You're going to miss my birthday! D:
no subject
Date: 2006-09-19 02:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 10:43 pm (UTC)There's also a drawing she did of Raule on her site. I don't think I'd ever want to see anyone attempt to reproduce the art described in the book, but at the same time I'd love to see some drawings of Ashamoil itself despite the city itself being as... I'm not finding the words... occult? unreachable? oneiric? as anything Beth drew.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-19 02:39 am (UTC)I'm looking at what's posted on her site now, and wow. ♥
no subject
Date: 2006-09-19 01:32 am (UTC)(Does Kyouya have it for Tamaki? I can't tell but somehow I presume you can.)
RE: kiriban, NOT FOR LACK OF TRYING
no subject
Date: 2006-09-19 02:55 am (UTC)Actually the anime is winding up, isn't it. Sigh. Guess I'll have to pick up the manga.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-12 04:40 am (UTC)P.S. Recommend some of the namedropped authors' (from your other post on it) works? I've read some amount of Calvino and Borges; the rest are unknowns. This isn't generally the genre/style I read, so I fear I'm missing out on possible references/background. :D