while they did live happily ever after

hey y'all,

I just found out on Facebook that one of my best friend-from-elementary-and-middle-school's dad passed away yesterday. I don't know what happened, but his dad was a DARE officer and would help out with our class Christmas parties and was just a strong, smiling adult figure in my childhood. If y'all could pray for my friend and his sister and his mother [and the repose of his father's soul, if you're down with that], I would really appreciate it.







time to go put some ice cream on this and call it a day.

tonight I am listening to the Brahms Requiem.

I talked about it here, back after I'd sung it my senior year of college.

In that post, philia_fan and I had a conversation about it, and she said she was partial to the third movement which, completely coincidentally, is the movement I am on right now.

I am listening to it in her honor.

I found out today that she died on Tuesday. Dr. C. and Wildcat were with her. It was peaceful--no pain, just tiredness.

I've never eulogized anyone and all my attempts have been terrible and failed to capture how awesome Philia was and how many things she'd done in her life (sung fantastic pieces of music, studied linguistics, helped fellow writers, was involved in the World of Theatre, as it were, and Aikido, and Bettine) that I only knew through the snippets she told us about; how her advice in my journal was nearly always timely and wonderfully empathetic; how even through these last few months she's still been going to Aikido and tinkering with writing. I had the pleasure and fun of meeting her for about an hour in Boston two years ago, and we had a great time hanging out and talking about books and Boston, and--she will be missed.

And. well. thank you, internet friends. Sometimes it is hard to explain to other people how I know you, but I know that my life is all the better for having y'all in it. I love you. thank you for being you.

requiem aeterna dona eis domine
et lux perpetua luceat eis

so today I was grumpy and hungry and tired and having to drive the van and not even sure the van would run/not blow up on me, and I got in and switched on the radio, and lo and behold, what should be playing but

( song one )

and then it was followed by

( song two )

and as if the radio knew I was having a particularly bad day it ended on

( song three )

probably because my radio loves me or something.

okay so after that it was commercials and I switched and ended up hearing this song and went wow, now I feel twelve again, kay.

(my physical therapist and I were discussing songs the other day while I was lying on my stomach trying to convince my thigh muscle to contract and then lift, and she was like "yeah, [song] always makes me think of a bar...where I was the only person under fifty. Yeah, not a good memory." She is adorable and I love her.)

p.s. I should really post graduation pics and update y'all about my life because stuff has happened. One Of These Days.

p.p.s. oil is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. oil is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. and I'm eight hours north of it and even I feel neglected. I can only imagine what the people at the beaches feel like.

two things:

1) review of a v. rough cut, basically amounting to "man, can't wait till they finish the visual effects, p.s. Jackson Rathbone why you suck so bad."

2) superbowl trailer spot, basically amounting to HOMG WATERBENDING HOMG PRETTY HOMG ILM ILU p.s. Inuit extras are Inuit shhhh don't tell.



so it upsets my best friend people when I talk about the racefail going on in this film, and I'm not particularly good at articulating it either--at first it was, "why doesn't Katara look like Katara?" and then the more I hung around racebending the more I learned about how it's just symptomatic of a systemic denial of lead roles to Asian actors/negative portrayal of people of darker skin/etc. etc. etc., and well, it seems like it's the sort of thing one ought to pay attention to.

the Prince of Persia movie falls into this kind of fail too.

anyway, from my perspective, even without knowing everything I know now about racefail in Hollywood casting, just as a fan of the animated series, I'm sad about the canonrape going on here. And yeah, I tend to be a purist when it comes to my adaptations--while I understand you can't fit every detail in, you should be so choosy in your details as to create the overall feeling or spirit of the original work--which is why Fellowship of the Ring succeeds and Return of the King fails. And all the stuff they've taken from TLA just wants to steal its original intention and spirit away, and that to me is the greatest tragedy: that my beloved show is going to be shown in this warped, reduced form to a wider audience.

also re icon: lol sad!brown!Katara is brown. :-( :-( :-(

on a positive note!
1) this comment thread regarding punching a fish
2) this comment thread, also regarding punching a fish
3) I just ordered Girl Scout cookies! Mm, cookies.

Mary Travers from Peter, Paul, and Mary passed away today.

(here you go, mysteree_80, someone who's both famous AND did good during her life.)

...man we listened to a Peter, Paul, and Mary CD on the way up to school this year. And their Christmas album is one of my perennial favorites, and their records! We still listen to them on album! And, like, what. what.

*is out of words*

READING RAINBOW

BUTTERFLY IN THE SKY
I CAN GO TWICE AS HIGH
TAKE A LOOK
IT'S IN A BOOK
A READING RAINBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW

and Abiyoyo and and and music and art and and and LeVar and and aaaaaaaaaaaaand. and.

