So. I just got back from watching Cars. The blogosphere--or at least the portions I just checked--has been discussing pork and music, but not Cars, and I think this ought to be changed. It's definitely worth talking about. I can't quite remember the complicated Haunt of Macbeth rating system I dreamed up last March and I don't feel like rummaging through my archives just now to find it, but I'll do something like it.
3 bloody daggers: there was no actual blood or violence, except an occasional car turning over, but there was tension. I got emotionally involved about three minutes into it.
7 warm fuzzies: oh, where to begin?? It was Pixar being its usual brilliant and self-aware self. (The credits were hilarious.) There was plot--not terribly original, but well-handled. There was characterization. The Main Point was actually one worth making. Cars was genuinely funny, as opposed to being filled with stupidity and immaturity being passed as humor. It was made by people who knew whereof they were moviemaking.
But perhaps best of all, I liked it because it made me love America, especially the west. You may remember a certain conversation this spring when I was asking if there were any movies that did that; this qualifies. I now love the west, cars, Route 66, small towns named Radiator Springs, big bright stars, racing, and neon lights better than I have ever loved them before. I think this is an accomplishment, especially about the neon lights.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Monday, June 12, 2006
A momentous day
When I took my mother up town this morning, I was still firmly in the ranks of the unemployed and meant to come home about noon. When I came home this evening about 6:00, I had a job and nearly five hours of training toward it done. :-)
I'm now the dentist's new receptionist. I know one of his dental assistants and she said to apply, so I did this morning about 9:00, and got interviewed, and started right after lunch. He's wonderful; I've known him forever. Our families used to go to church together and his daughter was Hamlet in our production. His current receptionist is permanently leaving for Kansas early next week, and then I'll be on my own. The days are long, but I get every Friday off and all the lab holidays, and the pay is excellent.
Cool! Yikes! Good blessing! Most providential that it happened; pray I'll be able to do the job with a week's training. But it is a good blessing. I'm grateful.
I'm now the dentist's new receptionist. I know one of his dental assistants and she said to apply, so I did this morning about 9:00, and got interviewed, and started right after lunch. He's wonderful; I've known him forever. Our families used to go to church together and his daughter was Hamlet in our production. His current receptionist is permanently leaving for Kansas early next week, and then I'll be on my own. The days are long, but I get every Friday off and all the lab holidays, and the pay is excellent.
Cool! Yikes! Good blessing! Most providential that it happened; pray I'll be able to do the job with a week's training. But it is a good blessing. I'm grateful.
A divine irony
Visualize, if you will, a metal staircase by a cinder-block wall, ending at a door. A sign hangs above it: “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” The sign is lurid yellow with drippy black lettering. You duck below the sign (if you are over about 5'6”) and darkness and heat blast you.
You enter a hallway. Black hangings drape the walls. The only light comes from a single fixture, partially obscured by yellow and orange flames, and through a doorway at the end. You look down. A broad black path is laid for your feet, with flames emanating from underneath it, here and there.
Your attention is drawn to a number of signs on the wall. All of them are neatly labeled, “1st circle,” “2nd circle,” and so on to “9th (deepest) circle,” with an arrow indicating the direction to find said circle. The “2nd circle” sign marks a door, which is also labeled “male” in lettering much like the hopeless sign. The “5th circle” shares space with the “female” door. There are random flames along the doors and walls, flames with black at their hearts. In short, you have entered hell, and I spent my evening creating this exciting location for Vacation Bible School tomorrow. Someone else hung most of the black plastic and let me do the flames and signs, because I was telling her all about Dante and really seemed to be into it!
If, furthermore, you manage to pass the ninth circle, a doorway cut out of the black, and a curtain of streamers, the first thing you may notice is about a ten degree lessening of temperature, together with brighter and bluer light and a bright sign (also of the unfortunate yellow, though it looks much nicer in good light) saying, “Christ has conquered hell.” Stars hang from the ceiling, and over each light fixture hangs a gauzy cloud with small silvery balloons. Scrolls, hand-lettered with awesome burnt edges, hang upon the walls proclaiming Jesus' lordship.
A waterfall comes down, ahead and to your right. Two shades of blue stream down into a rounded pool, and silvery bubble balloons foam around.
