Arma virumque cano, Troiae, qui primus ab oris

[timeripple]

Thursday, Febrary 8, 2007
I have figured out one more reason I love Tolkien: even with super-psychic elves, there are no prophecies whatsoever! I don’t like prophecies. I think they’re over-done, overused, and boring. Yeah, so it’s great and high and tragic that by trying to avert them you inevitably bring them about. But everybody since, oh, Sophocles, knows this; why don’t the villains?

Saturday, February 10, 2007
Found today pressed between the pages of a book on Catullus a crimson flower.

English word order be damned.

Sunday, February 11, 2007
Listened to acoustic/music video version of DN Angel opening credits and other stuff. Now I really want to play the piano. If only I a) had a piano and b) knew how to play it. Seriously, the piano stuff for this series? Is GORGEOUS.

Thursday, February 15, 2007
Students have no idea how good they have it. For example, you have a sudden overwhelming urge to take up the piano? Fine. Sign up with somebody in the department, pay a metric assload of money because it’s not your major, neglect your pre-lab assignment because you were practicing, incur the wrath of your chem professor, etc., fine and dandy. But me? Let’s see. Student, but with no student ID card, much less rights to march in and demand to pay a metric assload of money for music lessons and time in the practice rooms, no transportation to outside instruction or access to piano, etc, etc. Or, I could go home and let my parents pay for it... if our piano hasn’t rotted from sitting around outside all winter because it won’t fit through the door. But then I’d have to... stay with my parents. No can do. (Well, may do, sure. No WILL do.)

Sigh. DN Angel is over. *sniff* Oh, Daisuke. Oh, Dark.

Friday, February 16, 2007
Apparently I am manifesting symptoms of a chocolate allergy. This is unfortunate for several reasons. 1) I love chocolate, and 2) post-Valentine’s day is even better than Valentine’s Day because of 3) candy sales, 4) of which I have just partaken.

On plus side, Netflix has the first season of “Waiting for God.”

Sunday, February 18, 2007
Perhaps this chocolate allergy will cut down on the existential angst as well. It seems to rear its confused head especially strongly when I have chocolate eaten.

It is just about the four-year anniversary of an event that has gone down in history as “The Infamous 'Stuck at MIT' Incident”. Never were friends bonded more strongly by snow, transportation breakdowns, and midnight journeys across the vast trackless wilderness that is... Somerville. I attempted to commemorate by watching “Les Mis in Concert”, but the DVD got stuck, so I settled for...

Ye Olde Movie Reviewe: “Alexander”. Eh. It would have been much funnier seen in the company of a room full of history students. Or if you all were here, so I could laugh at notlob451 every time she would fall off her chair making garbled noises, and she and edajaram and cadragongirl could laugh at me every time I fell off mine.

There were some good bits, but mostly it was kind of ... eh. There was a lot of decent stuff that just didn't work.

Why did they pick Ptolemy as the narrator? What was so special about him? We don’t see anything especially from his perspective, so why all the flash-forwards to Ptolemaic Egypt? Well, I suppose he was the most likely of the generals to record a story, what with the library tradition and all. But why does he get The Ring, aside from the part where Eyeliner Boy Hephaistion bought it off some guy there, so it symbolically returns home, blah, blah? And there needed to be more Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. Every movie needs more Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. Pretty much what I think every time I see him, but especially in a role like Cassander, is, “He hath a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much; such men are dangerous”. Oh, Shakespeare.

And the part where Eternally Confused Monkey Boy Alexander says, where are you going to live? And whoever he’s talking to says, Alexandria? And Alexander doesn’t even blink? Dude, you just made a point of saying that there’s, like, twelve of them (Alexandrias) now, which one does he mean? Or does he mean that he’s going to follow Alexander around forever, because wherever he goes he founds new Alexandrias, and wherever he is, is, like, permanent Alexandria? I mean, you don’t just put something like that in there and then DO NOTHING WITH IT! I mean, at least have somebody say, “Which one?” and make it a joke, or better yet, have Alexander acknowledge that the guy’s basically just said, I’ll spend my life following you around, by, I dunno, Small Smile of Eternal Friendship and Devotion, or something?

ETA: And now I can’t find that part! Did I imagine it, or something?

