My Holiday Cheer Machine is All Wor'd Out
Dec. 13th, 2004 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowTwo shows yesterday, both freebies. Favors and benefits, and the first one in a boardroom on the Sony lot, a foomful of Film hopefuls staring at us under the flourescent lights as we shimmied on carpet. There's a weird thing that happens when people have belly dancers at slightly inappropriate events. The belly dancing being inappropriate, not the events. People stare, sort of open mouthed and dumbfounded, not sure if it's okay to ogle, to enjoy themselves, to watch pretty girls dance in sparkling costumes. It's always a relief when the performance is over. People can either go back to ignoring you, or say how much they liked it once the street clothes are back on.
Rehearsal on Saturday, most of the day, feet aching from dance, from the awful pointe shoes. Some wine, and some work and then a lousy evening out at the Conga Room, which should be an oxymoron, but unfortunately was not. I started off on the wrong foot by freaking out about my body, how I looked, what I wanted to wear and was miserable by the time we got home, full of neurosis, self-conscious, and disgusted with myself for the weakness of giving into the self-doubt, the self-loathing. And then the club was loud, and sort of off, not comfortable, not jovial and welcoming. The music was fabulous, but, shrug, that wasn't enough.
Worked on my freelance project when I got home last night, Fellowship of the Ring in the background on TNT even though I own the DVD, and I'm not paying attention, not paying attention and then Boromir is shot and I start to lose it. Frodo with this monumental quest, this thing he is simply unable to do, and yet he goes forth, ready to do it anyway. Boromir on the ground, having failed himself, then found redemption, pledging his loyalty to his king, and wow, that just hits so many buttons of love and loyalty and epic scope.
I remember reading these books, being young and struggling through them after having finally worn away my copy of The Hobbit, being told it was time for something new, and Fellowship is the slowest by far, too much singing, too much up one hill and down the other and Tolkien's prose has never won any points with me, but the rich layer of story, the people on an impossible quest, and impossible task, these meetings of kings and elves and hobbits, of the littlest, the least protected bearing such a burden, well, it sways me, has swayed me for so many years. As I got older, read the text again, I could skip what I wanted, re-read the part that made me want to hug the story close, stay up late, red-eyed and engrossed, finish Return of the King sniveling and weeping.
Part 1 of the porn is done, just needs a beta. And I'm off to Part 2. I'm having way too much fun with the titles. Part 2 is called Riding on the Vespa, Cruisin' Down the Champs-Elysees. I'm getting a little ahead of myself with the transportation metaphors.
Finished The Hero and the Crown, and started The Blue Sword. Parts of Hero were so lovely, so right, and then she frustrated me with the telling not showing. How did these large things happen with so little effort. Her dying, her illness seemed to sort of appear from the events, just suddenly was. A fierce final battle against the sorcerer yes, but it was over before I understood the scope. Moving through time, yes, I understood that, but again, it seemed to hold so little import. I don't know, there was too much of some things, too little of others, and I loved the twists, Aerin's love for Luthe, her decisions about where she belonged and why, but I didn't love the vague backstory that upheld the book because it was both too vague in places and too expansive in others. I liked that Aerin was an adult hero, that things sometimes happened to her that she didn't understand, and accepting that was part of her growth and her journey.
Rehearsal on Saturday, most of the day, feet aching from dance, from the awful pointe shoes. Some wine, and some work and then a lousy evening out at the Conga Room, which should be an oxymoron, but unfortunately was not. I started off on the wrong foot by freaking out about my body, how I looked, what I wanted to wear and was miserable by the time we got home, full of neurosis, self-conscious, and disgusted with myself for the weakness of giving into the self-doubt, the self-loathing. And then the club was loud, and sort of off, not comfortable, not jovial and welcoming. The music was fabulous, but, shrug, that wasn't enough.
Worked on my freelance project when I got home last night, Fellowship of the Ring in the background on TNT even though I own the DVD, and I'm not paying attention, not paying attention and then Boromir is shot and I start to lose it. Frodo with this monumental quest, this thing he is simply unable to do, and yet he goes forth, ready to do it anyway. Boromir on the ground, having failed himself, then found redemption, pledging his loyalty to his king, and wow, that just hits so many buttons of love and loyalty and epic scope.
I remember reading these books, being young and struggling through them after having finally worn away my copy of The Hobbit, being told it was time for something new, and Fellowship is the slowest by far, too much singing, too much up one hill and down the other and Tolkien's prose has never won any points with me, but the rich layer of story, the people on an impossible quest, and impossible task, these meetings of kings and elves and hobbits, of the littlest, the least protected bearing such a burden, well, it sways me, has swayed me for so many years. As I got older, read the text again, I could skip what I wanted, re-read the part that made me want to hug the story close, stay up late, red-eyed and engrossed, finish Return of the King sniveling and weeping.
Part 1 of the porn is done, just needs a beta. And I'm off to Part 2. I'm having way too much fun with the titles. Part 2 is called Riding on the Vespa, Cruisin' Down the Champs-Elysees. I'm getting a little ahead of myself with the transportation metaphors.
Finished The Hero and the Crown, and started The Blue Sword. Parts of Hero were so lovely, so right, and then she frustrated me with the telling not showing. How did these large things happen with so little effort. Her dying, her illness seemed to sort of appear from the events, just suddenly was. A fierce final battle against the sorcerer yes, but it was over before I understood the scope. Moving through time, yes, I understood that, but again, it seemed to hold so little import. I don't know, there was too much of some things, too little of others, and I loved the twists, Aerin's love for Luthe, her decisions about where she belonged and why, but I didn't love the vague backstory that upheld the book because it was both too vague in places and too expansive in others. I liked that Aerin was an adult hero, that things sometimes happened to her that she didn't understand, and accepting that was part of her growth and her journey.
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-13 11:38 pm (UTC)there's something nice about half watching a movie that one either knows or owns while puttering around the house.
i agree with your commentary about the mckinley books. i love them, but wanted *more* detail, and just plain more. so maybe that's a wish rather than a discomfort on my part? i always felt that i wanted to know what happened *after* with luthe. ;)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-13 11:43 pm (UTC)Hee:) yes, that too:) I was frustrated by the trade off of details. Where I wanted more there wasn't any, and where I didn't care there was too much.
Which isn't to say I didn't enjoy the book. I very much did.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 12:09 am (UTC)i have that problem with a lot of books i read though...it feels like the real story happens *after* the ending. farscape never left me feeling that way though. *bg*
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 01:53 am (UTC)Boromir on the ground, having failed himself, then found redemption, pledging his loyalty to his king, and wow, that just hits so many buttons of love and loyalty and epic scope.
Oh, yes, in the books I didn't much care about him one way or in the other; in the movie, he became my archetypal tragic hero, the one who fucks up mightily and somehow tries to make it better even though it kills him trying.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 06:06 pm (UTC)see...
Date: 2004-12-19 07:05 am (UTC)I love Tolkien's prose. not news to you, I know. But then, I love language qua language, and always have, and Tolkien's background as a philologist probably helps me like his prose. But I never learned elvish, nor did I read the appendices ;).
But when I wrote about Tolkien, I focused on story, plot, fabula, jungian archetypes -- NOT the language. Because in the end, the novels work BECAUSE of the story.
But for me, the movies work less well because the language isn't there in the same way. and because the screenplay tells the story a bit differently. But I plan to see ROTK (extended edition, of course, and only) over the holidays, and I hope it moves me as the novel did.