Five Things. Or so.
Jun. 26th, 2008 12:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akirluIf there is any activity more mind-numbing than filling out a visa request form for someone who has visited the US a lot, then I don't want to know about it. No. Zip it. Do. not. want.
Last night, reading a late chapter in Ellen Klages' thoroughly excellent The Green Glass Sea, I cried so long and so hard that I had to get out of bed and walk around the house, and at last pour myself a shot of bourbon, because I had lost all ability to breathe through my nose. There's an enthusiastic endorsement rendered in the most prosaic possible terms: Ellen, you fill my head with snot. But yeah, check it out, that is some mean-ass, note-perfect, emotionally true writing, by damn. I just have to remember to only read while sitting up.
Possibly there should be a warning label on the front of this, and similarly affecting books: WARNING: DO NOT READ WHILE SUPINE. MAY RESULT IN SNOT-INDUCED INJURY OR DEATH.
I may actually have hit the limit on my ability to be charmed by having to field enthusiastic questions about my eee PC the minute I pop it out to get some writing done. Would have liked to get more actual writing done today. Lookee, I am turning into cranky, hostile writer. Alas, turning into a stereotype conjugates no verbs.
Something bothers me about putting works on TOP 10 BEST lists for being influential, rather than the best exemplars of their type. If it's a most influential books/films/albums list you're doing, why not call it that? Not every influential work is bad, necessarily, but quality and influence different axes of measure. Are reviewers just afraid to baldly put forward their own taste? Isn't that why they're reviewers in the first place for, to put their own tastes forward? I dunno. "Influential" is not "best," that's what I know.
Last night, reading a late chapter in Ellen Klages' thoroughly excellent The Green Glass Sea, I cried so long and so hard that I had to get out of bed and walk around the house, and at last pour myself a shot of bourbon, because I had lost all ability to breathe through my nose. There's an enthusiastic endorsement rendered in the most prosaic possible terms: Ellen, you fill my head with snot. But yeah, check it out, that is some mean-ass, note-perfect, emotionally true writing, by damn. I just have to remember to only read while sitting up.
Possibly there should be a warning label on the front of this, and similarly affecting books: WARNING: DO NOT READ WHILE SUPINE. MAY RESULT IN SNOT-INDUCED INJURY OR DEATH.
I may actually have hit the limit on my ability to be charmed by having to field enthusiastic questions about my eee PC the minute I pop it out to get some writing done. Would have liked to get more actual writing done today. Lookee, I am turning into cranky, hostile writer. Alas, turning into a stereotype conjugates no verbs.
Something bothers me about putting works on TOP 10 BEST lists for being influential, rather than the best exemplars of their type. If it's a most influential books/films/albums list you're doing, why not call it that? Not every influential work is bad, necessarily, but quality and influence different axes of measure. Are reviewers just afraid to baldly put forward their own taste? Isn't that why they're reviewers in the first place for, to put their own tastes forward? I dunno. "Influential" is not "best," that's what I know.
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