I still think I may be missing one or two from the early part of the list...
( Cut to save your friends page )
( Aaaand, the year so far )

Tags: books
Current Mood: intimidated

Summer has arrived in Ottawa. It's hot, and sticky.

I commute to and from work by bike. This is generally more pleasant than the bus. And of course is good for me.

There's a big hill shortly before my house, so I usually arrive home tired and out of breath from the hill.

Today I was particularly tired and particularly hot, so I flopped on my bed waiting for the sweat to stop pouring out of my pores long enough to make getting washed off and changed worthwhile.

The ever-helpful Isis hopped up on the bed to say hello. She licked some sweat off my ear.

Then she hopped up on my back and sprawled herself out the entire length of my back.

Tags: cats, weather
Current Mood: hot

…is that, if one doesn't blog promptly, one is liable to lose track of what one has read.

Er.

I had a list. It even had little notes on it to remind myself of what I wanted to talk about when I got around to doing the write-ups.

The list is missing. I am trying to re-create it, but since I have outsourced significant chunks of my mind to little pieces of paper, this is proving rather challenging.

Sigh.

(Yes, I'm also being really bad about journalling with anything approaching regularity, but that's just because I'm insanely busy these days. Not because I am an absent-minded flake.)

Tags: books, real life
Current Mood: embarrassed

Okay, it's been all over the Internet by now, but just in case you haven't seen it.... here's "Bohemian Rhapsody", performed by old computer parts.
(via Neil Gaiman and Making Light)

Tags: links, music
Current Mood: impressed
Current Music: guess

Easter for a Canadian federal government employee is a wonderful holiday - four whole days without having to work. And this year, we had gorgeous sunny weather the entire time. I had planned to do all kinds of work around the house, rake the leaves that didn't get raked in the fall due to sudden snowfall, and start prepping the garden.  I had planned to bike about a lot, and maybe even try an outside run if the temperature was friendly.

Instead, I spent the entire weekend on the couch, hacking my lungs out.

Yes, indeedy, I caught the King of Colds. It may actually be the flu. All I can say is that this is day five (yes, I'm home from work today -- I still have interestingly-coloured phlegm, so it didn't seem fair to expose my colleagues to that), and this is the first day I haven't felt like I was going to fall over when I stood up for any length of time.  Which of course means I couldn't even get anything done around the house. I was pretty much restricted to lying on the couch, reading and playing video games. Which sounds great, except that it was a holiday, and the weather was nice, and I had THINGS TO DO!

I did actually take my bike out on Saturday to buy some groceries. It was interesting, biking back home with my head doing cartwheels independently of my body. I think I will not do that again.

I even missed out on Easter dinner, because I was way to sick to expose my friends to whatever nasty ailment I have.

I really hate being sick. Well, the first day or so isn't too bad, because I can lie in bed and feel sorry for myself. But that's about all I can stand. I start to get really restless and stir-crazy, and that makes me whiney. I don't think I'm much fun to be around when I'm sick, even setting aside the hacking and snorfling.

Sigh. Stupid fragile human body.

Tags: real life, whining
Current Mood: sick
Current Music: Stars - Ageless Beauty | Powered by Last.fm

18, 19. "The Stratford Man" - Ink and Steel, Hell and Earth (Elizabeth Bear)
Bear's "Stratfod Man" duology is lovely and satisfying. It's about how poetry influences the world -- literally. In it, Faerie and the "real" world are inextricably tied together, and poets are the heroes who keep them both well. But it's really a pair of books about love, in all of its myriad forms. Our protagonist is Cristofer Marley, described in the dramatis personae as "dead. To begin with." (to my unending amusement. Did I mention these books are funny? Because they're full of wonderful little bits like that, to leaven the tragedy appropriately.) Marley's a poet and a spy and an elf-knight, and, most of all, a man who just needs to be loved. Bear gleefully mines the history and poetry of the time for explanations both completely plausible and utterly impossible -- I'm particularly fond of her complete explanation of the object(s) of Shakespeare's sonnets, and of her nod to the "real authorship" of his plays. Oh, and let's not forget the wonderful emotionally cathartic sex scenes. Even if they were a little embarrassing to read in public. *****

