Late night ramblings...

It is almost 1 am EST and I really should go to bed. Exhausting day, going up to Beacon to see kidbro, sisinlaw, and cedar. Hiked in the woods. Sort of damp and rainy and was accused by kidbro of being a city girl. Then journeyed home.
Where-upon I bought food (the cupboard was bare), wine, made dinner, watched JLA. Then came to livejournal to catch up on Flist - made it back to Dec 8th.
Very weird reading flist in this manner. For some of the entries - it's a bit like reading a story backwards. One group of entries, felt a bit like watching the story of It's a Wonderful Life backwards - which was really uplifting.
Particularly for me, who was feeling a tad on the low side of the totem pole this evening.

There's two memes floating around. The Shakespear Meme (which I can try to do but the truth is - I saw/read these plays so long ago that I can't really remember all of them.) and the meme about choosing a book next to you, flipping to page 123 and choosing the fifth sentence and posting it. This round the book next to me - actually provided an interesting sentence. So will post it:

"Our sex's weakness you expose and blame (Of every prattling fop the common theme), yet from this weakness you suppose is due, Sublimer virtue than your Cato knew." From "Epistle from Mrs. Yonge to Her Husband by Lady Mary Wortley Montague - The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women.

Sort of in keeping with two posts, one in redredshoes about how Muslim Women have an advantage on Western Women in that they can cover their
bodies. And how men have made us ashamed of them, because they don't fit the ideal of the adolescent female, once we become mature. (Fascinating - reminds me of the recent Entertainment Weekly Article in Dec 10th edition, about how many women in Hollywood are using botox and plastic surgery to remain young in order to get those younger roles - but can't because their faces look plastic and you can tell they got surgery. And the male execs justify their decision to hire younger women and write younger roles because they believe the market supports it and won't buy anything else. With this I strongly disagree - history has certainly proven it wrong - ie. Golden Girls, Designing Women, Murphy Brown, some of the films of the 70s. No, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy - people buy what you put out there. If all you put out there is teens and 20-somethings, they will see that. If those are the only interesting dramas? Ditto. People did not watch Buffy The Vampire Slayer because it starred a hot chick (okay maybe some people did) but because of the writing. Okay, not sure I stated that very well, but what the hell.) Then there's coffeeandink post about "shame in female sexuality or fantasy". And how we've dealt with it in fanfiction. Interesting.

On the Shakespear bit? I've seen and read a lot of these plays, plus two of Marlows. My take? Some were entertaining, some put me to sleep. It all depends on the performance. Only a couple were good reads. There are times I've thought Shakespeare a bit overrated, others brilliant. May be a mood thing.

( Shakespeare Meme for those interested )

Books...and flist

Spent some time last night and this morning scrolling back through my flist - made it as far as Dec 6th. Pretty good. And methinks my friendlist might be too long for me to keep track of. Probably doesn't help that I added coffeeandink last night to it, because I find her/his insights on books and culture and writing fascinating.

matiocala 's insights on story fetishing over book fetishing, I saved to memories. It's under "Story Fetishing" in my memories, if you are interested. It perfectly states how I feel about books and stories. As my Offline pal Wales has told me repeatedly in the past, I'm hard on books. They get stains on their pages, bent pages (although I swear I use a book mark), wet pages, and I tend to prefer paperback to hardback. I love them to death.
And I prefer books I can fit into the pocket of a jacket or my bag - so I can read them on the subway or waiting in lines. Susannah Clark's huge Jonathan and Mr. Norrel - isn't getting read because I can't lug it with me. It is regulated to the night table for now.

I adore stories. In any form. Plays, video, film, paintings, comic books,
novels - I'm not picky. I'm also not picky about genre - there is no genre or non-genre that I haven't read or looked at it. All I require is an interesting character and a good tale that pulls at my emotions in some way. Don't care about voice, pov, literary, non-literary, sci-fi, fantasy, romance, children's, young adult, adult, mystery, non-fiction/fiction - if it tells me a good tale - I'm there. I obsess over, collect, adore, and love stories.
I do not really care what form they come in - well not much. Books tends to be the most intimate and most accessible for me, also the most transportable.
So I do tend to prefer books over most forms if given the choice. You can take a book anywhere afterall.

londonkds rant on Sci-fi Channel's upcoming Earthsea mini-series, led me to Ursula Le Quinn's comments on the series, which have in turn motivated me to not watch it now. I had intended on giving the series a chance. But now, I feel the need to boycott it. Let me explain: I'd read some criticism on the casting of the tale (it stares the new hunky doctor on ER and Lana from Smallville apparently, which I already knew just from the previews), but didn't realize how much it alterred the original story. Now, the last time I read the series was approximately in 1979, so I honestly don't remember it very well - outside of hazy bits and pieces. So - I doubt I'll notice the changes. But - I would rather re-read the original novels which my mother still has, then muddying their memory with an interpretation that from what I'd read on Le Quinn's sight, I would find offensive and in fact offends the author of the work. Granted - you sell the rights, you take the consequences.
Also we all do have own interpretations of what we read - interpretations that may vary greatly from the writer's/author's original intent (just visit a fanboard sometime then read or watch Whedon commentaries to see how greatly our interpretaion or perception of what we've seen/read can vary from what is in the creator's head. Scarey, isn't it?), but does that give one the right to
take that interpretation and present it, as if it were the original writers?
Isn't that why we use disclaimers - "based on the work" or "loosely based" but
"without cooperation of"? Hopefully Sci-Fi Channel will use these disclaimers.
I won't know, since I won't be watching. If they don't? I suppose Le Quinn could sue them if she so desires.

This brings up an interesting topic, actually, the relationship between an original work and a derivative work or a work based on it. When I was much younger, in the early 80s, I remember reading novelizations of Return of The Jedi and Empire Strikes Back, that were officially authorized by Lucas, prior to the films release. In the case of Jedi, I prefered the novelization to the film. Odd. Considering the film was for all intents and purposes the original.
We do the same thing with fanfic - take a tv show and write our own interpretations of it. Some interpretations bear a close resemblance to the original, some none at all.

So, I wonder, is what Sci-Fi Channel is doing with the Wizard of Earthsea Triology all that different than what we do when we write fanfic? Well, they are making money off of it. They are also advertising it as "based on" LE Quinn's novels and a close adaptation of those novels, misleading anyone who hasn't read the novels or has forgotten them (like myself). At least when we write fanfic, we make it clear this is "our own interpretation" of the characters and stories and *not* the original authors. That we do not know the original author's intent and can only guess at it, since we aren't them.

Reminds me why Whedon made it clear to Fox when they asked him to do BTVS the series - that they could own the rights, but he would have *CREATIVE*
control and they could not change his intent nor credit things to him that he did not intend. Be curious to see how that was worded in his contract with Fox.
What was most important to Whedon is that his *creative* vision come out as clearly as possible - he'd already seen it muddied twice (BTVS the film and Alien Resurrection), he wanted to prevent a third go-around. Which is why he
directs things he writes from no on. Same thing happened on Farscape - Brian Henson, Rockne O'Bannion and Steve Kemper - kept a tight reign on the rights and creative direction of their show, they did not let Sci-Fi (which is under the same corporate umbrella as Universal and NBC by the way) get control.
This is worth keeping in mind if you are a writer. Unless of course you want to take Tom Wolf and Alan Moore's approach, which is basically - I don't want to see hear or think about the film, just make it, give me lots of money. Thanks a bunch.