crazy like a fox
02.17.05 @ 10:26 p.m.
What is there to say? Is there anything to say? I started listening to Two Sides of the Moon in the car, and oh, it is deliciously terrible and makes me want to talk to Professor S. so very much, because he is the only person I've ever had a lengthy discussion about Keith Moon with, except Candace. How can one simple LP be such a towering monument to bad taste? I would not be able to stand it if I didn't love Keith so much.
The end of the term is looking like this: A presentation and two medium-long papers on Paradise Lost and a term paper on... um, I don't know. Something about Early Tudor England, presumably Thomas More, because my professor has a deep academic love of the gentleman. Boy, am I ever sick of Thomas More. (And yet I am ever fond of Milton, even though Book VII has been pretty much a boring recitation of the first chapter of Genesis with some added sensual detail thrust in.)
I drove all the way out to Fred Meyer for basically nothing last night. I have a very specific idea of what kind of pot I want to replant Lenore in, and the first requirement is SQUARE. They had basically nothing there that didn't look like it came from my old Ceramics teacher, and I already have two lovely cups in his style (a blue tumbler, which he gives to all his senior students and a brownish chalice that I got when Amy and I visited him at the Ceramics Showcase last spring) and that is enough. I wandered around a lot, including the toy section where I wanted to buy half the generic toys (dart guns! Ping-pong ball guns! Why didn't I buy one?)... but nothing good came out of the whole time consuming trip except the purchase of a Princess Bride DVD. for $10, which was actually pretty awesome.
NOW I AM GOING TO BLATHER INCOMPREHENSIBLY ABOUT MY WRITING.
On Sunday, there's a NaNoWriMo meeting that I feel a little unprepared for, mostly because I have blithely broken all the writing-based resolutions I tried to make. I've hardly written at all, unless you count a half dozen pages of ICRY, which shouldn't count at all, being crap and... well, interesting only to me. I just finished a Barbara Metzger story this afternoon, and she's really good. I know I've read her work before, and enjoyed it, and while I have no idea if I can make Madeline Whitby that good, I feel somehow encouraged. Probably the This American Life story and a short bit on NPR morning news last weekend also help, as they both emphasized how nice and big-happy-family the romance publishing industry is, especially compared to the rather cutthroat mainstream publishing industry. I feel very silly talking about trying to sell a romance novel, but god, I think I can do it. I read what I think is an early Emily Hendrickson this week... weekend? I don't remember, but it was recent, and the reason I think it's early is because behind the plot, it read like a handbook of Regency medicines and folk cures. How terribly sad is it that I know the genre well enough to easily spot the frameworks behind the plot? Don't look behind the curtain! There's nothing to see here!
SO. My goals were to have either: Finished ICRY (ha ha ha!); written a significant portion of Regency Hum Dil De Chuke Sanaam (mmm, no); or rewritten a good part of Madeline Whitby. I will grant myself some work on ICRY and a full replotting of Madeline, with a change in character for Lady Montgomery, who has gotten sweetly absentminded. So far: Handsome, handsome, only-blond-hero-I-will-ever-write (seeing as his physical model is South African Max) Simon has no idea why he is summoned to Lady Montgomery's house, as she neglected to tell him. He takes a certain amount of care of her, assisting in estate management and such. He stumbles into a house party, where he meets Madeline, sadly already engaged to Alistair... and complications ensue. I have the prologue, which hasn't changed much since the first draft, but I'm stumbling on the opening with Simon.
I find it incredibly frustrating that I can't make myself buckle down and write, even when it offers a charming alternative to homework.
END WRITING STUFF.
I am perplexed by the presence of a flea in my house, unless it got into my luggage last weekend and hitched along with me from my parents' house. It's not even a good topic of a Donne poem since there is no suave poet here to mingle his blood with mine in the parasite's body. (Nerrrdddd...) (Poetry nerd, too. I never liked poetry until this term.)
Dear Local Newspersons: Okay, first, I have a lot of contempt for you, especially you, Matt Templeman, for your stupid jokes and oh god I hope feigned idiocy. Also, find better things to report than the same story on Loonatics that was reported on the national news last night. PEOPLE. IS THIS REALLY THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU COULD BE REPORTING? Seriously. I would even rather see a piece on a particularly fluffy squirrel on campus than hear about the fucking revamped Looney Toons characters AGAIN. (I guess I should not watch more than one incarnation of the news a day.) And Matt will make a stupid joke about it, or some inane comment. Or maybe Renee will. You never know! Hell, it could be the weather guy, or the sports guy! But mostly, I dislike Matt Templeman.
I also dislike several young women of my acquaintance. Noel used to amuse me, now I just get angry when she talks. And some others that it would perhaps be just as well to be discreet about. No one I've known for any amount of time, just a new online acquaintance to whom I just want to reply "I DON'T LIKE YOU" every time she writes something.
I don't have a good conclusion, not that I ever do.
UM. UM. LOOK OVER THERE!
PS: Here is what Allmusic has to say about Moon's solo venture:
Keith Moon didn't have much of a singing voice, nor did he have much of an inclination to write music. He was a great noisy drummer, and his chaotic playing often made the Who sound unhinged. Based on the band's records, you might assume that Moon's lone solo album, Two Sides of the Moon, was a raucous rocker, but it's not -- it's the epitome of the superstar jam album. Much like a Ringo Starr record, Two Sides of the Moon features an untold number of superstar cameos -- including Ringo, Flo & Eddie, Harry Nilsson, Rick Nelson, Steve Cropper, Joe Walsh, John Sebastian and Dick Dale -- who are all there to jam on oldies and lame, underdeveloped originals. It's overproduced and overblown, and since Moon has a thin, tuneless, nasal voice, he doesn't have the charisma to make the whole affair entertaining. Instead, it's a tedious, colorless listen, with only a little of Moon's absurdist humor and very few strong songs -- if John Lennon's throwaway "Move Over Ms. L" is a standout, things aren't in good shape. If these flaws can be overlooked, you'll find a historical artifact that stands as a testament to the wretched hubris that was the '70s for many '60s superstars.
I quite like that last line... "wretched hubris," is a good way to put it, but "expensive wanking" might be better.
Previously
fuck it @ 08.01.05
fanciful imaginary sea voyages to come @ 07.20.05
*dies* @ 07.19.05
more ootp @ 07.17.05
harry potter: driving our children into devil worship @ 07.17.05
