ReadingLirael, As You Like It, The English Patient, Heart of Darkness, Suikoden III, Candidate for Goddess
Watching House, Rick Mercer's Monday Report, Gilmore Girls, Scrubs, Corner Gas, Aishiteruze Baby, Prince of Tennis, Hikaru no Go
Playing The Bard's Tale, Katamari Damacy, Curse of Monkey Island, Final Fantasy VI, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Pretty Barbie Dressup Party Final Fantasy X-2(group gaming)
Back-burner Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, Star Ocean: The Second Story, Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance, Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, Planescape: Torment, Final Fantasy VII
Obsessing Firefly, Erik and Ray, Impulse/Bart Allen, Ford Prefect, Monkey Island, Nostalgia.
Upcoming Things of Importance January 5 First day of classes January 14 Birthday party January 16 Jaryn and Matt Are Old Day
layout
Is by Meimi, that wonderful Goddess who brings joy and happiness to the hearts of Ingrids.
This time, Meimi brought joy by doing a layout of Isumi Shinichirou and Waya Yoshitaka, of Hikaru no Go. It is full of wub.
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A bubbling cauldron of rage and resentment
7/3/2004 07:40:42 AM
"I never saw a woman faint and tell me to get out in the same motion." - Rafi, Friendly Hostility.
Allow me to echo the proper embittered cry of pain and despair: DAMN YOU CLAMP!
I full admitted to being highly scornful of the professional work ethic displayed by CLAMP. It's very hard for me to respect people who simply abandon projects without warning. Hell, I'm inclined to raise my eyebrows at people who abandon hobby projects without warning. That means I really don't look kindly upon CLAMP and their tendency to just ditch things without bringing them to anything like a resolution.
Translation: No, dammit, I'm not just bitter about the Keiichi thing.
However, two things remain clear. I still rather like CLAMP's art, for starters, although that isn't enough to make me want to read trainwrecky, fanservicey, cracky Tsubasa. The second thing is that I still have an unfortunate weak spot for the wacky antics of Duklyon. So while I'll probably grumble about and think evil, nasty things about me ramming poles into CLAMP's skulls for some time yet, I'll also display immense weakness and purchase volume seven of CLAMP no Kiseki. Because . . . Duklyon. Even though I'm sure most of the volume will be devoted to Nokoru and his detective bitches.
. . . Really, that's the only news there is. Life remains quiet, my folks are going to be in the city today to give me my mail so I can register for classes. Oh, and I've been reading Pamela Dean's Tam Lin.
I think I've decided I don't like Pamela Dean very much at all. I thought maybe the first book of hers I read was just a bit rough, but I'm finding a lot of things in Tam Lin that irked me in Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary (I think that was the title, I'm too lazy to check Logic and Chaos archives and verify). Mainly, the too-large cast and the gratuitious literature references. Although they aren't as gratuitous as they were in Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, I guess, since I can see that most of the stuff quoted relates to the plot (somehow . . .), it still seems overkill to me. The way it's presented says to me not "Look at the subtle parallels between this work and the plight of so-and-so" but "Look at how witty and clever and well read I am, to be capable of drawing these kind of parallels". It tastes of snobbery and elitism, a fact which is not helped by the fact that Janet is, I feel, equally snobbish, being an English major of the worst kind.
But Ingrid, you say, aren't you an English major?
Yes, says Ingrid, and 'lo how I loathe it. Note that I'm hoping to go to law school, not graduate school.
Janet typifies the things I despise in English: the elitism, the snobbery, the belief that what's being studied is actually important, to the extent of showing disdain for biology majors and other people studying sensible, practical things . . . I will allow that I can't fault someone for believing that what they're studying is important. To them, personally, particularly. It shows passion, a love of the subject, which I think does most students good. What I cannot appreciate is those whose love of the subject impairs their judgement and common sense, and as a result look down on anyone who studies anything else, considering themselves instantly superior to someone who would rather study science or math or any number of other things that aren't based in literature. Lord spare me from arrogant, self-absorbed students.
Also, I deeply resent anyone who expresses an apparent belief that lack of appreciation of poetry is the fault of the reader for not being smart enough or not trying hard enough. For the love of God, people, some of us just don't like or get poetry. We don't give you shit over not being able to do integrated calculus, we don't suggest that you aren't bright enough or you just aren't applying yourself. Some people's brains just aren't wired the same way as others.
Possibly I should have saved this all for Logic and Chaos and made a delightfully snarly review, but it's always possible that the book will stop pissing me off. Until then, I just had to get this off my chest. Not that it helps that much - it still drives me batty.
Wallowing in pet peeves and 'lo how they itch, almighty Ingrid, Signing Off
"considering themselves instantly superior to someone who would rather study science or math or any number of other things that aren't based in literature."
Probably a lot of this is a counter reaction to the common criticism of arts students: that their degrees are worthless in the real world. So, students in the arts get defensive and counter-criticise the science students.
I agree. People ought to just realize that science is important and arts are important in different but nonetheless important ways. Deal with it, people.
Pamela Dean's Liavek stories, IMO, are her best, but unfortunately they were also the ones that sold least (being part of one of those shared-world anthologies) so she isn't writing the novel that would be the followup to that. It didn't sell; the sequel to the Secret Country trilogy did. I hate the Secret Country trilogy. It was so painful to read I didn't even review it on CBM. It had the same problem--too many literary references, and ones that were completely illogical for the set of characters she was working with.
I am still tempted to do a reworking of "Tam Lin" with engineering students. I know those best, after all.