20. The Electric Church (Jeff Somers)
In a relentlessly horrible future world,  where there's not so much a gap between rich and poor as a Grand Canyon, and where living to thirty makes you an old man, the electric church offers eternal life... as long as you're willing to let them put your brain into a robotic body so that you can become a Monk. It's a creepy, well-realized environment, although I found it a little on the unrelentingly depressing side. The absence of hope is part of the point, but when it's coupled with a fast-moving caper plot, it's a little hard on the soul. The plot moves along at good pace, with plenty of dramatic confrontations and explosions, and culminating in an assemblage of Revelations. It's got something of the tone of a summer blockbuster with extra grit for credibility, which isn't usually my thing, although it does explain the complete disregard for human life. And the near-complete absence of female characters. This griping aside, it is a good story. And if it were more up my alley, I'd probably call it a great one. ****

21. The Mysteries (Lisa Tuttle)
This is a lovely example of the "fairy tale in the modern world" genre that I love so much. I really liked the way the fairy tale mysteries were handled, and the point of view was very nicely done. It was very nice to have the protagonist not be the young prince/princess for a change, and I enjoyed seeing real-world emotions and effects, handled in a realistic way. The interweaving of historical disappearances and mysteries was a nice touch, too. I'm not usually a fan of unresolved endings, but the not-quite-resolution in this case actually fit the book's theme quite well -- leaving a little (non-supernatural) mystery and open-endedness. Even if I do still want to know what happened. ****


22. Yarn Harlot: the Secret Life of a Knitter (Stephanie Pearl-McPhee)
A collection of vignettes about knitters and knitting, this is a sweet and amusing little book. It's not much more than a trifle, but it doesn't try to be anything more than that. It's very entertaining, and is pretty much guaranteed to make you smile. It also leaves no doubt at all that Stephanie Pearl-MacPhee is a little bit crazy, although not in a bad way. ****

23. Watchmen (Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons)
It's surprising how well Watchmen holds up after all these years. ****

24. Justinian (H.N. Turtletaub)
I was quite pleasantly surprised at how well this worked as a novel. It's an as-historically-accurate-as-
( Previously, on _Kiri reads too much_... )

Tags: books
Current Mood: hungry

So a friend mentioned the other day that he was joining a sailing club here in town, and sent me the Web site.

And now I'm half-seriously thinking of signing up myself. Would you believe that it never occurred to me that there would be sailing here in Ottawa? It never so much as crossed my mind that we have substantial waterways, and lots of room for boats, and that therefore there are organizations that provide boats (and instruction) for people to go out on the water.

I love sailing. My family has a little Laser that was my uncle's -- it's a single-sailed boat, meant to be used by one person (although you can sail it with two, as long as you're slightly coordinated). I don't get to use it very often, because I don't get to go up to the family cottage very often, and when I do, there's rarely that necessary confluence of sufficient wind + someone to help me carry the boat from storage down to the water. So sailing has been one of those things that I enjoy but hardly ever get to do.

But there are sailing clubs in Ottawa.

Who knew?

Tags: boats
Current Mood: surprised

This is going to be seriously spoilerific. You have been warned.
( All will be revealed ) 

Tags: media, sf, television
Current Mood: annoyed

Last night, we had "auditions" for people who want to sing solos with the choir. They're not really auditions, as the whole point of the choir is to be inclusive and welcoming and encouraging, so it's more of a "let me hear you sing" kind of thing, so that the director can, in her words, "match the right voice with the right song". In the old days (the previous director), everybody who wanted to sing a solo would get one (although this often meant having two or three soloists per song). The "new" director (she's now been there almost a year, so she's not so new anymore) puts more emphasis on the choral parts, so there have been fewer solos (also, she tends to spend more time working on fewer songs, so the repertoire's a bit smaller). All this to say that not everybody who "auditions" will sing a solo, although we are assured that it is based on "song matching", not singing ability. I think she believes that this is true, although inevitably those with more singing ability/training seem likely to "match" more songs. Or perhaps that's my cynicism talking.

Anyway! The point of this babbling is to say that I screwed up my courage and sang the audition.

Now, I am not actually very comfortable singing in public. I am completely comfortable playing my flute in public, even in a solo context, but singing is different. For starters, there's not actually having an instrument, which is surprisingly disconcerting for someone who's used to having an instrument to play. But perhaps more to the point, I have pretty much zero confidence in my singing ability.

