Let's talk about me for a change!
Jul. 12th, 2009 11:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timerippleA bit at loose ends, and reluctantly sort of working on a presentation for class. It’s not a Fiona project unless there’s pederasty involved!
You really wanted to know that, I'm sure. Look, it's not my fault people will insist on selectively appropriating the nice bits from ancient Greek sexual attitudes while leaving out the icky stuff.
...
For a change of subject, the lovely and modest![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
satakieli posted a talk-about-five-words meme. She chose five words for me, which are posted below. If you'd like me to choose words for you, say "Words!" in your comment.
Bat'leth, analysis, The Eyebrow of Scorn, snarky readings of the classics, enchanting random strangers
Bat’leth
To talk about bat’leths I have to explain that I discovered Star Trek: Voyager in high school, and watched the second season of Enterprise with a bunch of dedicated people in college. After Enterprise became unspeakably bad, a few of us used to get food from Schneider (back then Schneids still had food), sneak into the viewing room, and watch old episodes of Voyager and DS9. One of my pajama shirts was a Star Trek: The Magazine tshirt that I got as a freebie back when there was still a Star Trek: The Magazine.
Actually, I still wear that shirt to bed. XD It’s all soft and worn and comfy now.
(The other pajama shirt, in case you’re wondering, was a Jerry Rice Oakland Raiders jersey. Still got that somewhere too.)
So, back to the bat’leth. For my birthday sophomore year in college, my friends blindfolded me, kidnapped me, took me out to dinner at an Irish pub, brought me back to the dorm, presented me with a bouquet of yellow roses with one red, blindfolded me again, placed something big and pointy in my arms, and told me to open my eyes.
Turned out I was delicately cradling an honest-to-God bat’leth. It was really, really sharp.
I was a little freaked out, but mostly I thought it was awesome, and a fantastic burglar and college underwear salesman deterrent (long story). Sadly it was also a pretty serious offense to have a weapon in your dorm room (I looked it up), so during finals I guilt-tripped everybody into driving me down to the nearest FedEx office and helping me bubble-wrap it and put tape over the pointy bits. Then I marched up to the lady behind the counter with my best air of determined innocence.
FEDEX LADY: Oh my God, is that a weapon?
ME: No! Ahahahaha. Of course not, that would be freaky. It is a STAGE PROP. Yes.
FEDEX LADY: ...
ME: ...
FEDEX LADY: Well, I guess we could fit it in a golf club box.
And that was that. My parents took the news that I’d been given a weapon as a present better than I expected (they are devout proponents and practitioners of pacifism and nonviolence and things like that). It’s currently under my bed in their house. Still an awesome burglar deterrent. Er, if only I could get the tape off.
analysis
I’m going to stick with mostly literary analysis here because I can analyze data but only if I know what it’s for because I designed the experiment.
I hated high school English so much that I never took a single English course in college. Which a lot of people thought was odd, because I was pretty good at it, or so they said. *shrug* I was pretty bad at literary analysis in Greek too, but at least the alphabet was pretty. I was more interested in coming up with crack theories about the significance of apoptuein in Euripides’ Helen than in coming up with coherent and plausible paper topics.
Then I graduated from college and did a post-bac year in LA. And after a nightmare first semester, the faculty didn’t seem to think my crazy was quite as crazy. That summer I watched a lot of TV shows and movies and sort of got interested in looking at narratives and how they worked, and now I can’t watch an episode of Veronica Mars without yelling “FORESHADOWING! FORESHADOWING!”
A couple years later I started grad school (children’s lit), and I had a fabulous course on nineteenth-century American children’s literature that really opened up my interest in literary analysis. No point irrelevant; no topic too bizarre! Another class on various literary theories opened up all sorts of avenues for my crazy. I’ve fallen in love with narratology, the study of narrative and narrative structure-- narrator, narratee, focalization, implied reader, implied author...
The amazing thing is, no matter how crazy my ideas are these days, nobody seems to mind.
