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shadowkat[Ack - those irritating LJ changes everyone was ranting about have finally appeared on my journal, I couldn't access my icons. Not that I have that many, but still. Also very odd textual changes. LJ like Dell, Facebook, and Microsoft need to learn that while people don't necessarily mind change, they hate constant change and change that makes life difficult and frustrating. Don't upgrade unless if actually benefits your users - just a thought.]
Attempted to write the last post on my new ipad, but ran into difficulties regarding pasting information from other internet sites - have yet to figure that out. Also accidentally posted it - let's just say that the lj ipad app isn't very user friendly, although considering how wonky lj has been of late - that's hardly surprising, is it? So ipad can do practically everything my computer can, but is still a bit on the clunky side - for writing applications. Had a rather nice Xmas this year - weather was quite lovely, wasn't sick (first time in two years - yay!), no travel problems, and got some interesting gifts - including something I've been lusting after for 12 months.
Regarding the ipad? Did you know you can get free apps to read comic books on your computer? You still have to pay for them - but they are only .99 cents and take up no room. This explains why comic book stores around the country are going out of business or struggling - I'd wondered. Why lug your sorry ass into the local comic book store - when you can get the same thing, cheaper not to mention faster in the comfort of your home or on the train to work? Read it in privacy, no one can really see what you are reading - and no books to take up precious apartment space. I wish they had this twenty years ago - would have saved me a lot of time, space, money and bother. On the other hand - it does validate my decision to just give away my comic book collection...no easy task, although less painful than expected. (Couldn't quite bring myself to dump them - I'd organized the things, put them in plastic sleeves, and cared for them like they were children...they needed to be taken to a nice new home not the city dump. If you've ever collected anything in your life, only to realize at some point it's taking up space and you aren't into it any longer, you know whereof I speak.) At any rate - you can buy and read the things on the ipad much like you can buy a book and read it on the Kindle.
Speaking of the Kindle - Kidbro and Sisinlaw actually discovered books that are Kindle proof. They are being shipped to my workplace since I couldn't lug them home in my suitcase. Along with various clothes and shoes that I bought.
I went a bit wild at the outlets - which is bit surprising considering how I abhor shopping. Anyhow, the books, which are Kindle proof (yes there are such things) are :
1. Hark a Vagrant by Kate Beaton, who apparently is on lj as [info]beatonna . Anyhow, the book is a collection of her comics that poke fun at literature, history, and academics...;-)
2. Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick, who also wrote the children's book that the movie Hugo is based on. This is apparently his second novel and it's fascinating. According to Wiki - this pushes past the boundaries previously set in Hugo. And includes 460 pages of artwork.
The story is about two children, a boy and a girl, who go on separate journeys, 50 years apart, through the same magical means. One journey is told through sketches or drawings, the other through prose, and they are intertwined.
Wonderstruck is Selznick’s second illustrated novel of this length. With “460 pages of artwork” between the book's 608 pages, it exceeds The Invention of Hugo Cabret by 75 pages. Wonderstruck actually contains 176 more pages of artwork than The Invention of Hugo Cabret. This makes sense given that the book is actually two stories in one. Rose’s story (set in 1927) is told entirely in pictures. Ben’s story (set in 1977) is told entirely in text.
[Kidbro thanked me for giving his daughter several of my beloved books - The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, Bridge to Terribetha by Katherine Patterson, and The Wizard of Earthsea novels by Ursula Le Guinn (sp?). Also gave her two knitted hats that she adored, and the game of Clue which she played with her maternal grandfather on Xmas day.]
