timeripple (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeripple) wrote2007-03-12 06:43 am
timeripple) wrote2007-03-12 06:43 am
no cutlass wound will mar thy face/ and you will be my ain true love
Have been unbelievably sick. How sick, you ask? Well, put it this way: I skipped Greek on Thursday.* I am much better now, but the amount of green gunk around here is like something out of the X-Files. Speaking of which...
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Finished watching The Forsyte Saga. Cried buckets. It was wonderful – all the Doomed Love OMG stuff happened just as it needed to, and there was lots of stuff about growing up and letting go and lots, lots about forgiveness. SO GOOD. I can see why lots of people don’t like it much, and yes, the kids are kind of annoying – but watching Soames and Irene trying to deal with their own issues in the face of and in relation to their children’s Doomed Love OMG was absolutely riveting. We’re left in the same position as Jon at the end, after he goes to see June: we wonder how she managed to forgive and leave the past behind, and we don’t know – we just know that she did, and that Jon will have to do the same. Somehow. We don’t know how yet. But if Soames and Irene can say goodbye, civilly, there must be hope.
It’s kind of like watching the Star Wars prequels. We know how the whole mess has to turn out eventually, and we want to know every detail of the slow-motion train wreck. I for one am perfectly happy for those details to be painful and not at all happiness-conducive, as long as they’re the right ones. In a good story, every plot element should be necessary to the conclusion, i.e., how things turn out. Having accepted that conclusion, we can bear all the tragic things that are necessary to bring it about.
And I like to think that Jon and Fleur were eventually happy in their separate lives. That they eventually got over their One Grand Passion of Doomed Love OMG. That Fleur was different enough from her father to be able to move on and make a new life and love, and that Jon was enough like his father to do the same. I get warm stomach tinglies just thinking about how beautifully this thing is structured, really I do. If we focus just on their two speculated fates, really the whole purpose of the drama of the first series was to make us understand why they couldn’t be together, and to make us hope for all the stuff I just wrote. It’s kind of like the first chapter of Les Mis, which is all about the priest. Only with more drama and less about rural France.
Or, you could look at the kids’ whole Doomed Love OMG as the means to that last moment where Soames and Irene shake hands, the means to closure so that they too can fully move on. He still loves her, but is able to let go of his resentment and need to possess her. She probably won’t forgive him, but is willing to accept his version of an apology, and to truly believe that she belongs to no-one. It’s one thing to defiantly say, “I belong to no-one”, but quite another to really believe it and live it. She’s finally not afraid. They’re both free.
Talk about heavy moralizing! Love but do not possess, live without fear, forgive.
Also, I am in love with the theme music.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
No way. No freaking way! I’ve just finished writing a commentary on Apuleius 1.10, including a plot summary and significant phrases, which includes a reference to Medea’s revenge, and then I check my spam, and lo! Holt Y. Jerome writes, “Medea tells the story of the jealously and revenge of a woman betrayed by her hu...”. AHAHAHAHA! NO WAY!
Urgh. This cold blows. I skipped Greek for the first time in four years. Not happy. NOT HAPPY AT ALL. This is the only class I actually like. *cries* Don’t get me wrong; I have a great and t00by love for certain sections of Apuleius. I just don’t like the class.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Ye Olde Movie Reviewe: “The X-Files: Fight the Future”. Well, an almost-review, since the disc is so scratched-up that the last two chapters are totally unviewable, and consequently I have no idea how they managed to escape Ye Olde Fortress of Icy Sci-fi Doom. But may I just say: oh, the bad science, it HURTS. HURTS, I TELL YOU!!!!! I mean, I’d heard it was bad. But I had no idea. NO IDEA.
Ye Olde Movie Reviewe: “Northanger Abbey” (1987). It was... pretty bad. Would have been slightly better with any soundtrack other than the ‘80s Mystical Gothic Fiction Soundtrack of Occasional Doom (not that I mind fantasy sequences. It worked really well in “The Importance of Being Earnest”). And with a slightly less obvious Isabella Thorpe. And fewer extraneous Tilney Family problems. That said, Henry Tilney was pretty awesome, as well he should be. I really need to read the book again. I have an oddly strong attachment to it, for some reason. Also it contains one of my very favorite lines of all time, and certainly one of the most apt: “Me? Yes; I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible” (Ch. 16).
Ye Olde Movie Reviewe: “Cold Mountain” I had a hard time watching it. The bits with “My Ain True Love” really got me, for some reason. I am such a sucker for anything that has violin, not as The Point, but as A Point if it’s done well. I like Appalachian music a lot more now since Emerald convinced at least half the Fiddleheads with the Power of the Appalachian Bowing of Awesome. Ruby was... well, I really liked the character. Then I subjected my poor neighbors to my entire Appalachian repertoire (4) plus the Ashokan Farewell. If they didn’t hate me before, they probably do now.