This is probably largely the fault of my first-grade teacher, Madame M--. I can trace my insecurity in performing contexts right back to our first-grade Christmas concert/show/thing (it was a catholic school, so yes, it was a Christmas show!).

One of the songs we were singing was "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". I was the only kid in the entire class who had ever heard the first bit before, the part that goes "You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen...." (I think we had it in a songbook or something -- I'm not sure why I knew it, but I've always known lots of songs that other people don't know). So Madame M-- said, "okay, you can sing that bit as a solo".

I was so excited! I was going to have a solo!

And then...

I was prone to colds as a kid, and had pretty severe allergies. So I had sinus issues a lot of the time. I *think* this is probably what prompted Madame M--'s decision, the fact that I sounded like I had a cold. But all that really matters for the story is that, after I had had some time (a few days, a few weeks, I don't know) to be excited that I! Had! A! Solo!, at one of our practices, she asked another girl to sing it.

This other girl didn't even know the words, but she certainly had a nice voice.

I was devastated. I've never sung in public since (except as part of a choir, or when playing Rock Band with a small group of friends).

But last night I did.

Well, that's not quite true. I sang a similar "audition" last Spring, trying to get past my first-grade issues. But I'd underestimated how anxious I was, I think, or I hadn't braced myself enough or something, and it wasn't a great performance.

Last night, though, was much better. I was still really really nervous, but I was able to get past it enough to sing properly. And it sounded pretty good, even to me. And the director went out of her way to let me know how good it sounded, how much better than the last time.

Now, admittedly, that was just singing for a small group of people. And it doesn't mean I'll get an actual solo. But I still feel like I achieved something:

I metaphorically told Madame M-- to stuff it.

Tags: childhood traumas, music, real life
Current Mood: accomplished

Well, okay, not inevitably. But the balance of probabilities is that it's just not going to be any good.

Let's start with the obvious. The movie is based on a much-beloved graphic novel, a graphic novel that's regularly pointed to as one of the most important graphic novels ever written. There's just no way a movie, any movie, can live up to that.

And it's a graphic novel that's very much wedded to the graphic storytelling format. Not only are its characters and plots inextricably wedded to comics culture, its every panel draws attention to itself as a graphic novel. The promo materials for the movie have gone to great lengths to demonstrate how faithful the look of the movie is to the look of the comic -- but no matter how closely you try to match shot to panel, it's still not the same thing. That famous opening page -- it evokes the idea of a slow pulling-back shot, but it's NOT a slow pulling-back shot. And the slow pulling-back shot they'll probably use in the movie just isn't going to have the same effect.

Similarly, the story is, in a lot of ways, about comics. Comics are embedded into it. There's no way that can be captured on film -- nor should it be.

Let's not forget that Terry Gilliam pronounced this book "unfilmable". And he should know.

Fundamentally, I think the problem is that, based on the evidence of the promo materials (not to mention Snyder's previous work), what we're going to get in this movie is an attempt to slavishly re-create a comic book on the screen. Only with more explosions (there are probably insufficient explosions in the original book, mass carnage notwithstanding). And there's just no way that can work, not with this book.

It's certainly going to be pretty. But when the best I can think of to say is "it's pretty," that's... not really a positive review.

Also, I'm really uneasy about the rumoured addition of an explicit sex scene. WTF is that supposed to accomplish? (see above, re: explosions, I guess)

The only way a movie version of Watchmen could possibly work, in my opinion, would be to re-imagine it as a commentary on movie superheroes -- use the advantages, disadvantages, and conventions of the movie genre, and draw attention to the filmed nature of the work in the same way that the book drew attention to the conventions of the graphic novel. That could work -- maybe. At the very least, it would be ambitious and interesting. And an interesting failure would be worth seeing.

Watchmen is going to make huge amounts of money, there's no question. And I'll be going to see it opening weekend, because how can I not? (Yes, that's why it's going to make huge amounts of money. I know, I know.) But it's not going to be good. There's just no way it can be.

Besides, if I convince myself it's going to suck, then even a mediocre work will be a pleasant surprise...

Tags: culturejam, media, movies
Current Mood: pensive