In other reading news, am currently reading two books at the same time - one is far more entertaining than the other, but that may be my mood. They do, interestingly enough, fit together. One is a meta-narrative fictional novel about romance novels/chick lit by a somewhat cynical and clearly frustrated English Lit Major turned successful novelist, while the other is a fun romp in the Georgette Heyer/Regency Style - except a whole lot funnier, in some respects it feels like a satire of Georgette Heyer - if such a thing were possible (ponders) and has, gasp, sex or I think it will...haven't gotten there yet. Georgette Heyer does not tend to have sex scenes, witty banter yes, sex scenes no, - it's just not fitting in polite society to show such physical acts after all. I'm wondering if Georgette Heyer is really still writing those novels or it's just a bunch of people using her name much like the latter Nancy Drew novels? Because if she is still writing them? She has to be about a hundred by now. [Ah, I'm right. She died in 1974. Those new books aren't by her. And she would be over 100 by now or close to it - having been born in 1902. ]
First one is The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides - who also wrote The Virgin Suicides (which was the first film Sofia Coppala did. This book reads a lot like that one does...it's less a story than an essay really. And it reminds me of why I decided not to go on and get a Ph.D in English Lit or for that matter pursue literary analysis. The book in some respects is a satire of that world, it makes fun of the female literary narrative or romance, and feels a bit disingenuous and whiny...as if the writer is upset that he can't quite be part of that world and the feminine mind remains forever elusive to him, a mystery he can't quite crack. It is however quite funny in places, but in a rather snide and sneeringly superior way...as if you are staring down at the poor characters from a great and lofty height. You may feel awfully smart and savvy reading this text and sneering along with the writer, but you won't enjoy it all that much - it lacks passion, or the ability to sink you into either the characters or narrative. If anything you feel this odd detachment, as if you are looking at them a way a scientist might a piece of bacteria through a slide in a microscope. Also the story is supposed to take place in the 80s, and while it does have bits and pieces of that era...much like the Virgin Suicides before it, there's a feeling that it could take place at any time or place...it really doesn't matter all that much. In short - it's one of those books that you get a kick out of quoting text from and discussing, but don't give a shit what happens to anyone inside of it or the plot or story or much else. Might as well save your time and read non-fiction or philosophical discourse. I suspect Eugenides much like Jonathan Katchzen and many other contemporary literary novelists might be a better essayist than novelist. Of course, I'm only a fourth of the way through - it may change and get better, who knows.
Here, I will give you an example of the text:
"In poetic moods, the Derrida went like this: "What writing itself, in its nonphonetic moment, betrays, is life. It menaces at once the breath, the spirit, and history as the spirit's relationship with itself. It is their end, their finitude, their paralysis."
"Since Derrida claimed that language by its very nature, undermined any meaning it attempted to promote, Madeleine wondered how Derrida expected her to get his meaning. Maybe he didn't. That was why he deployed so much arcane terminology, so many loop-de-looping clauses. That was why he said in sentences it took a minute to identify the subects of. (Could "the access to pluridimensionality and to a delinearized temporality" really be a subject?)
Reading a novel after reading semiotic theory was like jogging empty-handed after jogging with hand weights. After getting out of Semiotics 211, Madeleine fled to Rockerfeller Library, down to B Level, where the stacks exuded the vivifying smell of mold, and grabbed something - anything, The House of Mirth, Daniel Deronda - to restore herself to sanity. How wonderful it was when one sentence followed logically from the sentence before! What exquisite guilt she felt, wickedly enjoying narrative! Madeleine felt safe with nineteenth-century novel. There were going to be people in it. Something was going to happen to them in a place resembling the world. Then, too, there were lots of weddings in Wharton and Austen. There were all kinds of irresistible gloomy men.
Being an ex-English Lit major - I found this rather hilarious, even though I have no idea what semiotics is - I managed to avoid taking that somehow -not hard to do, since it wasn't offered. But I can't help but think Eugenides made it up. Ironically, Eugenides' Marriage Plot sent me scurrying to Loretta Chase's - novel set in the 19th Century, but written in the 21st - for much the same reasons his heroine goes scurrying. Also, oddly, Loretta Chase is funnier.
Loretta Chase's book is entitled Lord of Scoundrels and it's basically your standard romantic tale, except she has a tongue in cheek wit and makes fun of the formula.
