It's clever, but is it art?

I hate 101 classes. Passionately hate.

2008-08-26T04:41:04Z

Today was my first day at Arizona State University.

It's exactly like the goddamned community college. Apart from costing about four times more per class, that is.

I'm surrounded by 18-year-olds who still think they're in high school and couldn't possibly care less about the subjects being taught, and professors whose concern is to pass as many people as possible. God forbid they should actually challenge us and make us earn our degrees. God forbid they demand some actual intelligence and effort from their students.

I could rant about this, but I just don't even care.

Yep, Batman again. Comics this time, though.

2008-08-24T22:47:44Z

Been reading a lot of Batman comics lately. I didn't read many comic books when I was a kid, because the few that I picked up were so bad (apart from Sandman -- for a while I really thought Gaiman was the only good comic writer ever). But now that I have access to stuff that wasn't published circa 1960, the genre feels much more respectable, and really pretty awesome. :D

There will be lots of spoilers in here.

Hush by Jeph Loeb.

Jeph Loeb isn't a great storyteller, but the art in this book is so absolutely stunning that I enjoyed every page; in fact I had trouble getting around to ever turning the pages. And really, Loeb did all right. There were things I really liked about the story, and I think he had some interesting ideas... he just didn't pull them together in a very interesting way. Most of what he had to say about Batman and the various villains felt just a bit trite, like the kind of "revelations" that have probably been made dozens of times in the history of the series.

So I don't know. The plot was actually pretty good, and it was well-written enough... it was just sort of typical: Batman fights villains, does detective work, reflects on past, faces own demons, sustains injuries, ultimately unveils plot, carries on. But really, it wasn't bad. I think the only reason I'm having trouble praising it is because I subsequently read another book by Jeph Loeb, Dark Victory, which was just horrible. So now I'm having trouble believing that Hush didn't suck too.

But in any case, it was worth reading for the art alone. Just gorgeous.

The Killing Joke by Alan Moore.

Well, it's Alan Moore, so of course this one was very well-written ~~(mostly... though my sister and I both, separately, burst into uncontrollable laughter when Batman comforted a weeping Gordon with the words, "Let it come")~~. The art was also amazing, at once very cartoonish and very real -- very exaggerated, but also very detailed and beautifully shaded and expressive and alive. In some ways it was even better than the art in Hush, because it wasn't so intentionally showy -- just really, really good.

As for the story, I enjoyed it a great deal, but... I still felt like something was ultimately missing. I loved Moore's idea, to really capture the Joker's character, to explain how he came to be what he is, and examine what he perceives himself to be; to show why madness has such a strong appeal for him, why he considers justice a joke, and why he's so fascinated by, and drawn to, Batman. He's suave and dangerous and just the right balance between charming and horrible, and his humor is just dark enough, just mean enough. And oh my god, that gun at the end, Batman's shocked expression, and then the flag -- "click click click," and, "God damn it. It's empty." Oh my god, I laughed for like a minute straight. I love you, Joker, even though you're a terrible, terrible man.

The Joker's song was pretty awesome, and his position, his "message," while flawed, was believable; and Batman's debunking of his theory, with not just Gordon but himself as (dubious) proof, was well done. I can't really say what it was that seemed to be missing from the story. A conclusion, maybe?

I mean, the Joker tells that flashlight joke, "See, there were these two guys in a lunatic asylum..." and the joke is funny, but then... that's it. They laugh, and the book ends right there. Ends just after a frame that sort of looks like Batman is, like... tickling the Joker, or something; like they've just become fast friends after all the unspeakable things that have just happened throughout the book. Gordon being tortured within an inch of his sanity, and Barbara being paralyzed and practically molested... Just, whoa, what?

I guess the joke was supposed to represent Batman and the Joker's relationship, how they're both crazy, and Batman, thinking himself the sane one, is trying to offer a helping hand, offering to make the Joker his friend and save him somehow -- and this is the Joker's answer, to point out that they're both far too mad for that, both too mad to even exist outside of their asylum. Least of all together. And I guess that's why Batman burst out laughing, too -- because the joke is just so appropriate, so them. But still, it was a kind of strange ending. It seemed to really demonstrate that Batman is precisely as cracked as the Joker after all, and that maybe the Joker was right. Except that there's nothing he can do to send Batman over the edge, because he already is over the edge. This is his insanity.

Anyway, like the other works of Moore's that I've read, this one left me feeling sort of ambivalent, really liking it, and yet not quite liking it as much as I feel it deserves... and not being sure whether that's my fault, or Moore's.

Dark Victory by Jeph Loeb.

This thing was so boring it was practically unreadable. Part of the problem is that the art was just horrible, flat, expressionless, with wonky proportions and ugly characters and just ugh. But even aside from that, the grammar was bad, the arrangement of the dialogue was confusing, and the story was repetitive and uninteresting. Each installment retold pieces from all the previous installments, and failed to integrate them into the story so that they would seem natural; the characters said things that should have been incorporated into the narrative, because they made no sense as dialogue... Blah.

Also Jeph Loeb seems to have a habit of trying to pack every single villain into each of his stories. Overkill much?

Arkham Asylum by Grant Morrison.

Holy shit, man.

First of all, Dave McKean was the perfect choice of artist for this book. I don't even think the book could exist if it weren't for McKean. The art is thoroughly, thoroughly disturbing.

But I don't mean to discredit the amount of detail Grant Morrison put into his descriptions for every single panel, either. I've got the edition with the script printed at the back, and wow. I'm about to run out and buy stacks of books by Jung and Campbell and Crowley, because I'm completely embarrassed by how little of the genius of the book I picked up while reading it. It's just packed with visual allusions to mythology and religion and mysticism and psychology; the amount of symbolism in every page, every scene, every line, every underlying idea, is mind-boggling.

There were still things about it that seemed off to me, though. I mean, the setup was fine: asylum breakout, inmates demand to see Batman -- and knowing Batman, he would choose to go. Maybe more out of masochism than heroism, really. He was a little too confessional with Gordon, I thought, and Gordon was a bit too fatherly; their relationship felt a little off. But then, I can't think of a better way to have incorporated that uneasy comment about how going to Arkham would feel like coming home.

The Joker was fucking excellent, and I loved his reaction to, "I say we take the mask off. I want to see his real face." -- "Oh, don't be so predictable, for Christ's sake! That is his real face." Maybe that was partly just an authorial device to prevent Batman's being clobbered and unmasked by all the inmates en masse, but it was also so, so true -- and the kind of truth that the Joker would recognize better than anyone else.

I wasn't so sure about Batman's total failure at word-association. Surely this is a man who can think on his feet, and answer questions without revealing any more about himself than he wants to? I get that the point was to show how afraid Batman really is of examining his own psyche, and it’s a very interesting problem; I just don't know that his totally tripping right the fuck out over a few words quite fit.

Then things sort of degenerate into a game of hide and seek, which is a pretty good setup to pit Batman against each of his old enemies in turn, to have them each present to him some separate fear that haunts him, and let him conquer them one at a time... but it sort of... I mean, most of them come at him with accusations, revelations, insidious ideas, and he only refutes them with physical might, kicking, punching, stabbing, so that he still always comes off as somehow impotent: they confront him with internal fears, internal demons, and his only defense is an external one, destruction. Which, come to think of it, is pretty accurately representative of Batman as we know him. Here is a man who seriously cannot deal with internal problems. To the point that he would rather jab shards of glass through his hand as a distraction, apparently.

I loved Harvey, and loved how -- I think -- he actually made a choice to let Batman go at the end, without really consulting his coin. I loved his comments on the moon, expressing his outlook on the world. I didn't understand why Batman was apparently setting everyone free. I mean, it's a nice parallel for Pandora's Box, hope and all; but I'm not sure why Batman would want to open that box. I guess maybe it was his only way out?

Anyway, Arkham Asylum is definitely my favorite of the books so far. It kind of seems like an entirely different medium, almost an entirely different genre, an exploration and analysis of the entire Batman mythos rather than an actual story about Batman. It felt...

Well, it felt not like something that actually happened, but like a vivid depiction of the sum of Batman's nightmares. Thanks to McKean, the thing really does have the feel of a nightmare, everything shifting and vague and somehow utterly terrifying in its shapelessness; there are all these dark hallways and abandoned rooms, and of course a house is representative of the self or the mind in dreams anyway, and all these lurking demons, and... the way Batman talks, to Gordon, to the inmates, to the psychoanalysts, feels disjointed and dreamlike; his thoughts are muddled; he seems to be jumping at shadows. The Hatter says, "Sometimes I think the asylum is a head. We're inside a huge head that dreams us all into being. Perhaps it's your head, Batman." And clearly... yes.

And if it is intended as a nightmare, then it is significant that he conquers them by force, one at a time: a hero archetype would have to. His inability to play the word game would fit with a nightmare sequence, too. And Harvey's role: in Batman's mind, there's still hope for him. So yes -- if the book was intended to be a glimpse inside of Batman’s mind, at his darkest moments... then it is utterly perfect, in every aspect, and really one of the best pieces of fiction I've ever read, never mind just comic books.

Batman: Year One by Frank Miller.

Very, very good. I really liked this one. I prefer it quite a bit to the story in Batman Begins, although I also recognize that it wouldn't have translated to film well at all. I loved what Miller did with the characters, how grim his Batman is, and his Gordon, fallible and human and kind of... desperately just. I loved Batman's imperfections, his failings in combat because he doesn't quite know his own ropes yet. I loved how he comes up with his crazy bat-man idea in a semi-delirious state of severe blood loss and near death.

This Batman is very human, driven, obsessive, and a little impatient; at every moment he seems at risk of being discovered, exposed, ruined, or killed; he's uncertain a lot, in danger a lot, but thankfully he's always got one more ace up his sleeve. Alfred keeps him in line with sulkiness and sarcasm. You've got to love Alfred.

All around, Batman: Year One feels the most like what I've always imagined Batman to be. Apparently some people (including the artist who illustrated the comic o_O) have taken issue with Miller's realism, his attempt to take Batman seriously and regard him as a real human being. These people apparently believe the superhero genre is, by nature, fantastical and juvenile, and should remain so. Well, I think those people are idiots. It's not as though Miller's stories aren't epic, exaggerated, thrilling, with unlikely escapes and amazing innovations; the guy is still writing Batman. He's just not writing a clunky, cliché, redundant Batman: he's writing a Batman you can actually believe in.