*1) I almost never skip class, even if I'm sick (spare me the not-infecting-others reasoning, please).
2) Greek is my favorite class, dammit!
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Finished watching The Forsyte Saga. Cried buckets. It was wonderful – all the Doomed Love OMG stuff happened just as it needed to, and there was lots of stuff about growing up and letting go and lots, lots about forgiveness. SO GOOD. I can see why lots of people don’t like it much, and yes, the kids are kind of annoying – but watching Soames and Irene trying to deal with their own issues in the face of and in relation to their children’s Doomed Love OMG was absolutely riveting. We’re left in the same position as Jon at the end, after he goes to see June: we wonder how she managed to forgive and leave the past behind, and we don’t know – we just know that she did, and that Jon will have to do the same. Somehow. We don’t know how yet. But if Soames and Irene can say goodbye, civilly, there must be hope.
It’s kind of like watching the Star Wars prequels. We know how the whole mess has to turn out eventually, and we want to know every detail of the slow-motion train wreck. I for one am perfectly happy for those details to be painful and not at all happiness-conducive, as long as they’re the right ones. In a good story, every plot element should be necessary to the conclusion, i.e., how things turn out. Having accepted that conclusion, we can bear all the tragic things that are necessary to bring it about.
And I like to think that Jon and Fleur were eventually happy in their separate lives. That they eventually got over their One Grand Passion of Doomed Love OMG. That Fleur was different enough from her father to be able to move on and make a new life and love, and that Jon was enough like his father to do the same. I get warm stomach tinglies just thinking about how beautifully this thing is structured, really I do. If we focus just on their two speculated fates, really the whole purpose of the drama of the first series was to make us understand why they couldn’t be together, and to make us hope for all the stuff I just wrote. It’s kind of like the first chapter of Les Mis, which is all about the priest. Only with more drama and less about rural France.
Or, you could look at the kids’ whole Doomed Love OMG as the means to that last moment where Soames and Irene shake hands, the means to closure so that they too can fully move on. He still loves her, but is able to let go of his resentment and need to possess her. She probably won’t forgive him, but is willing to accept his version of an apology, and to truly believe that she belongs to no-one. It’s one thing to defiantly say, “I belong to no-one”, but quite another to really believe it and live it. She’s finally not afraid. They’re both free.
Talk about heavy moralizing! Love but do not possess, live without fear, forgive.
Also, I am in love with the theme music.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
No way. No freaking way! I’ve just finished writing a commentary on Apuleius 1.10, including a plot summary and significant phrases, which includes a reference to Medea’s revenge, and then I check my spam, and lo! Holt Y. Jerome writes, “Medea tells the story of the jealously and revenge of a woman betrayed by her hu...”. AHAHAHAHA! NO WAY!
Urgh. This cold blows. I skipped Greek for the first time in four years. Not happy. NOT HAPPY AT ALL. This is the only class I actually like. *cries* Don’t get me wrong; I have a great and t00by love for certain sections of Apuleius. I just don’t like the class.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Ye Olde Movie Reviewe: “The X-Files: Fight the Future”. Well, an almost-review, since the disc is so scratched-up that the last two chapters are totally unviewable, and consequently I have no idea how they managed to escape Ye Olde Fortress of Icy Sci-fi Doom. But may I just say: oh, the bad science, it HURTS. HURTS, I TELL YOU!!!!! I mean, I’d heard it was bad. But I had no idea. NO IDEA.
Ye Olde Movie Reviewe: “Northanger Abbey” (1987). It was... pretty bad. Would have been slightly better with any soundtrack other than the ‘80s Mystical Gothic Fiction Soundtrack of Occasional Doom (not that I mind fantasy sequences. It worked really well in “The Importance of Being Earnest”). And with a slightly less obvious Isabella Thorpe. And fewer extraneous Tilney Family problems. That said, Henry Tilney was pretty awesome, as well he should be. I really need to read the book again. I have an oddly strong attachment to it, for some reason. Also it contains one of my very favorite lines of all time, and certainly one of the most apt: “Me? Yes; I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible” (Ch. 16).
Ye Olde Movie Reviewe: “Cold Mountain” I had a hard time watching it. The bits with “My Ain True Love” really got me, for some reason. I am such a sucker for anything that has violin, not as The Point, but as A Point if it’s done well. I like Appalachian music a lot more now since Emerald convinced at least half the Fiddleheads with the Power of the Appalachian Bowing of Awesome. Ruby was... well, I really liked the character. Then I subjected my poor neighbors to my entire Appalachian repertoire (4) plus the Ashokan Farewell. If they didn’t hate me before, they probably do now.
*1) I almost never skip class, even if I'm sick (spare me the not-infecting-others reasoning, please).
2) Greek is my favorite class, dammit!