Here's a quote from the novel:
In my dictionary, romance is not maudlin, treacly sentiment," she said. "It is a curry, spiced with excitement and humor and a healthy dose of cynicism."
[I'm guessing Loretta Chase has either read Eugendies' The Marriage Plot or the books he's critiquing within it's narrative? Wish Eugendies would read a little of Loretta Chase.]
As you can see - it is in a lightly snarky sort of way. Quippy. She also comments on the class issues. The hero at one point comments that the heroine should have her servants handle everything, that's what they are there for - to work. The working class works, while the privileged class tells them what to do. She retorts, I didn't realize you were such an obnoxious Tory. And like Eugenides, it comments on the marriage plot too - but it "shows" not "tells" - we don't get a snide essay on it, we get plot, characters, and banter. Seriously, which would you rather read? Someone commenting on Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, or Sherlock Holmes? Same deal with Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice - would you rather read someone writing about characters commenting on it, or Pride and Prejudice? Personally, I'd rather read Pride & Prejudice. I'm of the current opinion that over-analysis tends to suck all the joy out of fictional writing and reading. Until the book becomes meaningless and you wonder why you wasted your time on the enterprise at all. Not bemoaning analysis...just over-analysis. Going that one little step too far.
Speaking of Sherlock Holmes...or rather going back to it, the flick Game of Shadows is fun, but too long, and with too many overly-self-indulgent slow mo action sequences. As a result, it drug. Rent it - so you can fast-forward over the boring bits.
Attempted to write the last post on my new ipad, but ran into difficulties regarding pasting information from other internet sites - have yet to figure that out. Also accidentally posted it - let's just say that the lj ipad app isn't very user friendly, although considering how wonky lj has been of late - that's hardly surprising, is it? So ipad can do practically everything my computer can, but is still a bit on the clunky side - for writing applications. Had a rather nice Xmas this year - weather was quite lovely, wasn't sick (first time in two years - yay!), no travel problems, and got some interesting gifts - including something I've been lusting after for 12 months.
Regarding the ipad? Did you know you can get free apps to read comic books on your computer? You still have to pay for them - but they are only .99 cents and take up no room. This explains why comic book stores around the country are going out of business or struggling - I'd wondered. Why lug your sorry ass into the local comic book store - when you can get the same thing, cheaper not to mention faster in the comfort of your home or on the train to work? Read it in privacy, no one can really see what you are reading - and no books to take up precious apartment space. I wish they had this twenty years ago - would have saved me a lot of time, space, money and bother. On the other hand - it does validate my decision to just give away my comic book collection...no easy task, although less painful than expected. (Couldn't quite bring myself to dump them - I'd organized the things, put them in plastic sleeves, and cared for them like they were children...they needed to be taken to a nice new home not the city dump. If you've ever collected anything in your life, only to realize at some point it's taking up space and you aren't into it any longer, you know whereof I speak.) At any rate - you can buy and read the things on the ipad much like you can buy a book and read it on the Kindle.
Speaking of the Kindle - Kidbro and Sisinlaw actually discovered books that are Kindle proof. They are being shipped to my workplace since I couldn't lug them home in my suitcase. Along with various clothes and shoes that I bought.
I went a bit wild at the outlets - which is bit surprising considering how I abhor shopping. Anyhow, the books, which are Kindle proof (yes there are such things) are :
1. Hark a Vagrant by Kate Beaton, who apparently is on lj as [info]beatonna . Anyhow, the book is a collection of her comics that poke fun at literature, history, and academics...;-)
2. Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick, who also wrote the children's book that the movie Hugo is based on. This is apparently his second novel and it's fascinating. According to Wiki - this pushes past the boundaries previously set in Hugo. And includes 460 pages of artwork.
The story is about two children, a boy and a girl, who go on separate journeys, 50 years apart, through the same magical means. One journey is told through sketches or drawings, the other through prose, and they are intertwined.