And whoever thinks writers of fantastical themes shouldn't take their work too seriously needs a lesson from Professor Tolkien, methinks. Sheez.

The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller.

This one just left me sort of speechless. I'm not actually sure whether it's the good kind of speechless. I liked it. I'm very impressed by it. I'm just not sure I... accept it, if that makes sense.

I loved Miller's idea to write a Batman who is old (well, old for a superhero, anyway). One thing that really bugged me was his making it impossible to figure out just how old Batman actually was; I tried to calculate it based on various clues, but never could figure it out. But anyway, he finally came out and said fifty-five at the very end, and fifty-five was just right. It means he quit the bat business when he was in his mid forties, still young enough for the job, but probably beginning to slow down. I can picture him giving up the game at forty-five. And I can picture him hating every day of the next ten years.

And maybe I'm a sadist -- well, duh -- but I loved Batman's internal monologues in all the fight scenes, when he was always not quite fast enough or not quite strong enough, didn't quite have the stamina or the agility he was expecting from himself, couldn't breathe, started blacking out, taking bullets. I loved his continual cursing of his failing abilities, his "senility." And I loved his stupid suicidal arrogance, choosing to face that mutant kid hand-to-hand, not out of chivalry but simply because he wasn't sure he could.

I wasn't too sure about his recurring murderous thoughts, though. It didn't bother me that he kept thinking about killing people -- most of them would have deserved it, and in the Joker's case, it's true that Batman has basically killed hundreds of people by letting the Joker live; so the morality is very questionable there. No, what bugged me was how he kept thinking about it in a way that sounded malicious, as though he wanted to kill them more for pleasure than for justice. "It takes nearly a minute to fall from this height, and despite what you may have heard, you're likely to stay conscious all the way down. Thoughts like that keep me warm at night." And there he rescues Harvey not because of any moral objection to letting a man die, nor even because his vow forbids it, but purely because he has to know whether it's really Harvey or not.

And then, "Leaving the world no poorer -- four men die." What? Is this Batman talking here? I realize he didn't kill them, exactly, but... just, what?

Also, it didn't seem like we ever actually got resolution on Harvey's portion of the plot. Maybe I'm missing something.

I'm not sure how I feel about Robin the Girl Wonder, either. Miller did a pretty good job with her, better than I'd have expected, so, eh. But we seem to be short a Robin in this story. I'm not sure, but it looked like Tim got written out completely. I'm just going to pretend that Batman carried on for a while, post-Jason, with Tim, and then quit... because of Jason's death, but not directly subsequent thereto.

Anyway, apart from a few things like these, I did really like the story, even if it was pretty goddamn dark, even for Batman. The way the media comes down on him is absolutely brutal, and the charges leveled against him are not only terrible, but also... sort of justified. His fading legend, the way the kids think he's just a myth... it was just bleak. Really well done, but really bleak.

I liked the Joker, and his reaction to Batman's return -- "Batman. Darling." -- cracked me up. He was pretty careless, but then, subtlety has never been one of the Joker's strong suits. I can't quite decide what I think about his death -- whether it seemed in character or not, for him to kill himself to frame Batman. There are so many new factors; both of them are getting to be old men now, and the Joker's priorities may well have changed over the years, and getting the last laugh might mean something different to him now. And then, maybe he just didn't have any choice, if he was really completely paralyzed. Maybe he really did it because he wanted to die before the cops arrived, and not because he cared about framing Batman at all -- a desperate kind of last laugh, a false face of triumph, knowing he'd lost. And then, maybe he figured they'd both die together. He'd stabbed Batman enough times, apparently.

Mainly, though, what I'm ambivalent about is the end. Because it's got fucking Superman in it. A lot.

See, I've never accepted Superman as existing within the same canon as Batman. I want Batman to exist in the real world of human men, not some magical world populated with superheroes with superpowers. So as soon as Clark Kent showed up, the whole story lost credibility for me. And his role was so important that I couldn't just write him out in my head. Either Superman is canon, or this comic isn't.

It was really well done, and Superman was actually a very interesting character; I found his position, relative to Batman, fascinating. It would be Batman laughing at the council, saying of course we're criminals... it would be Batman giving the rest of the superheroes a bad name with his scare tactics and excessive force. All the more annoying to them, since Batman isn't even a real superhero -- just a rich kid with a vendetta, completely off his rocker and prancing around in a batsuit. I mean, all superheroes are weird, but Batman has got to be the craziest of the lot.

I did love his plan, and didn't predict the twist at all. Well, heck, even Superman bought into it, so it must have been well played. And then the funeral... all really well done. Poor Alfred. I wonder if he knew.

Not too sure about the very end, either; an army of vigilantes sounds like an unbelievably bad idea to me. Does Batman not realize that taking the law into your own hands is not for just anybody, least of all a bunch of impressionable young idiots who will follow whoever waves the biggest flag? None of these guys are actually reformed. They don't hate crime. Their parents weren't killed outside a theater. Bah.

But on the other hand, even if they're not great at being batmen, they'll probably do better than Gotham's current police force, especially now, with Gordon gone and chaos everywhere. We could have done with more closure on Gordon, come to think of it. We just kind of left him standing there.

Anyway. I can see now why The Dark Knight Returns gets so much press, both positive and negative. It's a really intensely grim and serious story, and it's very, very good -- but also quite a bit of a departure from the usual for a Batman comic. It's not even really a story about a hero. It's just a story about a man. It kind of belongs to some other genre.

Also, as an aside: the more comics I read, the harder it is for me to see Christian Bale as Batman. I still think he's way better than any of the other actors who've ever taken on the role, and when he's actually in the batsuit, he's damn good. And when he's playing the part of Bruce Wayne, playboy zillionaire, he's good, too. It's just when he's talking to Alfred or Fox or Rachel that he's all wrong. He just doesn't have that brusque, surly, uncommunicative moodiness that's so definitive of the real Bruce Wayne. Bale!Batman smiles. He makes jokes that are not dry or sarcastic. And that's not who Batman is. He's moral and good and just, but he's not nice, not friendly -- not even with Robin or Selina. He's kind of a complete bastard, actually.

But, heck, he's playing a very young Batman. I know Bale is in his thirties, but I like to think that The Dark Knight Batman is only twenty-six or so, and maybe at this early stage he's still more open: the bat has not yet consumed the man. Maybe this deal with Rachel is what breaks him, and he'll be moodier in the next film. I hope so, though honestly I'm not expecting much. I can't see how the next film can even approach The Dark Knight, no matter what they do. Seems to me they've almost made it pointless to make another Batman film of any kind ever again.

I still love the Joker, though. I love that instead of a chemical-accident-grin, which would have looked silly on film, they gave him those scars -- and instead of using chemicals to carve smiles into the faces of his victims, he uses a plain old knife. Very fitting. Ledger's Joker is not quite what I picture when I read the comics, but neither do I find him to be in any way inconsistent with the comics. I saw the film again the other day, and found that whenever Ledger was onscreen, I could imagine the comic book Joker, with his long face and slender body, making all the same moves, the same expressions, smiling the same mocking, malicious smile with too many teeth; I could superimpose the cartoon right over the living man, and every step suited them both.

I'm also reading Gabriel Garcia Marquéz's The General In His Labyrinth. So I haven't abandoned real literature or anything, I promise. ;) Oh, and if anyone is comparing this to my post about Watchmen -- well, Watchmen is better than any of these comics (bar maybe Arkham Asylum, which is like a whole different genre, anyway); I was just more critical of it because I had set such high standards. I appreciate it a lot more now that I've got in in proper perspective.

I just noticed we don't have a fire alarm here. Hopefully this fact will not become relevant. Ever.

2008-08-23T03:37:44Z

And now for an update on things in general.

As of two weeks ago, I'm back working at the elementary school. I spent a few days helping out in a kindergarten classroom, with lots of five-year-olds who have never been away from their parents and don't speak English. One of them crawled into my lap at recess, which was kind of endearing. But mostly awkward.

This past week, my coworkers and I have been administering reading tests to the entire school, to determine which kids will be spending time with us in the Reading Lab for extra help, and which ones won't. It's been a kind of untidy process, because we're short three people in the Lab, and at the moment there are no certified teachers working with us. The teacher who is supposed to be working with us fractured her hip during a marathon, and is out for at least two weeks.

But anyway, overall, things are going well. I've got my old desk back, and my walls are decorated with posters of dinosaurs, owls, lions, various endangered animals, and borders depicting the earth as seen from space. I've got a couple of whales and an ankylosaur on my bookshelves, lots of cute little erasers to give away, and my laminated nameplate from last year, when I happily had the foresight to cover it with stickers of dinosaurs, cats, fish, horses, King Triton, and Batman.

Classes at the university start on Monday. Unfortunately, it looks like I'm several semesters further behind than I'd thought. The problem is that in order to take even my first Physics class, I have to pass Calculus. In order to get into Calculus, I have to take Precalculus. In order to get into Precalculus, I have to take College Algebra. I can only thank Jove that I did well enough on the entrance exam to get into College Algebra, because I haven't actually taken the prerequisite for that, either.

So it seems there are three semesters of math standing between me and my first Physics class. My first Physics class. Which is a circumstance that rather sucks. It particularly sucks because I already finished all my undergraduate requirements at the community college, so all that's left for me to fulfill my degree are Physics classes and Education classes. But most of the Education classes are off limits until you're accepted into the Teacher Certification Program, and you can't get accepted into the program until you've completed like 15 credit hours in your chosen field -- in my case, Physics.

The upshot of which is that there are almost no classes I can even take right now that apply to my major in any way. So instead of taking four classes like I'd planned, I'm only taking three: College Algebra, Introduction to Special Education, and, arbitrarily -- because I needed to pick a third class in order to qualify for the financial aid I'm getting -- Philosophy 101.

Of course, contrary to what would be appropriate, I'm wary about the Algebra, sort of dreading the Special Ed, and inordinately excited about the Philosophy. Which might indicate that I'm pursuing the wrong major, or might just be more evidence of my complete failure at utilitarianism.