Below your feet, you will find a white (labeled) “straight and narrow” path. Follow it, and you will come to a place where the drawn stones make way for a wooden segment. This puzzled the author, who had, after all, just come from a region not known for its brilliant reasoning skills, until she noted that the wood corresponded with the river from the waterfall. Someone built a bridge on the straight and narrow to cross the river of life! Wasn't that brilliant of the Dante-listener and my sister? :-)
Since we did not turn D5 into the Divine Comedy for Jennifer and Jonathan's birthday, I thought it was ironic and awesome we did for VBS. And I didn't even have anything to do with deciding on it--I just helped put it together. :-)
You enter a hallway. Black hangings drape the walls. The only light comes from a single fixture, partially obscured by yellow and orange flames, and through a doorway at the end. You look down. A broad black path is laid for your feet, with flames emanating from underneath it, here and there.
Your attention is drawn to a number of signs on the wall. All of them are neatly labeled, “1st circle,” “2nd circle,” and so on to “9th (deepest) circle,” with an arrow indicating the direction to find said circle. The “2nd circle” sign marks a door, which is also labeled “male” in lettering much like the hopeless sign. The “5th circle” shares space with the “female” door. There are random flames along the doors and walls, flames with black at their hearts. In short, you have entered hell, and I spent my evening creating this exciting location for Vacation Bible School tomorrow. Someone else hung most of the black plastic and let me do the flames and signs, because I was telling her all about Dante and really seemed to be into it!
If, furthermore, you manage to pass the ninth circle, a doorway cut out of the black, and a curtain of streamers, the first thing you may notice is about a ten degree lessening of temperature, together with brighter and bluer light and a bright sign (also of the unfortunate yellow, though it looks much nicer in good light) saying, “Christ has conquered hell.” Stars hang from the ceiling, and over each light fixture hangs a gauzy cloud with small silvery balloons. Scrolls, hand-lettered with awesome burnt edges, hang upon the walls proclaiming Jesus' lordship.
A waterfall comes down, ahead and to your right. Two shades of blue stream down into a rounded pool, and silvery bubble balloons foam around.
Below your feet, you will find a white (labeled) “straight and narrow” path. Follow it, and you will come to a place where the drawn stones make way for a wooden segment. This puzzled the author, who had, after all, just come from a region not known for its brilliant reasoning skills, until she noted that the wood corresponded with the river from the waterfall. Someone built a bridge on the straight and narrow to cross the river of life! Wasn't that brilliant of the Dante-listener and my sister? :-)
Since we did not turn D5 into the Divine Comedy for Jennifer and Jonathan's birthday, I thought it was ironic and awesome we did for VBS. And I didn't even have anything to do with deciding on it--I just helped put it together. :-)
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Bear stories
So I went to a gathering for a lady who used to live in Los Alamos and came back to visit. It mostly consisted of the people who went to my church fifteen years ago. Hardly any of their children--my old friends--were there; we had a ten-year-old, myself, and a girl about six years older than me. Other than that, it was my parents and their contemporaries, all of whom have known me since I was four. Good--good for me, after going to college--but weird.
At this party they told bear stories. And I thought they were so funny, I'm going to tell them to you. :-)
Somewhere back east there was a territorial cat. This territorial cat who ran a bear up a tree. It was sitting down there keeping it in it. Somebody has photographic evidence.
And then another lady's son, about my age, went rock climbing up in the Jemez. He got maybe 150 feet up, and then in a tree just about eye level, he looked up and saw a bear. The bear saw him too, and was so surprised it fell out of the tree!
At this party they told bear stories. And I thought they were so funny, I'm going to tell them to you. :-)
Somewhere back east there was a territorial cat. This territorial cat who ran a bear up a tree. It was sitting down there keeping it in it. Somebody has photographic evidence.
And then another lady's son, about my age, went rock climbing up in the Jemez. He got maybe 150 feet up, and then in a tree just about eye level, he looked up and saw a bear. The bear saw him too, and was so surprised it fell out of the tree!
Friday, June 09, 2006
Macbeth scrapbook
Today I dragged out the Macbeth scrapbook to work on it. :-) Guess what this next page is about? The stabbing. Yup, that's where I left off at Christmas.So if anyone has a comment to make on the subject, post it or email it to me, and I might include it. :-)
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Coffee, Hamlet, Lion King, Much Ado, world travel, used books, and a star-crossed windowsill
I went to coffee with the debaters last night. Josh talked about how his friends analyzed The Lion King and discovered it had the same plot as Hamlet, only with a happy ending. The king's brother murders the king, tries to marry the queen, and sends the prince off into “emotional exile”; an array of friends bumble around; the ghost of the king appears to the prince, says “Remember me,” and convinces him to confront his uncle; and there's a final duel. So then I shared how when my friends analyzed The Lion King we noticed how it was about growing up and becoming what you were born to be, rather than what you irresponsibly wanted to be, and further ended with an arranged marriage that made everyone happy. Quite a movie. We also analyzed our schools' productions of Much Ado and compared them to the Kenneth Branagh one. We immediately decided that our families needed to have a Much Ado fest.