Wonderstruck is Selznick’s second illustrated novel of this length. With “460 pages of artwork” between the book's 608 pages, it exceeds The Invention of Hugo Cabret by 75 pages. Wonderstruck actually contains 176 more pages of artwork than The Invention of Hugo Cabret. This makes sense given that the book is actually two stories in one. Rose’s story (set in 1927) is told entirely in pictures. Ben’s story (set in 1977) is told entirely in text.
[Kidbro thanked me for giving his daughter several of my beloved books - The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, Bridge to Terribetha by Katherine Patterson, and The Wizard of Earthsea novels by Ursula Le Guinn (sp?). Also gave her two knitted hats that she adored, and the game of Clue which she played with her maternal grandfather on Xmas day.]
In other reading news, am currently reading two books at the same time - one is far more entertaining than the other, but that may be my mood. They do, interestingly enough, fit together. One is a meta-narrative fictional novel about romance novels/chick lit by a somewhat cynical and clearly frustrated English Lit Major turned successful novelist, while the other is a fun romp in the Georgette Heyer/Regency Style - except a whole lot funnier, in some respects it feels like a satire of Georgette Heyer - if such a thing were possible (ponders) and has, gasp, sex or I think it will...haven't gotten there yet. Georgette Heyer does not tend to have sex scenes, witty banter yes, sex scenes no, - it's just not fitting in polite society to show such physical acts after all. I'm wondering if Georgette Heyer is really still writing those novels or it's just a bunch of people using her name much like the latter Nancy Drew novels? Because if she is still writing them? She has to be about a hundred by now. [Ah, I'm right. She died in 1974. Those new books aren't by her. And she would be over 100 by now or close to it - having been born in 1902. ]
First one is The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides - who also wrote The Virgin Suicides (which was the first film Sofia Coppala did. This book reads a lot like that one does...it's less a story than an essay really. And it reminds me of why I decided not to go on and get a Ph.D in English Lit or for that matter pursue literary analysis. The book in some respects is a satire of that world, it makes fun of the female literary narrative or romance, and feels a bit disingenuous and whiny...as if the writer is upset that he can't quite be part of that world and the feminine mind remains forever elusive to him, a mystery he can't quite crack. It is however quite funny in places, but in a rather snide and sneeringly superior way...as if you are staring down at the poor characters from a great and lofty height. You may feel awfully smart and savvy reading this text and sneering along with the writer, but you won't enjoy it all that much - it lacks passion, or the ability to sink you into either the characters or narrative. If anything you feel this odd detachment, as if you are looking at them a way a scientist might a piece of bacteria through a slide in a microscope. Also the story is supposed to take place in the 80s, and while it does have bits and pieces of that era...much like the Virgin Suicides before it, there's a feeling that it could take place at any time or place...it really doesn't matter all that much. In short - it's one of those books that you get a kick out of quoting text from and discussing, but don't give a shit what happens to anyone inside of it or the plot or story or much else. Might as well save your time and read non-fiction or philosophical discourse. I suspect Eugenides much like Jonathan Katchzen and many other contemporary literary novelists might be a better essayist than novelist. Of course, I'm only a fourth of the way through - it may change and get better, who knows.
Here, I will give you an example of the text:
"In poetic moods, the Derrida went like this: "What writing itself, in its nonphonetic moment, betrays, is life. It menaces at once the breath, the spirit, and history as the spirit's relationship with itself. It is their end, their finitude, their paralysis."
"Since Derrida claimed that language by its very nature, undermined any meaning it attempted to promote, Madeleine wondered how Derrida expected her to get his meaning. Maybe he didn't. That was why he deployed so much arcane terminology, so many loop-de-looping clauses. That was why he said in sentences it took a minute to identify the subects of. (Could "the access to pluridimensionality and to a delinearized temporality" really be a subject?)