Thinking critically about things-- not necessarily going into thorough analysis but at least noticing a lot more stuff-- is something I do almost automatically these days. At least when reading or watching, anyway. It’s like I can’t switch my analysis-brain off. It’s gotten a lot easier now that nobody else has to approve my ideas (unless I’m writing a paper). The jdrama Kimi wa Petto is an exploration of modern society’s discomfort with changing gender roles, under all the crack? Sure!
I’ve become really interested in Asian television dramas recently, if you couldn’t tell. They’re so much fun, partly because a lot of them are cracktastically funny and partly because they’re so very different from any American TV I’ve ever seen. The police get a lot less respect; a very stylized kind of acting is sometimes used, especially in dramas adapted from shoujo manga; there’s a persistent rejection of emotional resolution. It’s totally fascinating.
And that’s just jdramas.
The Eyebrow of Scorn
I have to confess that The Eyebrow of Scorn is something I really wish I had. I raise a metaphorical eyebrow in all sorts of ways, but in fact if I try to do it for real I end up looking very, very confused. It’s really more of a coordinated cheek-nostril twitch than anything else. I am hopelessly jealous of anybody who can raise one eyebrow without looking like a bad Jim Carey imitation. I suppose it’s one of those things you’re either born to or not, although A. did manage to teach me that thing where you stick your tongue out with the sides all rolled up, and people always say you’re either born with that or not. So maybe there’s hope.
snarky readings of the classics
Once I got into college and discovered what snark was, it was probably inevitable that I should apply it as widely as possible. And since it’s kind of hard for me to be snarky about, say, spectroscopy or chlorophyll or shark livers, classics it was. It helped that my elementary Greek grammar book was full of gems like “Let us give to Homer’s brother a goat, in order that the generals might not attack the island.” Basically the only way to survive Greek is recognize when it’s being totally ridiculous, and then to make fun of it as much as possible.
Things are just funnier in any given epic if there’s a boy-troup running around, for example. Or heck, people snarked on their own epic heroes plenty (later renditions of Herakles, for example, as a fat old drunkard). I think at one point I had a vision of the young Herakles tripping down some epic mountain path, golden curls a-bounce, singing “I want to be a macho man!” like that one episode of Buffy. And let’s not forget stuff in translation, which can be pretty hilarious once you get out of the words and actually think about what’s going on.
ROSTEM: So, I’m gonna roast this onager and then I’m gonna go to sleep.
ROSTEM’S HORSE: zomg monsters!!!1
ROSTEM: *snore*
ROSTEM’S HORSE: Srsly, dude, monsters!
ROSTEM: Yeah, whatever.
MONSTERS: *chomp*
ROSTEM: Holy crow! Monsters!
ROSTEM’S HORSE: Shocker.
Snark is not always derisive. Often it’s just a matter of rephrasing. I had that class on Aristophanes’ Birds, which is pretty hard to snark on because it’s already full of epic snark anyway. But somehow I always read Peisetairus’ part, and in my head he always sounded like somebody from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. According to me, he said “Dude!” and “Excellent!” a lot.
Plato’s Phaedrus will always be the dialog of “Is that a speech in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” And of course, the Iliad will always be the epic of Epic Sulk. I cannot take credit for the phrase “epic sulk,” but I will always wish I could.
enchanting random strangers
This hasn’t been happening so much lately, except for that one creepy dude on the Red line, but when I lived in LA random people would come up to me and try to start conversations. It was really weird. My first day, some guy walked up as I was trying to review the Epic of Epic Sulk and asked if he knew me. He didn’t, and I said so, but then he just wouldn’t leave, and he wouldn’t uphold his end of a conversation, and I couldn’t figure out what the hell he wanted, so I finally left. A bunch of other people tried to talk to me about my hair, and one breezy day in Santa Monica some guy randomly asked me if I was from Europe. Some guy at the MIT burrito place once asked if I was French. I would like to put the last two down to my irresistible personal charm, but upon reflection it was probably the cut of my awesome denim coat.