I went to coffee with the Bible study girls this morning. One is leaving for Russia tomorrow, another is going to South Africa within a week, and a third is going back home to Texas with her husband and baby. It's impressive we all managed to be in town at the same time.
After that I spent $2.15 at the library used book store and acquired six books: The Tolkien Reader, Virginia Woolf (to be a well-rounded lit major), Edgar Allen Poe, Alistair McGrath, George Kennan, and the first Dune book. Life is good, though I mysteriously don't have any shelf space again. But I did take three bags of stuff to the thrift shop this afternoon.
In other news, I read how a visitor to a Cambridge museum tripped over his shoelace, fell down the stairs, and shattered an entire windowsill full of Qing vases. Apparently, they'd been there for the last 40 years and never quite made it to a display case. The museum expressed gratitude the visitor was not injured.
I went to coffee with the Bible study girls this morning. One is leaving for Russia tomorrow, another is going to South Africa within a week, and a third is going back home to Texas with her husband and baby. It's impressive we all managed to be in town at the same time.
After that I spent $2.15 at the library used book store and acquired six books: The Tolkien Reader, Virginia Woolf (to be a well-rounded lit major), Edgar Allen Poe, Alistair McGrath, George Kennan, and the first Dune book. Life is good, though I mysteriously don't have any shelf space again. But I did take three bags of stuff to the thrift shop this afternoon.
In other news, I read how a visitor to a Cambridge museum tripped over his shoelace, fell down the stairs, and shattered an entire windowsill full of Qing vases. Apparently, they'd been there for the last 40 years and never quite made it to a display case. The museum expressed gratitude the visitor was not injured.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Snippets of writing
They're just a first draft. Leofric (from whose point of view this is) is currently in denial about Maiwyn. But I promised you snippets, and here they are.
"O Maiwyn, most beautiful among women, will you come out and show me the constellations?" Had he said that? That was almost as bad as what he hadn't said that afternoon. He had read way too much Wulfred the Rhymer. Too late to get out of it. The offer hung in the air between them.
"Did I tell you about what Bear and I did to Mell with the giant spider?"
"I don't think so." Her voice was perfectly normal. Good. It came out low and smooth, like honey over cornbread. Her hair was the color of honey, too. Enough honey. He was talking about spiders.
"Well, it was back before they got married. She hated spiders, and I came across a really big furry one out by the mines. I caught it in an empty coffee cup, and we flattened it on a piece of parchment exactly the color of her pillowcase and got her roommate Nadder to put it there for her to find."
"How did you know what color her pillowcase was?" Maiwyn demanded.
"She brought it out for a reading-aloud once. It's all right, I promise. So Nadder left the spider there and we hung out in the building after Mell said goodnight, and she screamed so loud she woke up her entire hallway and came running out and yelled at Bear and told him he'd have to wash the pillowcase for her before she slept on it again. It was really funny."
"I don't think it sounds funny."
"Well...then we told her it was on parchment and not actually on her pillow, and she stopped boiling and brought it out and let us ritually incinerate it. I think spiders on Swostor must eat sulfur or something, because it burned bright yellow. But the ashes still looked kind of like a spider, so we burned it again."
Maiwyn laughed. Good. "That was a very male thing to do. Did she forgive you guys?"
"Oh, definitely. I think she took it as a sign of affection."
"I noticed your garden yesterday. It looked great, really green. You must spend a lot of time working in it."
"Well, it's worth it. I grow thyme," she said, with her inimitable I-just-made-an-awful-pun tone.
He hadn't heard her pun for three years. He laughed. "That was very sage of you."
"Thank you. And I commend you on that herbal pun," she reposted.
"O Maiwyn, most beautiful among women, will you come out and show me the constellations?" Had he said that? That was almost as bad as what he hadn't said that afternoon. He had read way too much Wulfred the Rhymer. Too late to get out of it. The offer hung in the air between them.