I mean, I have no interest in practical things. I'm only interested in the theoretical, the abstract, the academic. This is why I prefer to read ancient history rather than watch the news; why, living in Arizona, I chose to take Russian instead of Spanish; why I'm fascinated by probability and bored to tears by budgeting; why my favorite part of physics is the dubious quantum stuff; and why I consider things like eating and sleeping to be a complete waste of time that could be better spent, say, writing fiction.

So. Instead of brushing up on my meager math skills, I've been reading over my old notes on ancient philosophers like Aristotle and Augustine and Anselm and Aquinas, and cursing them for all beginning with the letter A so that I keep mixing them up. (I've been cursing a lot of the philosophers who don't begin with A, too, of course, but for somewhat more appropriate reasons.)

Anyway. The current plan is to continue working, at least for a while, in addition to going to school. I'm scheduled to work about 27 hours per week, and I've got about 9 hours of classes a week, but with homework and all the commute time (about two hours a day, total) and all the waiting around between classes without enough time in between to come home, it will probably be fairly exhausting. Especially since I'll be biking to class three days a week, a 20 minute trip, and it's still about 100 degrees here during the day. Must remember to stock up on sunblock.

Ultimately, I may end up quitting my job, if it gets too difficult to juggle work and school, but I'm going to put it off as long as I can, since at this point I'm so far in debt I'm not even sure which way is out anymore. And conveniently, my truck got a flat tire last week, so I've been using the spare since then; the tire I need to buy is huge and expensive. Also, my mom and her (now sort-of-ex) boyfriend are moving out, so my sister and I are short a roommate to pay 1/3 of the rent.

But whatever. We'll figure it out somehow.

Oh, heh, and this amused me. I went to the grocery store earlier, and in the parking lot when I started loading my groceries into my truck, one of the cart-collector people, a teenage girl, practically ran up to me to exclaim, "Wow, cool car!" I laughed and said thanks, and she went on, blushing, "I mean, not to stereotype or anything, but I was expecting you to walk up to one of these nice cars," she gestured around at them, "you know, the way you're dressed." And I guess I did look pretty formal, in my black dress pants and button-down dress shirt... both of which I bought at Savers. XD

Very unrelatedly.

2008-08-17T04:27:55Z

Why I am always hearing about these things so late? I realize it's my own fault I don't watch the news, but I'm surprised that no one on my friends list said anything at all two months ago when, apparently, George Carlin died of a heart attack.

Not meaning to be ironic, but Jesus Christ. Did people know about this and it just mattered so little that they didn't even say anything? I guess I probably shouldn't be surprised, since he was seventy-one and everything; but he was so... just as bright and sharp and sarcastic and expressive and wonderful as ever. I mean, I saw an interview with him just a few months ago. It's not like I thought he was immortal, but I just... I cannot get used to talking about him in the past tense. I can't get used to the idea that there is no George Carlin anymore.

It's fucking ironic, but I find myself hoping he was wrong about there being no afterlife -- even though his brutal honesty about the laughability of religion is one of the things I respected him the most for -- because he's one of those people I would have looked forward to shaking hands with, someday, on the "other side." Ah well. I guess as long as I keep on the path to damnation, I've got a good chance of running into him if there is an afterlife, anyway.

And if you happen to notice that he's listed in my user interests -- yeah, he's been there for a while. Since March or April, I guess. Just in time, pretty much... :/

Watchmen

2008-08-16T22:10:42Z

I really, really wish the cover of Alan Moore's Watchmen was not plastered all over with "Groundbreaking!", "The greatest piece of popular fiction ever produced!", "Peerless!", "A landmark!", "Staggeringly complex!" I really wish it wasn't.

Because I'm positive that if I'd come to it expecting nothing more than a graphic novel, with superheroes in capes and stuff, I'd have been very, very impressed. Overwhelmingly impressed, no doubt. But instead -- in spite of my best efforts to ignore the reviewers and banish all preconceptions -- I came to it expecting the greatest graphic novel ever written. And hell, maybe it is the greatest graphic novel ever written. But when something has been praised that highly, what you bring to it is mostly judgment, and unfortunately most of what I've ended up thinking about it is simply, "Well, it wasn't that amazing."

Which, like I said, is almost certainly purely a consequence of having been told -- by the blurbs on the book itself, by the reviewers on Amazon when I bought it, by the previews for the upcoming film -- that I would be, you know, completely blown away by its epicness. I really wish that I had somehow stumbled across it by accident, because then I could have actually been blown away. Why the devil are we so incapable of seeing past our own preconceptions, and appreciating something for what it is and what it was intended to be, rather than some shapeless anticipation of the impossible?

It seems to me that if people were able to judge things -- including each other -- for what they are and what they're intended to be, half the world's bloody problems would be solved right there. But hell, that's a whole other topic.

Anyway, I liked Jon a lot. Actually, chapter four, where Jon is on Mars, is my favorite part; that was the one section that made me think, for a while, that the reviewers might not be wrong in proclaiming the utterly nonpareil magnificence of the book. It was very Kurt Vonnegut, I suppose: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. But it made sense for Jon, far more than for Billy Pilgrim -- being able to see his life spread out like a mountain range, and living all of it at every moment, even while living each moment distinctly. It was still a very comic-book sci-fi sort of story, but I guess the fact that Jon was such a neat character made the silliness of his genesis sort of disappear into the background.

His indifference was just so sincere and straightforward; there was no pretense about anything he did. He really was a god, and I think his distance from humanity, and his inability to understand humanity, was the foremost proof of that, more than his strange abilities and powers. He was pretty much incapable of doing good or evil, simply because everything to do with humanity was so far below his notice. Although curiously, he did seem compassionate, in a detached sort of way. I guess in that sense he reminded me a lot of Destiny from Sandman: already knowing the past, present, and future, knowing that fate cannot be changed, knowing that it is futile to have any feelings about it at all -- and yet still subject, apparently, to a kind of vague regret and pity. A helpless god.

Yes, I liked Jon.

The only other character I liked was Rorschach, though I use the word "liked" a bit more loosely in his case. I think what I mean is respected. He seemed to be practically the only character with any real integrity. Unlike Jon, he had no apparent compassion at all, and it's kind of hard to say what his motives were for being a "hero," if he can be called that, since he had no personal qualms about killing or torturing innocent people if he thought they stood in the way of finding the guilty. Pretty much a loose canon, that guy. But he was clever and detached and realistic, and stayed calm and methodical, whatever the circumstances, despite being by no means invulnerable. So I was impressed. And at the end, he was the only one to whom the truth was more important than utopia, and even though I can't say morally whether that was right or wrong, I do respect it, because for him it wasn't even a choice. When he said he would never surrender, he meant it. "Not even in the face of Armageddon."

It's harder to say what I thought of Ozymandias. His story felt very cliche and pretty... over-the-top comic-book-villain ridiculous to me. I mean, maybe I expect too much from my comic-book villains. But, you know, super-genius-guy as villain is nothing new, and neither, I should think, is that Crime-and-Punishment-descended idea of committing terrible evils in the name of an ultimate good: of becoming a Napoleon, an Alexander, and recognizing the sacrifices that must be made on the way to the utopia of a united world. I mean, I guess it's a pretty profound moral question, and if it wasn't something I'd already given so much consideration to, thanks to Dostoevsky, it might have felt more remarkable here. But, you know. Nothing new under the sun.

Mainly, though, it was the whole, "So I built a giant alien monster with a psychic human brain that will teleport and destroy half of New York, thus averting global warfare" bit that was just... what. I mean, seriously, what. Not only is that plan just outlandish and overly complicated, it doesn't even make sense. I mean, if he'd staged an actual alien invasion somehow, okay, maybe. People will unite against a common enemy, yes. But why is a trans-dimensional monster exploding in New York a good reason for Russia to pull out of Afghanistan? You can't band together against an enemy that self-destructs upon contact with your dimension. There's not even any reason for America or Russia to suspect that the "aliens" destroyed New York on purpose, and there's no way to predict if or when it might happen again, or to defend against it... Why the hell would world peace result from one instance of exploding alien? I just don't understand.

I realize Ozymandias had plans to continue uniting people by some other, future method, but even so. I just wasn't buying it. Especially after he tried to get rid of Jon with that Intrinsic Field Subtractor thing. I mean, maybe he knew Jon would come back, but just figured it would take him a while? Even so. For the smartest man in the world, the guy was not terribly bright right there.

Nite Owl was a wuss. He was an interesting character, and his complete dorkiness was kind of cute sometimes, but really the guy had no actual... it really did seem to be all about getting dressed up and playing superhero for him. And the fact that he was so embarrassed about it only made that more obvious. It's hard to imagine how he ever kicked any ass with that kind of attitude toward himself and what he was doing. He was so uncertain and wavering about everything. It's amazing Rorschach put up with him at all.

Nite Owl/Rorschach were pretty OTP, though. That scene where Nite Owl gets all pissy about how difficult it is trying to be Rorschach's friend, and Rorschach is kind of like, whoa, did he just say...?, and they shake hands, and then Nite Owl gets all awkward and Rorschach just sort of stands there looking at his own hand for a minute. That was awesome.

But Nite Owl is still a wuss. He and Laurie deserved each other.

It's difficult for me to express just how intensely I loathed Laurie. I mean, in the beginning I found her a little irritating, but by the end I was about ready to strangle her for her sheer stupidity and vanity, and I could not even conceive what we were supposed to like about her. Practically all she ever did, for the entire book, was talk about herself, complain, or both. I think it was usually both. Egad.

The main scene that made me hate her was her argument with Jon on Mars, though. She complains over and over about how "emotionally disconnected" Jon is, and how he can't understand her, which, no, he can't -- but it is painfully evident for their entire conversation that he is trying to explain rationally the reasons for his own viewpoint, and she is not trying at all to understand him or to speak in terms that he can understand. There are plenty of perfectly good arguments she could have made to convince him to help humanity, arguments that would have appealed completely to his own sensibilities, and I kept thinking eventually she'd hit on one of them, just by accident. I mean, Jesus, the most obvious one is simply the fact that Jon's own consciousness, his own ability to appreciate the beauty of the martian landscape, the reactions of elementary particles, is a consequence of Earthly life -- that a universe so magnificent deserves spectators, like Jon, like human scientists who, albeit feebly, are trying to understand and assimilate the majesty of it all.