Yeah, I don’t get it either. It really is an awesome coat, though.
Okay, that was kind of a lot. I should get some sleep now.
You really wanted to know that, I'm sure. Look, it's not my fault people will insist on selectively appropriating the nice bits from ancient Greek sexual attitudes while leaving out the icky stuff.
...
For a change of subject, the lovely and modest
satakieli posted a talk-about-five-words meme. She chose five words for me, which are posted below. If you'd like me to choose words for you, say "Words!" in your comment.Bat'leth, analysis, The Eyebrow of Scorn, snarky readings of the classics, enchanting random strangers
Bat’leth
To talk about bat’leths I have to explain that I discovered Star Trek: Voyager in high school, and watched the second season of Enterprise with a bunch of dedicated people in college. After Enterprise became unspeakably bad, a few of us used to get food from Schneider (back then Schneids still had food), sneak into the viewing room, and watch old episodes of Voyager and DS9. One of my pajama shirts was a Star Trek: The Magazine tshirt that I got as a freebie back when there was still a Star Trek: The Magazine.
Actually, I still wear that shirt to bed. XD It’s all soft and worn and comfy now.
(The other pajama shirt, in case you’re wondering, was a Jerry Rice Oakland Raiders jersey. Still got that somewhere too.)
So, back to the bat’leth. For my birthday sophomore year in college, my friends blindfolded me, kidnapped me, took me out to dinner at an Irish pub, brought me back to the dorm, presented me with a bouquet of yellow roses with one red, blindfolded me again, placed something big and pointy in my arms, and told me to open my eyes.
Turned out I was delicately cradling an honest-to-God bat’leth. It was really, really sharp.
I was a little freaked out, but mostly I thought it was awesome, and a fantastic burglar and college underwear salesman deterrent (long story). Sadly it was also a pretty serious offense to have a weapon in your dorm room (I looked it up), so during finals I guilt-tripped everybody into driving me down to the nearest FedEx office and helping me bubble-wrap it and put tape over the pointy bits. Then I marched up to the lady behind the counter with my best air of determined innocence.
FEDEX LADY: Oh my God, is that a weapon?
ME: No! Ahahahaha. Of course not, that would be freaky. It is a STAGE PROP. Yes.
FEDEX LADY: ...
ME: ...
FEDEX LADY: Well, I guess we could fit it in a golf club box.
And that was that. My parents took the news that I’d been given a weapon as a present better than I expected (they are devout proponents and practitioners of pacifism and nonviolence and things like that). It’s currently under my bed in their house. Still an awesome burglar deterrent. Er, if only I could get the tape off.
analysis
I’m going to stick with mostly literary analysis here because I can analyze data but only if I know what it’s for because I designed the experiment.
I hated high school English so much that I never took a single English course in college. Which a lot of people thought was odd, because I was pretty good at it, or so they said. *shrug* I was pretty bad at literary analysis in Greek too, but at least the alphabet was pretty. I was more interested in coming up with crack theories about the significance of apoptuein in Euripides’ Helen than in coming up with coherent and plausible paper topics.
Then I graduated from college and did a post-bac year in LA. And after a nightmare first semester, the faculty didn’t seem to think my crazy was quite as crazy. That summer I watched a lot of TV shows and movies and sort of got interested in looking at narratives and how they worked, and now I can’t watch an episode of Veronica Mars without yelling “FORESHADOWING! FORESHADOWING!”
A couple years later I started grad school (children’s lit), and I had a fabulous course on nineteenth-century American children’s literature that really opened up my interest in literary analysis. No point irrelevant; no topic too bizarre! Another class on various literary theories opened up all sorts of avenues for my crazy. I’ve fallen in love with narratology, the study of narrative and narrative structure-- narrator, narratee, focalization, implied reader, implied author...
The amazing thing is, no matter how crazy my ideas are these days, nobody seems to mind.