"Did I tell you about what Bear and I did to Mell with the giant spider?"
"I don't think so." Her voice was perfectly normal. Good. It came out low and smooth, like honey over cornbread. Her hair was the color of honey, too. Enough honey. He was talking about spiders.
"Well, it was back before they got married. She hated spiders, and I came across a really big furry one out by the mines. I caught it in an empty coffee cup, and we flattened it on a piece of parchment exactly the color of her pillowcase and got her roommate Nadder to put it there for her to find."
"How did you know what color her pillowcase was?" Maiwyn demanded.
"She brought it out for a reading-aloud once. It's all right, I promise. So Nadder left the spider there and we hung out in the building after Mell said goodnight, and she screamed so loud she woke up her entire hallway and came running out and yelled at Bear and told him he'd have to wash the pillowcase for her before she slept on it again. It was really funny."
"I don't think it sounds funny."
"Well...then we told her it was on parchment and not actually on her pillow, and she stopped boiling and brought it out and let us ritually incinerate it. I think spiders on Swostor must eat sulfur or something, because it burned bright yellow. But the ashes still looked kind of like a spider, so we burned it again."
Maiwyn laughed. Good. "That was a very male thing to do. Did she forgive you guys?"
"Oh, definitely. I think she took it as a sign of affection."
"I noticed your garden yesterday. It looked great, really green. You must spend a lot of time working in it."
"Well, it's worth it. I grow thyme," she said, with her inimitable I-just-made-an-awful-pun tone.
He hadn't heard her pun for three years. He laughed. "That was very sage of you."
"Thank you. And I commend you on that herbal pun," she reposted.
Not over Pride and Prejudice yet
Today on the radio, I heard a song. It was a good enough song, I suppose, all about grace...
only it was by Phil Wickham. The last name disturbed me.
I decided maybe I wasn't over P&P yet.
only it was by Phil Wickham. The last name disturbed me.
I decided maybe I wasn't over P&P yet.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Friday, June 02, 2006
Unpacking and writing
Hullo, all:
You've been most patient while I neglected my blog. I'm really home now. And Chrysophylax (my laptop) works and has internet access and everything. (Happiness!)
Saturday: Home! We unloaded the car and truck. They were full. I moved my bed, vacuumed my floor, and promptly put books, boxes, boxes of books, clothes, suitcases of clothes, and tubs of clothes and books on it. I commenced unpacking. The closet became completely unreachable, though the long bookshelves weren't. They were just stuffed with books.
Sunday: Church! Then I unpacked. I set up my nice wooden shelf--the one that held dishes at school--and put books on it. My sister kindly organized my desk so I could get to it (and write DRW thereat). Clean laundry started piling, but I organized the closet enough to sort of get at it.
Monday: My first ten-page installment of DRW for my mentor was due. So I wrote an eight-page outline of my story at a rate just better than a page every two hours and sent it to her, unpacking in the corners. I discovered I couldn't deal with the manuscript itself after that.
Tuesday: I wrote the other two pages I owed her for Monday, sent them in, finished two books, watched Hitch, and unpacked. Mom had an extra shelf in the backyard (I'm still not sure why it was out there), so I set it up and put books and DVDs on it. I think all the boxes of books became empty and put in the hall. The clean laundry piled higher.
Wednesday: Mom and I went shopping. All day. We also did some eating. :-) Em's birthday is this Saturday, if you want to email her, and Dad's is Monday, so Mom and I bought them presents and party supplies. I also got two Chinese lanterns, one defective (sad days), both of which I attached to my ceiling where they belonged. I also unpacked my other Chinese lanterns and put them up, packed away sundry figurines which did not match my room's projected new Asian-beach theme, and decorated a candle to sit (along with a red vase, nice piece of volcanic black rock, and little Chinese doll) on the shelf formerly holding figurines. It is now a decorative and thematic shelf.
Thursday (today): I wrote all day and sent in the first ten pages of chapter 2, and my rate improved to about a page an hour. It was blissful having my books on shelves where I could consult them, besides the double bliss of having my family's library available. I love having books. I named several characters, though my heroine might need a different last name, and my plot is sort of having technology issues. I also seriously misjudged how much paper various events were going to take up. I did get back quite helpful and sensible comments on the outline. I feel revisions coming on. One thing, it's DRW, so I can't get discouraged and abandon the story to the bowels of Chrysophylax.
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