And I don't know, maybe that argument would have swayed him, and maybe not, but for god's sake, it would have been better than her crying and raving about her stupid childhood, irrelevantly and adolescently and just... argh. The one woman who had an opportunity to convince God to save mankind was too busy feeling sorry for herself to even try -- how awful is that? It was kind of offensive, actually, not because Alan Moore chose to write such a horrible female character, but because he presented her as if it was okay that she was so horrible. As if we were suppose to like her in spite of her being horrible, because women are just like that and they can't help it. Which just... argh. Argh.

Anyway, I guess that's enough of that. Oh, but the other thing that I did really like was the bit about how the whole world is like a goddamned blot test, and everything we think it means is just the result of our desperate human brains seeking symbolism in the mundane, the meaningless. That was another really great chapter, come to think of it, on par with Jon's coming-unstuck-in-time chapter. And really, there were a lot of very nice little observations like that, scattered through the book. The overall plot just didn't feel solid enough to do them justice. And there just... there was so little subtlety. I sort of felt like Moore didn't give his readers very much credit. Not as much as I'd have liked, anyway.

The pirate story running parallel to the various newsstand scenes was really neat, though. Very artfully done. And let me not forget to say: the art is fucking amazing. Start to finish, every panel, absolutely gorgeous. If I were being fair, I'd spend as much time talking about the art as I've spent talking about the plot and characters, but there's just not much to say except wow. No complaints, no criticism. The art was perfect.

Anyway. Those are my rather lengthy two cents.

Relatedly, and yet not: I've been rather depressed about how much publicity and hype The Dark Knight has gotten, and I guess now I realize why. Because it's like all the hype surrounding Watchmen, which made it so hard for me to appreciate it, so inclined to judge every little thing about it. I went to see The Dark Knight expecting your typical superhero flick (more respectable than, like, Spiderman or something, but still inevitably silly); I figured the best thing about it would be Bale in his batsuit looking pretty. I was blown away because I had no expectations. If I'd been looking for something revolutionary, profound, nuanced... hell, maybe I'd have been utterly disappointed. I don't even know. I hate that I keep hearing people saying they're not interested in seeing the Batman movie, and I can't tell them how good it is, becuase if I do, they're bound to be disappointed when/if they see it, because its greatness... is relative to what it's intended to be. Relative to its genre and what is demanded of that genre, and relative to the preconceptions you have about it before you walk into the theater. Or pick up the book. Or whatever.

I just wish we could see things as they're meant to be seen, and judge them as they're meant to be judged. But look, here I am quoting Pope again. "Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be. In every work regard the writer's end, since none can compass more than they intend; and if the means be just, the conduct true, applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due."

Amen to that.

ETA: I'm pretty excited about the Watchmen film now, though. I was skeptical before, and I'm still a bit worried about how much they'll leave out, but it has the potential to be very neat. Hopefully they'll do like they did with V for Vendetta and make the chick not suck in the movie version...

< rant >

2008-08-12T01:12:31Z

Another entry copy-pasted from my personal (non-internet) journal. This is kind of a reply to zinniazayda, except that it actually has nothing to do with anything she said (recently, anyway); just a post she linked me to. Actually it wasn't intended as a reply to anyone; it was intended to stay in my private journal until such time as I felt like editing it to make better sense.

But I'm not going to be able to stop thinking about editing it until I get the damn thing posted, so I'm just sticking the incoherent, rambling, exclamation-riddled version here. Had I edited it, I would have softened the tone a great deal, so if you decide to read it, just... try to imagine what it would have looked like if it had been organized and, you know, not scathing.

August 11, 2008 3:54 PM

And we’re back to the world.

It’s Monday. Friday was my first day back at the school; today the kids were back as well. I worked with kindergarteners until nine, and after that I was in Mrs. Zak’s room with the sixth graders who were my first group of students two years ago. I still associate most of them with their fourth grade teachers, and they're always surprised that I know all their names. Well, most of their names.

And now I’m home drinking tea and eating Lego fruit gummies, much like the shark gummies I used to eat when I was in third grade myself. For some reason, those weird grayish gummies (the "Great White" shark ones they introduced back when I was a kid) are still being made, even in Lego shapes, even though I can’t see the reason for having opaque white Legos. But anyway.

Zinniazayda and I have been talking quite a bit lately; or at least, she's been asking me questions and I've been replying long-windedly. Today she sent me a link to a post in a community called convert_me, the topic of which is whether belief in God makes one a better person—not whether God exists, but whether one should believe. I thought about posting a reply in the community, but the fact is, my answer to that topic is so long, so involved, and so convoluted, that I already know I don’t even have the energy to begin writing it. I’d be at it for days. And with what result? Probably none.

And I'm tired of justifying myself to strangers. Maybe once I was so desperate for acceptance that I thought I could convince people to agree with me, or maybe it's that I was raring for confrontation and I wanted them to argue; I don't know. But sometimes I think I just don't even care anymore. It seems like no amount of explanation will change a believer’s mind, so all my efforts are destined to futility. And Christ, I feel like I’ve been at this all my life.

Of course, I'm not really tired of it, and I know that. But I am today, and I guess that’s all I mean, anyhow.

Still, I feel compelled to set down—in brief, since I’m talking to myself and therefore don’t need to spend pages and pages explaining what I mean with examples and metaphors—some outline of the kind of response I’m tempted to make. Because yes, of course I’m still tempted to rush in with whole treatises full of reasons and explanations. There’s a lot to this, though. I really don’t know where to begin. Bah.

When we set aside the question of whether there is a God, and merely ask the question ought one to believe in God, we immediately run into a whole host of problems. What kind of god? What is entailed in “believing in God”? Many great philanthropists, social reformers, and so on, have been theists. Of course, so have many of the most violent, corrupt, and hateful men in history, too. It's not like we can draw up a list of everyone who has ever been a theist, versus everyone who has ever been an atheist, and compare notes on the relative decency of the actions of these two parties, especially seeing as atheists have had to stay “in the closet” for all these thousands of years, nearly up to the present date, for fear of being put to death by the theists—which in itself is at least some evidence against the great moral good of theology. But the point isn’t to say that theology makes men evil; the point is to say that the number of factors is so absurdly vast that one can’t even ask the question; it’s entirely preposterous.

I mean, even if you could choose a particular god to talk about, you would still have to agree on a particular interpretation of that god. Surely no one will posit that all possible belief systems are equally conducive to morality. Some gods are more lax than others about punishing minor sins, some are more severe than others about slaughtering infidels, and so on. So just asking, across the board, whether it’s better to "believe in God" or not, is like...

Well, I was going to say it’s like asking, “Are nouns long?” And actually, I think that’s a pretty good analogy, for more than one reason. Because not only are there so many different nouns that it’s ridiculous to ask whether they’re all long, we also have no particular definition for the word long. Do two syllables make a long word? Do we need three syllables? Four? Are we talking about words that have a lot of letters, or words that take longer to pronounce? Or is it a relative question—"are nouns longer than other types of words?" There are so many questions just about the meaning of the modifier "long" that we can’t even rightly proclaim that some nouns are long, or that some aren’t. We can’t say much of anything at all.

So with this bloody religious question. Is it good to believe in God? Well, even dismissing the question of what kind of god we’re talking about, what kind of good are we talking about? First you go ahead and define morality for me, and then we’ll talk about whether faith makes men more moral or doesn’t. Obviously, believing in a particular god and following his moral dictates makes one more "moral" in the context of that god. But who's to say that's the "correct" context?

More specifically. The post says that religious people build, for example, hospitals, whereas atheists generally do not. Well, for one thing, let’s look at the number of theists in this country versus the number of atheists. You could probably make a similar argument demonstrating that “people under six-foot-five build more hospitals than people over six-foot-five,” just based on the fact that there are so goddamned many more people in the former group. That’s flaw number one. Flaw number two is in assuming that if religious people hadn’t already made hospitals and charity organizations their special province, nobody else would.

It's not even impossible that some people become or remain theists because they are interested in hospital or charity work, and getting in with religious folk is the easiest way to get involved. I agree that it takes a certain type of person to do charity work, and that a lot of those kinds of people are religious. But I do not concede that those same people would be any less charitable if they didn't have a religion.

But besides that, let’s assume that theists really are more likely to put time and money into a hospital than atheists are. Say that's true. It’s also true that a man with no education is more likely to devote himself to custodial work than a man with a degree. The custodian provides a very necessary and very beneficial service which none of us would like to be without. Does that mean it’s better to be uneducated? Does that mean one “ought” to be uneducated? Or does that merely mean it’s for the best that some people are uneducated? Or, is it just possible, it doesn’t mean anyone needs to be uneducated; it merely means that even if everyone were educated, someone would still have to concede to do custodial work anyway?

And finally, there’s the completely theoretical question of whether hospitals are such a great good that having them is worth the price of theism, supposing atheism and hospitals are really mutually exclusive ideas. Which would lead us into a whole other discussion of the "price of theism" and whatever that may or may not mean, but the very devil if I have time for that right now...

God, why am I even writing all this? You see? I can’t even stop myself. Christ!

The post also brings up art, among other things, and implies—I can’t even really understand how this is supposed to make sense—that it is better to believe in God, any god, really, because by believing in a god, one is exposed to a range of literature and other art forms, including philosophy, which pertain specifically to one’s own religious belief. For some reason, the fact that an atheist is just as capable of being introduced to any and all forms of art is considered an irrelevant point, because a theist is also capable of being introduced to any and all forms of art; but a theist also has a particular regimen, as it were: a particular canon which he’s expected to know. The number of flaws with this argument makes it almost beyond my capacity for even addressing it...

First of all, the post makes a point of stating that we are talking about serious theists here: not just casual believers, but the kind of scholarly folks who will actually read the Bible. For some reason it does not give credence to the idea of serious atheists, who, while they may not have a particular Bible which they “have” to read, have all the same bibles to read that the various religious sects have. I think most serious atheists would consider it remiss not to read at least one such text; and I’d personally think an atheist would be more likely than a theist to feel it important to read more than one. After all, a theist only has to confirm his belief in this text. An atheist has to confirm his disbelief in all texts. So much for the reading portion of this “exposure to art” topic.