Oh, Aristotle. You can take the Athenian out of Athens, but you can’t take the Athens out of the Athenian.

Also, the eagle and snake imagery? Cool, except I have no idea what happened with them at the end. It’s totally the wrong kind of image for a mother losing her son, because a) you’ve got the wrong symbolic creature hanging onto the other, and b) they’re sort of, like, natural enemies, which would be okay except for a). Unless, like, there was a prologue with a crash course in augury that I missed. Granted I’m a little weak on my mythology, but, like, still. Anybody got an explanation? And btw, will people never get that Prometheus, in addition to being a friend to mankind, also really liked annoying Zeus?

Five stars in the category of Kid Hero Looks Just Like Adult Hero Whom He Grows Up To Be, though. Seriously.

Note to self: never, ever include a scene merely for the sake of introducing everybody by name. Especially when there are too many of them to keep track of. Even if the scene also outlines Big Battle Strategy (which was useful). It’s just annoying, that’s all.

And that one scene (you know, the one with the knife)? Was way hotter in "Troy". Sorry, dude. It really doesn't help that our hero just looks eternally confused.

I wonder what Hephaistion thought about having to be Patroklos. I mean, if I could kick some guy’s ass, and said guy insisted that I role-play the guy that dies first? I’d kick the guy’s ass and say, pick a different myth, yo. Also, Eyeliner Boy doesn’t look much like he could kick anybody’s ass.

I still don’t know what Ye Olde Cave of Prophetic Weirdness and Cave Paintings was supposed to be.

And then I had to go read the specially good bits of the Iliad, just because.

Ye Olde Movie Reviewe: “Donnie Darko”. Dude. Giant demon bunny rabbit. ‘Nuff said.

Comments

[kayselkiemoon.livejournal.com]

Apparently I am manifesting symptoms of a chocolate allergy. This is unfortunate for several reasons.

my goodness yes! oh dear, I hope it goes away. :(

one more reason I love Tolkien: even with super-psychic elves, there are no prophecies whatsoever! I don’t like prophecies. I think they’re over-done, overused, and boring.

you have so hit the nail on the head, here! dude. everytime I look at a fantasy book and it's the first of a series and mentions a prophecy, that's it.

I should rewatch Donnie Darko. my brother gave it to me a while back and I haven't seen it again because rather creepy. but good!

[snowqueenofhoth.livejournal.com]

Wait, Jon RM was in that? Really? Dude. If ever there was a reason to see that movie, there's one...

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

rather creepy. but good!

I concur. I love that they have to read Watership Down. I had to read it in high school too, and since I'd been reading Redwall for years, I didn't even blink, and wrote about, you know, courage, survival of the whatever, blah blah. But some guy in my class wrote that it was totally misogynistic and creepy and what, and I thought, omg he's right!. Haven't been able to look the book in the face ever since, so to speak.

Yeah. Prophecies. Possibly the reason I get a kind of twisted glee out of reading the rest of OOTP.

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

My sentiments exactly. Even though he gets practically no lines. But he's pretty good at standing around looking discontented and like he might or might not be plotting to do something about it.

[kayselkiemoon.livejournal.com]

my mom read Watership Down to us when we were little. we loved it, but parts of it were quite scary. and then the movie! my gosh is that a disturbing kids movie. it's right up there with The Witches in things not to show to little children unless they really really want it. ;) I have it on my bookshelf, but I don't think I ever went back and read it for myself. maybe I'll get to that, out of curiousity...

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

Urgh. Note to self: never see the movie.

[kayselkiemoon.livejournal.com]

*grin* again, I'm remembering from a kid's perspective, as it's been ages since I've seen it. I remember being mesmerized by the pulsing sun, and there was this terrifying general rabbit who was chasing them and frothing at the mouth. very vivid colors and animation style. I was just talking about it with my mom, the other week, as it happens. ^_^ oh gosh, now I want to see it again. the film of The Witches, on the other hand, still makes my skin crawl.

[satakieli.livejournal.com]

Oh dear! I hope the chocolate allergy symptoms turn out to be misleading. That's awful.

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

It is a bit of a pain. But the symptoms seem to be abating a little, so as long as I don't eat as much chocolate as I'd like (ie, way too much) I'm okay.