Thinking critically about things-- not necessarily going into thorough analysis but at least noticing a lot more stuff-- is something I do almost automatically these days. At least when reading or watching, anyway. It’s like I can’t switch my analysis-brain off. It’s gotten a lot easier now that nobody else has to approve my ideas (unless I’m writing a paper). The jdrama Kimi wa Petto is an exploration of modern society’s discomfort with changing gender roles, under all the crack? Sure!
I’ve become really interested in Asian television dramas recently, if you couldn’t tell. They’re so much fun, partly because a lot of them are cracktastically funny and partly because they’re so very different from any American TV I’ve ever seen. The police get a lot less respect; a very stylized kind of acting is sometimes used, especially in dramas adapted from shoujo manga; there’s a persistent rejection of emotional resolution. It’s totally fascinating.
And that’s just jdramas.
The Eyebrow of Scorn
I have to confess that The Eyebrow of Scorn is something I really wish I had. I raise a metaphorical eyebrow in all sorts of ways, but in fact if I try to do it for real I end up looking very, very confused. It’s really more of a coordinated cheek-nostril twitch than anything else. I am hopelessly jealous of anybody who can raise one eyebrow without looking like a bad Jim Carey imitation. I suppose it’s one of those things you’re either born to or not, although A. did manage to teach me that thing where you stick your tongue out with the sides all rolled up, and people always say you’re either born with that or not. So maybe there’s hope.
snarky readings of the classics
Once I got into college and discovered what snark was, it was probably inevitable that I should apply it as widely as possible. And since it’s kind of hard for me to be snarky about, say, spectroscopy or chlorophyll or shark livers, classics it was. It helped that my elementary Greek grammar book was full of gems like “Let us give to Homer’s brother a goat, in order that the generals might not attack the island.” Basically the only way to survive Greek is recognize when it’s being totally ridiculous, and then to make fun of it as much as possible.
Things are just funnier in any given epic if there’s a boy-troup running around, for example. Or heck, people snarked on their own epic heroes plenty (later renditions of Herakles, for example, as a fat old drunkard). I think at one point I had a vision of the young Herakles tripping down some epic mountain path, golden curls a-bounce, singing “I want to be a macho man!” like that one episode of Buffy. And let’s not forget stuff in translation, which can be pretty hilarious once you get out of the words and actually think about what’s going on.
ROSTEM: So, I’m gonna roast this onager and then I’m gonna go to sleep.
ROSTEM’S HORSE: zomg monsters!!!1
ROSTEM: *snore*
ROSTEM’S HORSE: Srsly, dude, monsters!
ROSTEM: Yeah, whatever.
MONSTERS: *chomp*
ROSTEM: Holy crow! Monsters!
ROSTEM’S HORSE: Shocker.
Snark is not always derisive. Often it’s just a matter of rephrasing. I had that class on Aristophanes’ Birds, which is pretty hard to snark on because it’s already full of epic snark anyway. But somehow I always read Peisetairus’ part, and in my head he always sounded like somebody from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. According to me, he said “Dude!” and “Excellent!” a lot.
Plato’s Phaedrus will always be the dialog of “Is that a speech in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” And of course, the Iliad will always be the epic of Epic Sulk. I cannot take credit for the phrase “epic sulk,” but I will always wish I could.
enchanting random strangers
This hasn’t been happening so much lately, except for that one creepy dude on the Red line, but when I lived in LA random people would come up to me and try to start conversations. It was really weird. My first day, some guy walked up as I was trying to review the Epic of Epic Sulk and asked if he knew me. He didn’t, and I said so, but then he just wouldn’t leave, and he wouldn’t uphold his end of a conversation, and I couldn’t figure out what the hell he wanted, so I finally left. A bunch of other people tried to talk to me about my hair, and one breezy day in Santa Monica some guy randomly asked me if I was from Europe. Some guy at the MIT burrito place once asked if I was French. I would like to put the last two down to my irresistible personal charm, but upon reflection it was probably the cut of my awesome denim coat.
Yeah, I don’t get it either. It really is an awesome coat, though.
Okay, that was kind of a lot. I should get some sleep now.