Next, then, as to art. I can only ask: what in the devil’s name makes it superior to have a particular set of pieces of art that you have to be acquainted with? Assuming that the "serious theist" and the "serious atheist" have equal amounts of free time and interest in the arts—and I hope no one will suggest that atheists are “not interested” in the arts, or something stupid of that nature—then it seems plain that their ultimate level of knowledge, experience, involvement, and so on, will also be equal. Why wouldn't it be? True, the Catholic will know all about Catholicism, which might make it easier for him to carry on conversations about the arts directly relevant to his religion with other people of his religion, who have the same knowledge. But it would not be difficult to argue that atheists not all having the same set of knowledge, that their very range of different artistic pursuits, puts them not merely on equal footing with any theist, but perhaps even on a higher footing. I don’t say that it is higher; but I can’t think what would make anyone think it’s better if everyone has an education about exactly the same limited thing.

And then there’s the opening of the post, which leads up to all of this by supposedly convincing us that utility is the question: that whether scientific or theological principles are true is not worth our consideration; the only worthwhile question is whether they are valuable to us. Whether they are useful. Now, perhaps to someone whose interest is in making a fortune selling gadgets, utility is all that matters; perhaps to someone whose business is building new planes for the military, or saving lives with new medical procedures, yes, utility is the thing. But to scientists as a group? I would be very sad to think that all they cared about was utility. I can’t prove that it isn’t; there’s no way for me to demonstrate that any given scientist studied and theorized for the pure love of discovery and knowledge. I can’t prove that. All I can say is that, on the day that it’s proven to me that what I've always supposed was the love of truth, whether scientific or theological, is really nothing more than a matter of utility, that will be the day I lose what respect I do have for theology. Because while I can respect, to some degree, a man who really believes there is or may be a god, and who is searching to know the truth—I cannot respect a man whose interest is only in whether believing in god serves him on a day to day basis, like a fucking toaster oven or something.

Christ. And now that I’ve written all this anyway, it seems silly not to reply with it online after all. But it’ll need all kinds of editing for that. And I had other things I wanted to do tonight; and tomorrow I’ve promised Katie to watch those damned movies before we have to return them to Blockbuster, and I don't even want to watch them anyway. What a waste of time.

I don’t even know. I meant to actually go on and say something about the fact that, to address the real crux of the topic instead of just taking issue with all its stupidities, the answer is—probably yes. Probably yes, the world is better, more interesting, more worth living in, because there are people who believe in gods. Not because there are people who "believe in God," but because there are all kinds of people who believe in different gods, who value different things, who each study their own various arts and sciences and religions, for their own various selfish and selfless reasons. Because we turn our truths into myths, and sometimes myths are storybooks, films, drama, music, art, and sometimes they’re theologies; and to me art—and I take art to be nearly synonymous with myth—is all that makes mankind worth more than the clay he was molded out of. Is mythology beautiful? Yes. Is it necessary? That’s a more difficult question to answer, but I know it’s necessary for me, and I tend to think that yes is the proper answer generally, too. Does that mean God is real? No. Does it mean we should pretend he's real? No. Does it mean that theology is superior to atheism, in any sense of the word “superior” whatsoever? No, I don’t think so. Does the fact that myths are necessary to man mean that he should stop searching for the truth, which may show him that his myths are false? No! God forbid, if you’ll pardon the hypocrisy of the exclamation. The fact that he is searching is what makes him capable of producing mythologies. The fact that he wants to know the truth is what gives his stories meaning in the first place. Even if they're not true? I would almost say because they're not true. Because their purpose is to represent truth, not to actually state it in facts and figures.

I haven’t been clear, but I know what I mean, anyway, and it’s nearly five o clock now. More tea. Christ. As always, I say I’ve had enough of this topic, that I just can't even address it anymore... but the truth is that I cannot leave this topic alone. The truth is that I knew the moment I saw the post on religion that I’d just lost half my evening, because whatever I’d been planning on doing would be shoved aside in order to address these questions. The same questions as always. Even though I'm only talking to myself, anyway! Christ.

Anyway, that’s enough for now. I need to remember to bring my whales and my dinosaur back to work tomorrow. Probably not the frogs, since one of them disappeared last year. Maybe the little clock thing, if I can find some photographs to cut and slip into it.

Off to do something else. Or edit this. But probably not.

The Golden Compass

2008-08-10T20:38:46Z

Following several people's recommendations, I've started reading His Dark Materials. I finished the first book yesterday. It was... very much not what I was expecting.

First of all, I was not aware until a couple of days ago that The Golden Compass was part of the His Dark Materials trilogy, and that's probably going to confuse me for a while. I saw the trailers for the Golden Compass film a few years ago, and thought it looked like typical juvenile fantasy nonsense, and had no interest in it whatsoever. At the same time, I often saw people on my friends-list talking about His Dark Materials, which I assumed to be something entirely different, since I gathered that it had something to do with theology, and it sounded rather adult and rather... well, dark. It would never have occurred to me to connect the two titles.

So I was sort of surprised when the guy at the bookstore directed me to the Young Adult section to look for Pullman, and more than a little wary when I actually picked up the book. Especially when I flipped through the first few pages and realized the main character was a little girl.

I've never much liked books about kids, and I've especially never liked books about girls -- but luckily, Lyra was not that sort of girl. I was pleased to see her playing war games with the boys, climbing roofs, absconding with boats, smoking cigarettes, getting drunk in the cellar, and shaking coins out of skulls in the crypt. Pullman did an excellent job of making her a believable tomboy, the kind of girl who has obviously grown up without much feminine influence whatsoever, and has barely realized that she's supposed to be female herself. Not only that, she seems to actually have a profound dislike of everything she perceives as feminine (except for, briefly, Mrs. Coulter). I was really surprised that Pullman was bold enough to write a female character whose strength is that she does not act female -- that he wasn't afraid piss off the feminists by implying that her boyishness was a superior trait.

I'm still not exactly fond of her, because she just seems kind of... I guess the word is "unimaginative," as Pullman said: she does not think about anything, ever. Ever. She just does things, and sometimes she plans a bit first, and she's clever enough and all that, but there is absolutely nothing of the philosopher in her nature. Which I guess makes her ideal hero material, so that's all right. It just means I don't really like her.

I'm not actually sure I like any of the characters, come to think of it. Well, Iorek. I like him, probably because he's the most utterly stoic and unsentimental of the lot of them, without being an asshole about it. And I like Farder Coram just fine, and The Master... they just don't really do that much.

For some reason, Lord Asriel makes me think of a cross between Disney's Gaston and Brontë's Heathcliff. Yeah, I have no idea. I kind of figured he might turn out to be her father, though. He just had that sort of air in dealing with her. And Mrs. Coulter puts me entirely in mind of the White Witch in Narnia. It's a good thing Pullman never actually put her in a sleigh, because that would have been too much.

Anyway. As for Pullman's writing style, I find it... very weird. The thing I noticed first was that the man spares no expense in vocabulary; in spite of the fact that he's writing children's books, he goes right ahead with his "perennial" and "oblation" and "lorgnette" and "soporific." Sometimes he goes completely overboard with ridiculousness like "desultorily," which is not only a bit pretentious but also just sort of cumbersome. But overall, I was impressed with his diction, and I find his writing to be far superior to Rowling's (the man actually understands grammar), and even Gaiman's (I love Gaiman, but he does tend to dumb things down an awful lot when he writes for kids).

Still, he's not perfect. Actually, for the first chapter I was not much impressed at all. There were some random perspective shifts that seemed a little amateur, and Lyra's daemon was just nonsensical. Like, she felt him bristling, and he was a moth. Firstly, I don't think moths bristle; secondly, I don't think you could feel it if they did, especially through the cloth of your shirt. And he talks, not telepathically, but with an actual audible voice, which is somewhat conceivable when he's an ermine or whatever, but a moth? It's not like he has vocal cords. Does he just, like, project sound, or what?

My main problem with Pullman's writing, though, is simply that it's children's-book writing. His method of setting up the plot is very linear and straightforward, very formulaic, and many of Lyra's little adventures along the way are very formulaic, too. But mostly it's just the fact that Pullman, like every other children's book author I've ever read, writes in this style that is just so... superficial. Simplistic. It's all event, surface, action, explanation, but there's no poignancy, no emotion. I don't feel any connection to any of the characters; I don't even feel connections between the characters and each other. Pullman tells us they feel sadness or love or hope or excitement, but they're just words. There's no intensity behind them.

I think this stands out with Pullman particularly because he spends so much time not being condescending. He's totally careless with death and gore, ripping bears' jaws off of their faces, tearing out hearts, slitting open seals and eating their kidneys raw, and burning dead children on pyres. And his themes are so obviously mature, advanced, well-studied and many-layered, and his diction is so strong -- it seems very strange that he still winds up saying things like "she felt angry" or "it was cold and she was afraid" or whatever, instead of actually illustrating it. I mean, it's not that it's bad. He's done very well, really -- for a children's book. I just would have liked something more.

But anyway. Enough for my critiquing. On to the themes. And the themes? Are completely awesome.

For a while, the daemons were the most fascinating thing to me. I figured out pretty quickly that they were supposed to represent anima/animus figures, as soon as I realized it was being taken for granted that people's daemons would be of the opposite sex. I really liked the idea of people having an external "soul" which was what set them apart from animals, a kind of Jungian subconscious intuition manifestation, which is able to detect and understand things that our conscious, physical minds can't perceive, but which we can come to know by communicating with our "souls." I think I would have preferred it if daemons could only communicate with their own bodies, but otherwise the metaphor was very well done. The fact that children’s daemons have a greater range of manifestation is consistent, and the fact that a witch’s daemon has a greater range of travel. The taboo about touching other people's daemons, too, and the daemonless boy who was as horrifying and freakish as a zombie. All very nice.

I also liked the bear's armor as anima: instinct instead of intuition. And the king of bears, completely out of his element, out of sync with his instincts, and acting like some kind of domesticated beast.

