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stuff:
-passed SEE part 1 on Thursday, with my mental focus so shot that I seriously found it hard to sit still through the exam. I took this as a sign to take a week or so off before starting to study for the last block. Unfortunately this has left me existentially bored and oh my god I need to write.
-have had a couple of shifts at newjob which have been largely 'learn things about Section 8 programs; give uninformed comments on interior design; tickle cat'. Not helping with boredom levels. I remember, years ago, taking issue with Henry Jenkins' theory that slash was fuelled by women having dissatisfying jobs; I still think that this is a weird angle to look at given how obviously dissatisfying our cultures - our myths and our pornographies - are, but recently I am feeling like he has a point; sometimes I write to demonstrate that I'm still here, to count myself when other means evaporate.
-speaking of dissatisfying culture, the only good thing about Star Trek: Into Darkness is Benedict Cumberbatch. nuKirk inspires in me great deals of boredom. C says it is like Pine is playing Shatner only with no Shatner and Shatner was the only thing that ever gave Shatner a personality. I don't know because I don't care. No one has convinced me why I should care.
-I finished Embassytown! At some point in the middle I began to feel guilty toward all the people who I'd told it was a sci-fi book about philosophy of language because it degenerated delightfully into a sci-fi book about zombies and troll romance. I seriously never know if I'm imagining all the brilliantest jokes I read into Mieville's stuff but oh god this:
^this is the point where I did a headtilt and realised that the last few pages had been a joke about kink memes and prompts and fandom exchanges, or at least, it totally let me take it as such. I have no idea how far I'm stretching but it's a delightful stretch. If you read this book I dare you to pick a pairing - any pairing, but it might be funniest if it's RPF - and play out the entire EzRa plotline as an Imagine Yuor Otp. By the end it veered back to philosophy of language; the conclusion was a bit twee and IMO unnecessarily charitable towards the human race, but it is a charming book.
-have had a couple of shifts at newjob which have been largely 'learn things about Section 8 programs; give uninformed comments on interior design; tickle cat'. Not helping with boredom levels. I remember, years ago, taking issue with Henry Jenkins' theory that slash was fuelled by women having dissatisfying jobs; I still think that this is a weird angle to look at given how obviously dissatisfying our cultures - our myths and our pornographies - are, but recently I am feeling like he has a point; sometimes I write to demonstrate that I'm still here, to count myself when other means evaporate.
-speaking of dissatisfying culture, the only good thing about Star Trek: Into Darkness is Benedict Cumberbatch. nuKirk inspires in me great deals of boredom. C says it is like Pine is playing Shatner only with no Shatner and Shatner was the only thing that ever gave Shatner a personality. I don't know because I don't care. No one has convinced me why I should care.
-I finished Embassytown! At some point in the middle I began to feel guilty toward all the people who I'd told it was a sci-fi book about philosophy of language because it degenerated delightfully into a sci-fi book about zombies and troll romance. I seriously never know if I'm imagining all the brilliantest jokes I read into Mieville's stuff but oh god this:
After this exchange I made new sense of EzRa's little speeches to the city. Someone would generally translate. Some nodded to logic. Others were random sentences, or statements of preference or condition. I'm tired, subject-verb-object like children's grammars. What I'd previously thought whims of subject I realised might be gifts for partlicar Ariekene listeners in return for this or that favour. Economies and politics.
^this is the point where I did a headtilt and realised that the last few pages had been a joke about kink memes and prompts and fandom exchanges, or at least, it totally let me take it as such. I have no idea how far I'm stretching but it's a delightful stretch. If you read this book I dare you to pick a pairing - any pairing, but it might be funniest if it's RPF - and play out the entire EzRa plotline as an Imagine Yuor Otp. By the end it veered back to philosophy of language; the conclusion was a bit twee and IMO unnecessarily charitable towards the human race, but it is a charming book.
no subject
I am halfway through the complete short stories of the Raymond Chandler, and he'll ride any donkey pronoun you chuck at him to hell and back.
I haven't seen the new film, but Pine didn't impress me in the first one. The young Shatner is outstanding. People like...to mock...his...delivery. But every time I watch it I just marvel at how much he carries it. (Alec Guinness has a similar role in Star Wars. Ben Browder is the first person I've seen come close.)
I did catch an interview where Abrams admitted that, because as a kid, he didn't empathise with the characters, he'd rebuilt Kirk "from the ground up". That struck me as juvenile; in adult drama you're not expected to empathise with the characters (e.g. c.f. Homeland). And Kirk is a hero who's meant to inspire; he is Odysseus: charismatic, good looking, a skilled fighter, smart, versatile, but—above all—cunning. In fact Shatner's Kirk was a complete bastard; but the Pine/Abrams Kirk is just an arsehole. Still if Shatner's Kirk was picking teams you'd want to be on his team because, if you avoided the red shirt, you could be certain you'd win. And if you wormed your way into his inner circle, you'd be made. And that's the point; he's meant to inspire. And that's what (so far) Pine lacks.
/belated
I'd like to know what he even means by 'from the ground up', when nuKirk is just another Special White Boy whose only distinguishment is protagonisthood. Although, we are told that the basic qualifications for a movie protagonist to be empathisable/relatable are whiteness, maleness, able-bodiedness and straightness, so I guess any reimagining in that regard was never on the table.