*watches entire childhood go up in smoke. Again.*






RIP Reading Rainbow 1983-2009

1)  Things like this at once tick me off and make me thumb my nose at people who get applications on Facebook.  Granted, just about everything's technically an application these days, but it reminds me of way back when, when I got my first invitation to become a zombie and tootled over to get the application.  "Hi there!" the application thingie said.  "Prepare to have all sorts of fun with your friends BY GIVING OUT YOUR INFORMATION TO A RANDOM THIRD PARTY."

"Uh, no," I said, and that was the end of that.  And so, from my morally superior situation, I laugh at everyone who adds every application known to mankind.  Dear God, was I this much of a snob in high school?

2)  Everyone please say a prayer/light a candle for the repose of the soul of my laptop.  According to Mr. OIT Man on the phone today, there is something called a "partition" that is distinctly missing from my hard drive, and as a "partition" is the first step to "being able to load things onto a hard drive," it appears that my disc has been completely wiped clean.  Now, I haven't let other people (i.e. my father/any geek friends I have hanging around here) get their hands on it too, but, uh, thank goodness I loaded my Fiction and Fanfiction folders onto my thumb drive?

I have this empty spot in my soul, next to the black mark signaling it's been almost a year since I went to confession and right between my heart and my sternum.  I'll, uh, let you know how it goes.

GOD DAMNIT ARTEMIS.

That pretty sums up my feelings about the whole book, as penguinkye will testify.  I loved it, obviously.  It was a lot like the last one in terms of last-minute wait-what-the-hell-oh-God-no-you-can't-be-serious plot twists (and not too last minute, I mean I could physically see how much more of the book there was to go, but geeze).  It is an incredible, fun, fast-paced novel, just like all the others, and the characters...the characters...

GOD DAMNIT ARTEMIS

the characters are, as usual, awesome.  I love the Artemis Fowl books because they're well-written (the occasional comma splice, but you get used to it), incredibly funny (including potty humor which, at this point, has become funny because of sheer character connection), and guaranteed to take you for a fun ride.  I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend going to the library and getting them and reading them.  Or, heck, buying them.

Also, I still want to know where Eoin Colfer gets all this time to travel and stuff.  rowana, if you ever meet him again, ask him for me, okay?  Or...wait...*scurries off to website*

See, I bought The Time Paradox right after it came out.  I paid $17.99 for this book.  I never buy books wholeprice unless I have a giftcard to (damnit, I did have a giftcard to burn, I just now realize) burn, but I love Artemis Fowl THAT MUCH.  A brief listing of my affections for them:

Artemis Fowl is love.  Just pure, twelve-year-old genius vs. fairy love.
Artemis Fowl:  The Arctic Incident is CRAZY TIMES IN SIBERIA love.  Also Holly is pretty in a black-widow kind of way.
Artemis Fowl:  The Eternity Code was, for the longest time, the last book, and it is such a satisfying last book too, which says a lot for it.  (Also I got it while waiting for Goblet of Fire to come out.)
Artemis Fowl:  Opal Deception was the surprise, the HOMG WHAT NEW BOOK?  It is not as good as the previous three, because Eoin Colfer (who is the author, btws) had a bit of trouble with the two different kinds of Artemises he had.  I have only read it once (versus multiple times on all the others).
Artemis Fowl:  Lost Colony is HOMG SUPERFANTASTIC OMG LOVE.  I was a bit wary of getting it after the disappointment of Opal Deception, but in this one, Artemis is back in all his glory.  I LOVE this novel.

Which leads me to Artemis Fowl:  The Time Paradox
( cut for spooooooooooooooooooooilers )

Thank you, once again, f-list, for your timely obituary notices.

Robert Jordan died today.

Apparently about an hour ago.

This is breaking news, people.  As of this moment, Wikipedia doesn't even know.

Am trying to get onto his blog now.

I haven't read any of his books, but I've heard of the love/hate struggle people seem to have with their longevity.  Time to read, I guess.

edit:  A better link with more information.

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6443846.html?rssid=190

I feel like I should say something about the Summer Country, but Taran didn't get to go there, and so it's almost like I shouldn't.

...

I'm crying.

This is the first time I've cried because someone who was a complete stranger to me died.  Except, I mean, it's one of those things where he's not a complete stranger.  'cause I've read so many of his books and read interviews with him and stuff and oh God I'm just so sad.  He's one of those bastions of my childhood, y'know?  With Prydain and those books about the war and that Iron Ring book and he's my example of good children's literature that's simple in writing maybe but not in ideas and Vesper Holly and aw man.

My mommy didn't pick up her phone.

...

I'm just really, really sad now.  The literary world has lost a wonderful man today.  Rest in peace, Mr. Alexander.  Enjoy the sunshine.