And speaking of daemons. When that goose started talking about infinite worlds that exist simultaneously and interweave without ever really touching -- I actually laughed out loud and thought, "Oh, great, it's like that damnable Many-Worlds Theory in quantum physics." Little did I know that Pullman was actually, literally talking about that theory, and about quantum physics. The dude in the bears' cell started talking about wavefunctions and how his daemon could taste probability, and I sort of went o_O at him, and then Asriel started going on about collapsing possibilities in elementary particles. And I had to *facepalm* for a while, because for God's sake what made Pullman think it would be a good idea to write this as a children's novel? It is inscrutable as a children's novel. It's got fucking wavefunctions in it! Next he'll be talking about the flavors of quarks or string theory or something. What the heck is he doing?

And then the whole business with Dust as the "proof" of Original Sin. I can't quite tell what that means yet; it's not sin itself, obviously, so it seems that either sin attracts Dust, or else the accumulation of Dust encourages sin... or maybe there's some other direct, positive correlation between Dust and sin that's more obscure. In any case, the whole topic is so fascinating and completely heretical that I can't even believe Pullman was able to publish it for a YA audience, never mind the fact that he actually won awards for it. Jesus!

I must say, though, I could barely stop laughing at the idea that Adam and Eve "knew their daemons," and that was Original Sin. 'Cause if we're using biblical terminology, I think "knowing your daemon" is called, like, bestiality. Or if we still take your daemon to be your soul then it's something altogether Freudian and weird. But anyway.

I love the idea that the story of Adam and Eve is like the square root of negative one. You can't actually think about it as a real number, yet you have to use it to get the correct answers for other equations. I don't believe that about the Adam and Eve story in particular, but it's a wonderful analogy for mythical symbolism in general. Though, to be pedantic, it's a philosophy that leads directly to the Copenhagen Interpretation, not the Many-Worlds Theory. :P

I also love the idea that "ye come from dust, and to dust ye shall return" is God's little "joke" about his own partly-sinful nature. I had never read that before, but it is beyond awesome.

But anyway, the thought that the Church would conduct "experiments" on children to see if they could be made permanently innocent, and stop accumulating the Dust of sin -- stop returning from dust to dust, as it were -- is so probable that it's actually kind of alarming. Making everyone dull and bland and uninterested, effectively turning them into zombies, soulless walking dead beings without knowledge or interest in Truth or Good and Evil or... man, this is just utterly, utterly wonderful. Why did it have to be a children's book?

And then the final stroke of genius, when Lyra and her daemon conclude that Dust must be good. Because those who oppose it are carrying out acts of evil. How easy it is, seeing those who oppose a force committing evils, to presume that the force they oppose must be good! I'll be curious to find out whether Dust really is good, or evil, or just morally neutral and coincidental, like knowledge itself; but the main point is the question, which I can't -- I can't even believe Pullman had the nerve to ask it. Wow.

The only thing I'm not entirely keen on is the idea of destiny, the way Pullman is addressing it, because it -- just doesn't make sense. Everyone keeps talking about how Lyra will only fulfill her destiny if she doesn't know she's doing it, and the witch talks to the Texan guy about how destiny is immutable (presumably) but we all have to act as if we didn't know about it, or we'd all just lie down and die of despair. But that's completely inconsistent. If it's Lyra's destiny, then she will fulfill it; and if part of her destiny is that she must never know what she's doing, then she never will know. That's what destiny means. And if the rest of us act as if we didn't know about destiny, then that's our destiny. We don't have a choice about it. I mean, you just... you can’t even talk about destiny as if it existed, because if it does, then that’s the only reason you’re talking about it, and it’s all just a convoluted mess. Blah.

Anyway.

I guess my overall reaction is mixed. I really, really like Pullman's themes, and his symbolism is very nice. But the writing is a bit too superficial for me, and so are the characters. Obviously, I intend to pick up the next book as soon as I can, and keep reading. But I'm hoping Pullman's going to start delving a bit more, and giving us the why as well as the what. Because I really don't care at all what the characters do. I only care what they think about what they do, and what it means.

(Someday I will learn how to write a review that's actually shorter than the thing I'm reviewing. But... not today, apparently.)

Turns out I'm still not finished talking about Batman.

2008-08-04T14:24:36Z

Okay, so this Dark Knight thing has kind of turned into, like, an actual addiction.

I mean, after I'd seen the movie four times, I figured it was, just maybe, time to stop. But then on Friday my sister came home from work and said, "Guess what? I made enough money in tips today to go see Batman again!" So we did.

Then, last night, when my sister was out with friends, I decided to go and see the movie one more time, by myself, to catch up with her -- she'd seen it six times at that point, and I'd, er, only seen it five times. But then she came home early, just as I was getting ready to leave, and she was like, "What?! You can't go without me!"

So yes. We went together and saw it again.

I don't think there's a single other movie I've seen, or wanted to see, six times. Maybe Fight Club. Maybe Fiddler on the Roof. Maybe. But I have never encountered a movie that I just want to play over and over like a record or something. It's just fucking crazy.

At least I'm not alone in this craziness, anyway. At the showing on Friday, it seemed like almost nobody in the theater laughed or gasped or anything during the movie. We found out why when we were leaving, and the people in front of us were talking loudly about how, "God, I've seen that movie so many times now..."

A few days before that, we saw it at the Cine Capri, which is, I believe, the largest screen in Arizona. The guy introducing the film asked how many people had already seen it before, and about half of the audience raised their hands.

Jesus. This movie.

Anyway, in order to curb our sudden rather expensive habit of going to the theater, my sister and I have been renting other movies with the actors from The Dark Knight in them. We watched American Psycho the other day, which was interesting and well-made, albeit very, very weird. I think I'll have to read the book before I can really get a grasp of it. We also watched Brokeback Mountain, which I liked much better this time than I did the first time I saw it, though it's still a bit slow and I just feel like there's something missing. A good movie, though; and I'm much more impressed by Heath Ledger's performance now that I know how much of performance it was -- now that I know he, the actor, wasn't actually a taciturn, midwestern guy, which was what I assumed when I saw the movie the first time.

We also watched I'm Not Here, which is this strange, documentary-style film in which a bunch of different actors, including both Christian Bale and Heath Ledger, all play the role of Bob Dylan. Actually, oddly enough, Cate Blanchett made the most believable Dylan, I thought. She has the figure for the part, and even her face is rather Dylan-esque. So that was interesting. Heath Ledger wasn't much like Dylan at all. Christian Bale completely surprised me, though. I think I cringed a little when I first found out he was in the movie, because how the hell could that possibly work? But as a matter of fact, he had the voice and the accent down beautifully, and his posture and gestures and the bleary, squinting way he looked around... he was all the wrong size and shape for the part, but his acting was top notch.

The movie itself was pretty damn boring, though. It seemed to be mainly nothing more than an excuse to showcase a lot of different actors' skills at playing Bob Dylan; there didn't seem to be any kind of story or point to it at all. There were lots of artsy shots of fake album covers, like someone's Photoshopped celebrity-lookalike contest entry or something, except in this case it was the celebrities who were trying to look like... another celebrity. I just kept wondering why I was watching a pretend documentary about people pretending to be Bob Dylan when I could just as easily watch a real documentary about the actual man. So, eh.

We'll probably look for something with Gary Oldman in it next. I still haven't seen the film version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, so that might be next on the list. Or Velvet Goldmine, since my sister is a big fan of Ewan McGregor anyway. If you guys have any recs, let me know. Including stuff with Michael Caine or Morgan Freeman.

Also. Someone on my friends-list recently posted a link to the Top Fifteen Most Unintentionally Funny Comic Panels, which are indeed pretty damned hilarious. The comments there led me to the page from which most (all?) of these unintentionally funny panels came, superdickery.com, so I wasted half the night clicking around through bad superhero comics. There are some pretty funny Superman panels, but I've got to say, Batman seems to invariably take the cake.

Witness:

...Now, look. I'm not saying Batman's gay.

I'm just saying it would be hard to make a case for Batman not being gay.

He even sends gay holiday greetings.

Humbug!

Okay, but this next picture is just sheer WTFery.

At least they're still in disguise, right?

This one appears to be... Batman and Robin on a bad acid trip, or something?

THE GROUND IS LAVA!

And next, we learn that the world's most treacherous trap is apparently a giant plastic bag.

Wow. I wish I'd thought of that.

I don't really wish I'd thought of this:

Batman. He's like Pierre Gringoire, in a way.

He actually seems to be more afraid of women than of depraved goats. It looks like Batman's greatest fear is a heterosexual relationship.

And pantsless Robin is clearly pleased about this.

Look, I'm not saying they're gay, okay? I'm just saying they -- sleep together.

I'm just saying...

Oh, he's doing his best, all right.

He's kind of doing his best to look gay, too.

And he's awfully quick to bend Robin over his knee...

(Apparently there are a lot of Batman-spanks-Robin panels. I'm just going to stick with that one.)

I don't even need to comment on this one:

Just... o_O

And I love the arrow in this next one. Real subtle there. It's like, "insert rod A into slot B"...

And finally, it's... RAINBOW BATMAN!

I MUST.

(And, um, Robin? That color is called pink. Notice how you're wearing the color that's called red? And Batman -- isn't? Yeah. Pink.)

Oh, also. There's a whole page of comics about the Joker's boners. For real.

And that's enough pointlessness for one morning. Now back to actually doing something with my life...

icontoast

2008-07-28T13:05:08Z

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, hamsterwoman! :D

Hope you have a great day!

Long post is long.

2008-07-22T16:51:01Z

Hello again, and welcome to the lengthiest and most spoilerific Dark Knight review likely to appear on your friends-list! That is, unless your friends-list is somewhat more Batman-obsessed than mine is, which, come to think of it, is perfectly possible.

But first of all, a confession preceded by some excuses.

I don't watch movies. Really. The last film I saw in theaters was Pirates of the Caribbean, if that gives you an idea. At home, I watch maybe five movies a year -- you can check my "movies" tag if you don't believe me. A side effect of this is that I also don't know a damn thing about actors, directors, producers, or anyone else connected with movie-making. I've heard of some of them, but there are very few whom I could tell you anything about, or even pick out in a lineup.

This is how it happens that I saw The Dark Knight twice without being aware of either of the following facts: 1) that the Joker was played by a man named Heath Ledger, and 2) that this man died a few months ago. In fact, if my sister and I hadn't been so absolutely taken with his character that we decided to look up the actor's name on Wikipedia, it's almost certain that I still would not know these things.