Reading a novel after reading semiotic theory was like jogging empty-handed after jogging with hand weights. After getting out of Semiotics 211, Madeleine fled to Rockerfeller Library, down to B Level, where the stacks exuded the vivifying smell of mold, and grabbed something - anything, The House of Mirth, Daniel Deronda - to restore herself to sanity. How wonderful it was when one sentence followed logically from the sentence before! What exquisite guilt she felt, wickedly enjoying narrative! Madeleine felt safe with nineteenth-century novel. There were going to be people in it. Something was going to happen to them in a place resembling the world. Then, too, there were lots of weddings in Wharton and Austen. There were all kinds of irresistible gloomy men.
Being an ex-English Lit major - I found this rather hilarious, even though I have no idea what semiotics is - I managed to avoid taking that somehow -not hard to do, since it wasn't offered. But I can't help but think Eugenides made it up. Ironically, Eugenides' Marriage Plot sent me scurrying to Loretta Chase's - novel set in the 19th Century, but written in the 21st - for much the same reasons his heroine goes scurrying. Also, oddly, Loretta Chase is funnier.
Loretta Chase's book is entitled Lord of Scoundrels and it's basically your standard romantic tale, except she has a tongue in cheek wit and makes fun of the formula.
Here's a quote from the novel:
In my dictionary, romance is not maudlin, treacly sentiment," she said. "It is a curry, spiced with excitement and humor and a healthy dose of cynicism."
[I'm guessing Loretta Chase has either read Eugendies' The Marriage Plot or the books he's critiquing within it's narrative? Wish Eugendies would read a little of Loretta Chase.]
As you can see - it is in a lightly snarky sort of way. Quippy. She also comments on the class issues. The hero at one point comments that the heroine should have her servants handle everything, that's what they are there for - to work. The working class works, while the privileged class tells them what to do. She retorts, I didn't realize you were such an obnoxious Tory. And like Eugenides, it comments on the marriage plot too - but it "shows" not "tells" - we don't get a snide essay on it, we get plot, characters, and banter. Seriously, which would you rather read? Someone commenting on Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, or Sherlock Holmes? Same deal with Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice - would you rather read someone writing about characters commenting on it, or Pride and Prejudice? Personally, I'd rather read Pride & Prejudice. I'm of the current opinion that over-analysis tends to suck all the joy out of fictional writing and reading. Until the book becomes meaningless and you wonder why you wasted your time on the enterprise at all. Not bemoaning analysis...just over-analysis. Going that one little step too far.
Speaking of Sherlock Holmes...or rather going back to it, the flick Game of Shadows is fun, but too long, and with too many overly-self-indulgent slow mo action sequences. As a result, it drug. Rent it - so you can fast-forward over the boring bits.
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no subject
Date: 2011-12-27 08:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-27 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-27 02:52 pm (UTC)The LJ app for the ipad is terrible. Especially for commenting on comments and stuff like that (no zoom! WTF?). I gave up on it completely since LJ runs much better in the normal browser. Maybe someone will come up with a decent app for it at some point.
There are some incredible good note apps out there though(like knowtes and clibe) which are really great to use for writing and exporting it to other places.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-27 03:08 pm (UTC)(One of the many reasons I wanted the ipad was to be able to carry it around as an all-in-one notebook, calendar, etc.)
no subject
Date: 2011-12-27 03:48 pm (UTC)Another great note app is evernote, allthough I went a bit crazy with note apps, I now have so many that i hardly know which I used.
But those three I think will end up as my favorites.
Evernote for taking notes in lectures and making plans and such. Knotes for creative writing (neat ways to the net and for exporting) and Clibe for Diary kind of stuff, because you can also draw in it properly.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-29 12:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-29 05:23 pm (UTC)The comic book apps - are initially free, but you have to subscribe to the individual comics apparently. Sort of similar to the Kindle app.
There's a Dark Horse Comics App, a Marvel,
and the best one appears to be all comics app - which was the highest rated.
Just browse under "comics" in the app store.
I am admittedly tempted by Dark Horse - a lot less painful reading the thing on an ipad, I think;-)