And now that I know, I feel a little weird talking about the movie at all, because it suddenly feels like... a eulogy or something. Because most of what I wanted to say about the movie was that the Joker was absolutely fucking amazing. Watching the film, I assumed he was played by some middle-aged, seasoned, and probably very famous actor. I would never have imagined the actor was so young. He was just too good. He stole the whole spotlight.

So yeah. I now feel awkward squeeing about how fantastically devilish he was, considering this new tragic element which casts rather a sober gloom over everything... and I also feel kind of like a jerk because I'm pretty sure everyone else knew he was dead long before they ever walked into the theater, and here I am just merrily enjoying his performance, suspecting nothing. It's just... it's ridiculous, but you come out of the movie bursting with all this crazy comic-book idealism, these mythic, immortal characters, and you're thinking yeah, shit happens but at least there's this hope, this illusion, this persevering legend -- and then it's like: no, actually, it's dead. That whole hope thing? Yeah, just kidding about that. That whole "sometimes people deserve to have their trust rewarded" thing? Not really, no. There's no myth. Just people. And people die.

And it's like the Joker says, actually: it's terrible because it is not part of the plan. It's terrible because it doesn't make sense. If I'd come home to read how a truck full of soldiers blew up, even several trucks full of soldiers, I'd have shrugged it off. It's terrible, it's atrocious, but it's rational: it makes sense. Heath Ledger? That does not make sense. The guy was fucking brilliant, and his career was climbing to a peak, and he was only twenty-eight, and... and what kind of ineffable justice deals cards like that? What kind of purported deity creates a man like that and then snatches his life away with such futile, graceless anticlimax? None! None. There is no justice and there is no plan. This is chaos.

Anyway. I guess the truth is, I'm glad I didn't know before I saw the movie, because if I'd known I would have wondered whether my praise for the Joker's performance was in some part unreal, obligatory: pity instead of regard, the cheapest compensation prize. This way I know: it's not that. It's real. He was really that good. That much was not illusion.

Anyway. Let's get on with reviewing the actual movie.

The plot was seriously convoluted, and I liked that; I appreciate a movie that respects my intelligence enough to make me pay attention to keep up to speed. There were a few things I didn't pick up on till I'd seen them twice, and some that I still don't understand. Admittedly, those may simply be plotholes... For instance, the whole deal with Gordon faking his own death? Um. How exactly did he know he'd need to be dead to help catch the Joker, seeing as no Joker-catching plan had begun to be hatched yet? And wasn't it a bit risky to fake his death by putting himself in a position where being killed was actually a very real possibility? And why did the other cops seem to genuinely believe he was dead, on the scene? And how did he manage to turn up at precisely the right place just in the nick of time, considering his lack of Bat-skills, which were all that allowed Batman to do the same thing?

Okay, but aside from that. The plot was good, involved and engaging, and I liked all the twists; the Joker in particular always kept you guessing. The number of characters to keep track of was pretty extensive, all of them with different motives, and some with motives that changed halfway through, or that were only pretenses; yet somehow it was never too confusing, and the exposition was surprisingly minimal. It'd be a damned hard film to summarize, though. A whole cast of main characters with non-parallel arcs... it was rather ambitious, trying to squeeze all that together and turn out something coherent.

The characters were great -- well, Rachel was pretty mediocre; but leaving her aside this was a seriously bloody all-star cast. Christian Bale is fantastic. I'll admit he doesn't quite describe my mental image of Bruce Wayne/Batman, mostly because he's just a little too goddamned youthfully pretty; but he comes closer than any other actor I've seen in the role... and lord but that batsuit looks good on him. He's got just the right balance of grim-superhero and suave-millionaire, the screen presence and the physique for the part, and a good face for the mask. And he makes a lovely broody Batman, which is the best thing about Batman: he's not cheerful. He broods.

As to the others, Alfred and Lucius were charming as ever, and Harvey Dent played a pretty damned convincing white-knight-teetering-on-the-brink-of-damnation. I still had a little trouble believing that such an idealistic man, a man who had been warned time and time again about the dangers he was laughing in the face of, should come off so brave at first and then go maniacally insane the moment anything bad actually happens to him. But there were a few foreshadowing bits earlier in the film to show that, yeah, for all his talk, this guy's breaking point is not actually all that high. He's an idealist because, as Gordon says, he can afford to be. He doesn't know what he's getting into.

Speaking of Gordon, he was excellent also. And I've already talked about the Joker: all his quirks were just perfect, and the completely careless way he seemed to do everything, as if he really were just a mad dog chasing cars -- as though everything he did weren't calculated down to the umpteenth digit. The way he'd start sentences and seem to think them over as he worked his way to the end, speaking sense and yet sounding utterly mad. The shifty eyes, the twitchy walk. Fantastic.

But in the end, I think what impressed me the most was the way the symbolism was handled. I felt like Dark Knight pretty thoroughly captured the essence of what makes Batman such an enduring and compelling modern myth, and I was surprised by the way they identified, with what seemed an almost nihilistic self-awareness, the enemy he's really up against: chaos. Not some particular cackling supervillain who wants to rule the world, but the basic potential for evil in every human being, and even in Batman himself -- maybe especially in Batman himself. A horror which is a manifestation of everyone.

The fact that they had the Joker essentially create Two-Face was also, I thought, a clever touch. The whole theme of the Joker seemed to be his certainty that everyone was capable of evil, under the right circumstances; that evil is "like gravity" and it's only too easy to fall; that "everything burns." He doesn't want to hurt people -- his game is to demonstrate just how willing people are to hurt each other. And heck, he's right. In the real world, I'd be very, very surprised if those two boats lasted five minutes, never mind all the way to midnight.

(As an aside: what I was actually expecting was that one of the boats would give in and turn the key in the detonator -- and it would turn out that the Joker had lied and the boats really were rigged to blow up their own charges. It seemed like the sort of "joke" he'd be liable to pull. But I guess, in retrospect, that much of the poetry of the Joker's plan lay in the fact that whoever chose not to detonate the bombs would die: a fine fate for heroes -- and the survivors would become the villains, and live the rest of their days with blood on their hands. No way out. The Joker fucking corners the market on philosophically detached evil, you've got to hand it to him.)

Another thing I liked was the parallel development of Two-Face and his two-faced coin. There was a kind of mythological feel to that too, as though his own being had somehow fused with the being of the coin, so that the same tragedy ruined them both, and the man who had always made his own luck finally broke and let his luck make him. I liked how it turned out he had always been Two-Face -- except that up until now, both faces had been good.

Mainly, though, amid the rest, there was the one theme that fits the title, the one that serves as a defense not just for the movie itself but for the whole genre of superhero movies: the necessity of myth in human culture, the need for heroes and stories, for something to believe in and fight for. And it is illusion, and the film even confesses that it's illusion: that the masses are fickle and the heroes are corruptible, and the ones who aren't corruptible end up looking like villains because their business isn't saving face. And that's the beauty of the Batman legend: he is an outlaw, he has to be an outlaw, because there are no easy moral choices or black and white answers, no perfect justice: just the integrity of a man who answers to himself first, and to the world later.

But anyway. Long story short is this. I've only read a very, very few of the comics, yet I've always been attracted to the idea of Batman, and I feel like this movie is the first that's actually done some degree of justice to the idea -- the first movie that, without taking Batman himself too seriously, has taken the archetype of Batman seriously, and told a story about that. It's not flawless. But what it is? Is pretty goddamned awesome.

I have two words. THE JOKER.

2008-07-22T05:13:42Z

This afternoon my sister and I went and saw The Dark Knight. It is, as I believe most of my friends-list is already aware, pretty goddamn awesome.

I'll post more about it later, but I don't have time right now. Because... we're going to see it again.

That's how awesome it is.

(Incidentally, you may be wondering why I'm using this icon, since the movie is not, in fact, hilarious. Well, I'll tell you why. Because the first card the Joker throws down? Has the picture from this icon on it. XD And a very appropriate picture it is...)

This is almost as stupid as the time I hit myself in the eye with a toaster.

2008-07-21T02:05:52Z

Note to self: Goats. They jump. Ergo, if you're going to mess with Nadya's hooves, try not to do it while your face is positioned directly above her horns, yes?

Luckily she missed my nose. So in addition to the swelling of my lower lip from yesterday's enterprises, I now have a swollen upper lip as well. They're a matching pair!

~~My transformation into Angelina Jolie is one step closer to completion!~~

This icon may or may not be appropriate to the topic at hand.

2008-07-19T06:38:49Z

So. I appear to have been awarded eligibility, this year, for two Stafford loans and a handful of grants -- to the tune of approximately $14,000. Nearly $6,000 of which I don't have to pay back.

The time for rejoicing would seem to be imminent. I still have to wait for the school to process my transfer transcripts, and I have to get a second measles immunization before they'll let me sign up for classes. But -- progress: it is being made.

Now that I'm a bit closer to actually going to the university, I feel a little silly for choosing physics as my major, since I sort of suck at math, and that's going to make maintaining a high GPA pretty damn difficult -- when I could just go for a degree in English/humanities and probably pass everything with relatively flying colors. I mean, I know I'm good at English. The professors keep telling me so, and at the community college there were at least two English/humanities classes in which I'm pretty sure I was the only student to pass with an A. I suspect I could make my life quite a bit easier if I'd just stick with the appropriate field. But of course, no. I have to ~challenge~ myself.

Eh. The decision not to major in English is probably going to kick me in the ass later, but then... but then, it seems like everyone is bloody majoring in English. And even if I know I could do it as well as most people, or even better than most people, I think I'd prefer to try my hand at something different.

The only unfortunate thing about all this is that I really don't think there's any way I can go to school full time and work full time, at least not without wanting to kill myself. There's about enough grant/loan money for me to quit my job and still get by, and that's probably what I'll do... but I'll miss working at the school. I was looking forward to seeing the kids I met as fourth graders graduating as sixth graders this year. :(

But on the other hand, the prospect of making college classes my full time business again is pretty exciting. And hell, gas prices being what they are, I probably wouldn't even be able to afford to work at that school anymore, anyway. Whereas the university is within easy biking distance of my house.

So anyway, I'm trying not to get too excited, because who knows. I'm also trying not to think too much about the day when I'm going to have to start paying back my loans. But hell. Even if I end up living in a cardboard box after all -- at least I'll be a bum with a pretty awesome degree?

Actually, if I take the route I'm presently considering, I'll be getting two concurrent degrees -- a Bachelor of Art in Education: Physics degree and a Bachelor of Science: Physics degree. Which would be very awesome indeed.

There are a lot of classes to take, though. Even in spite of the 68 credit hours I've already got from the community college, I still need over 100 more for the degrees I want. To wit:

MATH:
College Algebra
Plane Trigonometry OR Precalculus
Calculus with Analyical Geometry I
Calculus with Analyical Geometry II
Calculus with Analyical Geometry III

PHYSICS:
Introduction to Physics I
Introduction to Physics II
Introduction to Physics III
Mathematical Methods in Physics I
Mathematical Methods in Physics II
Electronic Circuits & Measurements
Quantum Physics I
Quantum Physics II
Classical Particles, Fields, Matter I
Classical Particles, Fields, Matter II
Classical Particles, Fields, Matter III
Advanced Laboratory I
Statistical and Thermal Physics
Content Methods I

EDUCATION:
Structured English Immersion
Content Area Literacy
Computers in Education
Childhood and Adolescence
Human Development
Educational Psychology for Future Teachers
Introduction to Special Education
Inclusion Practices at Secondary Education Level
Culture and Schooling
Teachers and the Law
Middle and Secondary School Principles, Curricula and Methods

ALSO:
2 courses from the College of Liberal Arts/Sciences
ASU101: The Arizona State University Experience (what the fuck, seriously?)
Three semesters of "field experience" (I'm not sure what that means, exactly)
And of course -- a semester of student teaching

This looks like it's going to be a pretty long haul. Ah well -- all the more reason to get on with it already, eh?

"Each might his servile province well command / Would all but stoop to what they understand."

2008-07-18T04:13:49Z

Sometimes, I spend a day or two in front of the computer, trying to write, and positively loathing every single word I put down, and it finally occurs to me that the process of composing fiction has begun to approximate a process of slowly headdesking myself to death. Of course, it's at that moment that I remember that the only thing more unbearable than trying to write and failing is not trying to write at all. So I guess I'll keep at this impossible business, in the desperate grasping hope that I will someday figure out how not to suck at it.

In other news. I can't recall whether I mentioned here -- I think maybe I did -- that I'm probably changing my major. Instead of aiming to become a high school English teacher, which was sort of vaguely the plan before, I may possibly opt to become a high school physics teacher, assuming the several requisite calculus classes do not utterly kick my ass. I've always loved physics, even though I've never much liked math. I also recently discovered that my physics instructor from the community college is also an assistant instructor at the university, and since the guy is one of my favorite people ever, this, for me, was particularly exciting news. Taking more classes with him would be wonderful.

But I have no idea when any of this will even begin to pan out. There's no possible way that I can attend a single college class unless I can get a loan (or a teaching grant, which is awesome because it doesn't have to be paid back if you agree to work at a low-income school for four years); and while I'm sure I can get a loan, considering my little-sought major and my 4.0 GPA, I have no idea how long it will take. I wanted to go back to school this fall, but the university is being preposterously slow and unhelpful about everything. So who knows.

Anyway, here's a meme, because everyone seems to be doing memes lately. And hell, if I can't write, I may as well at least type.

1. What are your reasons for having a LJ?

Lately, I've been wondering that myself. Not that I'm planning on deleting my LJ or anything; I know far too many awesome people here for that. But it's beginning to seem like everything I'm interested in talking about is of no interest to anyone else, and the only posts I make that do interest anyone else are the ones I just make sort of offhandedly, indifferently, to pass the time.

But then, it's not like I'd want people to comment to my posts all the time, because then I'd feel obligated to comment to their posts all the time, which I rarely do. Basically I guess I still just don't get social interaction, not even online. I find the whole ordeal to be mostly more difficult than rewarding. I don't know, maybe I'm mildly autistic or something. :/

2. What do you do before bedtime?

Nothing in particular. Sleep is my nemesis; a full third of my life that for some reason I'm obliged to spend unconscious, and how horrible is that? I've hated sleeping for as long as I can remember. I used to abuse my little sister horribly whenever she tried to take a nap during the day, because who the heck would give up playtime in order to just lie there? What a waste!

So yes. I generally put off sleep until the last reasonable moment, and I certainly don't make any kind of ritual out of it. I almost never change clothes before bed, since I wear T-shirts and loose jeans or slacks all the time anyway. Hell, up until about six months ago, I didn't even have a bed. I just slept on the floor. And really, I don't notice that much difference now that I do have a bed, except that aesthetically an unmade bed looks better than a pile of blankets on the floor.

3. Morning routine?

On a work day? Shower, if I have time. Change into work clothes, brush teeth, brush hair and pull it back in a ponytail. Put on shoes, feed the cats, feed the goats, maybe put on some eyeliner if I remember. Eat a toaster strudel. Put on my rings and my necklace, grab my bag, and leave.

Truly riveting stuff, folks. Aren't you glad you're reading this?

4. What is the city of your dreams and why?

Hm. Well, since I never really leave my house unless I absolutely have to, I guess it doesn't much matter what city I live in. Anyway, I've always been rather attached to Phoenix. I don't think I'll ever really move away from here. If I could choose a place to stay for just a year or two, I'd probably choose either Moscow or Berlin, simply because Russia and Germany are the places I'd most like to visit.

5. Are you an introvert or extrovert?

Heh. I don't think I really need to answer that.

6. Three of your most cherished possessions:

I did a meme on this topic recently, actually. My answers haven't changed. And no, I can't choose just one pony. It would probably be easier to get rid of them all than to try to pick just one to keep. I could maybe choose a hundred, if I had no other option. But one? There's no possible way.

7. What turns you on?

Physically: I like very thin men with dark hair and dark eyes. I have, oddly, an intense attraction both to bald men and to men with long hair. Facial hair is also a bonus. So is black clothing. Piercings, interesting tattoos, and random goth stuff like black nail polish or spikey bracelets tend to get my attention.

As for personality, I don't really know. I like intelligent, talented, quiet men; slightly arrogant, slightly cold, ambitious, unattainable men -- which is why it would be pointless for me to ever actually want to be in a relationship. I am specifically attracted to the type of man who does not reciprocate. Bit of a conundrum, but it works out, I guess, because I also don't much reciprocate...

8. As a child, what was your worst fear?

Well, for a while, when I was about four, I was terrified of bleeding to death. I didn't understand about platelets and blood clotting, and I was sure that if I cut myself, or even if I got a bruise, I would never stop bleeding. I remember being very careful not to squeeze the toothpaste tube too hard, because I knew I had veins in my fingers and I wasn't sure how pressure was enough to break them...

9. Is there anything that has made you unhappy these days?

Being $5,500 in debt? Not being able to sign up for college classes? Not being able to write one single word that doesn't make me cringe and flail for the delete key? Maybe.

10. What is your best quality?

Um. I'm a pretty impeccable grammarian, when I want to be. It's kind of sad if that's my best quality, though, isn't it?

I took a quiz the other day that told me my best quality was my intelligence, so I guess I'll go with that. Not that I'm the most intelligent person, but I'm more intelligent than I am anything else, so -- as hamsterwoman's icon says: Ravenclaw by default. ;)

11. What do you prefer that people call you, online?

Gray. Grayswandir. Dostoevsky's Mouse.

Any of the above.

12. Any special plans for the weekend?

Yes. Unless the Fates take it into their heads to force me into some other unforeseen engagement, I am going to buy some more earplugs, turn off the world, and sit in front of my computer with a mug of tea for five days straight while my sister is away in Flagstaff visiting her ex. I don't know whether I'll get anything done, but damn it all, no one will be able to say I didn't try.

13. Who are currently the most important people to you?

Well, my sister, obviously. And my mom. Also some people online, but I shall refrain from naming them, because I doubt the feeling is reciprocated particularly, and there's no sense in making things unnecessarily awkward.

But to be honest, some of the most important people to me are still people like Nietzsche, Hugo, Dostoevsky, Wilde; people like Billy Corgan, Robert Smith. Maybe this is a whole different kind of "important" that I'm talking about now, but, well, whatever.

14. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?

Nobody tagged me, but I stole the meme from agguss, and I think she's an intelligent, interesting, well-read and well-studied person. She's one of my few friends who loves Notre-Dame de Paris, which, since NDDP remains my favorite novel of all time, means I'm very, very happy to have met her.

15. Would you rather be single and rich or married but poor?

My first thought was that I'd rather be single in either case, whether I'm going to be rich or poor. But I guess it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility that I might someday find the kind of man I would actually want to marry. So I suppose the best answer I can give is that I'm totally indifferent to whether I'm rich or poor, as long as I'm not, like, physically living in a cardboard box, so -- it really doesn't matter.

16. How many children do you want to have, if any?

None. Pregnancy scares the living bejesus out of me, and I don't like babies anyway. So yeah. Definitely none. If I ever decide to adopt or foster kids, though, I suppose I'll try to get two, so that they can entertain each other. Hopefully.

17. What's better, to give or to receive?

Well, obviously, that depends on what you're giving, and what you're receiving. ;)

No, but honestly, I prefer giving. Not because I'm some kind of philanthropist or anything, but just because receiving always puts me in this awkward position of debt, sort of -- even if I don't even want what's being given, I always feel like I owe something back. There are no strings attached to giving.

18. What's your favorite food?

Tea.

Oh. Well, in that case... I guess vegetable lasagna, maybe? Or some kind of pie. Almost any kind of pie, really.

19. Do you have any pets? If not, what kind of pet(s) would you like?

I think you all know about my myriad pets by now. If not, just check out my "pets" LJ tag, and I'm sure you'll learn more than you ever wanted to know.

20. What is your biggest fear?

Oh, are we back to this? Well -- dying, I guess. I mean, there are fates worse than death, of course, like living the rest of my life with severe brain damage or something, but when I think about things I don't want to happen, death pretty much heads the list.

And speaking of death -- that appears to be the end of the meme.

Well, that was productive.

Still, I'm not exactly getting anything else done lately. I may even be back with more memes later, for want of anything better to do. Eh.