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Jun. 22nd, 2013 01:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Downstairs neighbor was quite cross with me, yesterday, for traversing the steps to answer the doorbell. Goal this weekend is not to go down the steps at all. I think I can manage it, no deliveries expected and I don't require anything.
I'm clearly an introvert. While I'm sick of being stuck in my apartment, not being with or hanging with people in my apt. (which is quite small and hardly conducive for gatherings anyhow) conversing/watching movies/etc doesn't bother me in the least. I take after my granny in this manner, as well as my mother to an extent, both went long periods without people popping up when their husbands traveled. All I need is a few books, a story in my heart, or a piece of paper and I'm happy. Now I have even more than that - tv, internet, cell phones, ipads...
Besides, I see people. But it did involve going up and down steps, which I'd like to avoid for at least two days.
2. Just finished reading Eloisa James' Once Upon a Tower. It's a romance novel based rather loosely on Rapunzel, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and music. The hero, a Scottish Duke falls madly in love with an English celloist. They get married. Neither has had any sexual experience. He's 22 and she's barely 19. They are in other words both virgins and over-think sex, which as we all know is not something one should think too much about. It's one of those things that you just ahem do. Thinking too much about sex is bit like thinking too much about breathing.
The writer, and this surprised me, is an English Lit Professor in NYC, who is married to an Italian Knight. You'd think an English Lit Professor would write something a whole lot better than this? But no. Then again, having been an English Lit Major, I shouldn't be all that surprised. It's not a bad book. The Shakespeare and fairy tale references are rather clever. But there's something lacking. Possibly plot, there's not enough of it - and far too much focus on sex (but it is a romance novel). The ending felt a bit rushed. But they all feel rushed with these books. It's as if they build up to a crescendo 85% of the way through, then suddenly are wrapped up neatly in a bow. There's a climax...but not much of a denouement.
I know I shouldn't analyze or criticize these types of novels, sort of like analyzing or critiquing cotton candy. But I can't help myself. That's part of the fun.
Anyhow, it's odd, but the writers in the 1970s and 1980s had more plot in their romance novels, than the one's who are writing today. Granted their plots were on the twisted side at times. Also this is just my memory of them, memories can lie.
3. All caught up now on Mad Men - it got better in the last five to six episodes. I'm glad I stuck with it. Picked up the pace and had a few interesting twists.
Don't have much to say about it though. Except that after checking out a site regarding Mad Men style, I began to notice the color scheme in every episode. There's definitely something going on with yellows and blues. I mentioned this to my mother, who told me that my father used to tell her back in the 1960s and 1970s - that yellow and blue were power colors. Yellow, blue and red. A yellow tie stated confidence. Interesting. The best things about Mad Men are the style and framing/cinematography. There's some great framing shots. It really does say some nasty things about the advertising business and our society's dependence upon it. A society that puts that much emphasis on advertising...is a bit soulless and miserable.
In Mad Men, everyone is miserable. Their happiness a facade. All it is is image or smoke and mirrors, nothing is real. Don Draper who is beautiful on the surface and whose image is seemingly charming and desirable, is an empty shell beneath it. A narcissist, he defines himself by what he sees in the mirrors around him. And constantly seeks reflections that show how great he is. Projecting his self-loathing onto anyone who feels anything remotely close to love for him.
It's a great critique of the advertising and marketing world - where it is just smoke and mirrors, nothing is real. It's plastic. I spoke with my landlord about it the other day, he's an art director for television commercials - and he said yes, it's all quite fake, you see how fake everything truly is.
4. Have The Tudors (via MD's recommendation) and Scandel S1 - via netflix on TV stand. May watch them next or will watch Defiance, which I find a bit slow and silly in places.
I'm clearly an introvert. While I'm sick of being stuck in my apartment, not being with or hanging with people in my apt. (which is quite small and hardly conducive for gatherings anyhow) conversing/watching movies/etc doesn't bother me in the least. I take after my granny in this manner, as well as my mother to an extent, both went long periods without people popping up when their husbands traveled. All I need is a few books, a story in my heart, or a piece of paper and I'm happy. Now I have even more than that - tv, internet, cell phones, ipads...
Besides, I see people. But it did involve going up and down steps, which I'd like to avoid for at least two days.
2. Just finished reading Eloisa James' Once Upon a Tower. It's a romance novel based rather loosely on Rapunzel, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and music. The hero, a Scottish Duke falls madly in love with an English celloist. They get married. Neither has had any sexual experience. He's 22 and she's barely 19. They are in other words both virgins and over-think sex, which as we all know is not something one should think too much about. It's one of those things that you just ahem do. Thinking too much about sex is bit like thinking too much about breathing.
The writer, and this surprised me, is an English Lit Professor in NYC, who is married to an Italian Knight. You'd think an English Lit Professor would write something a whole lot better than this? But no. Then again, having been an English Lit Major, I shouldn't be all that surprised. It's not a bad book. The Shakespeare and fairy tale references are rather clever. But there's something lacking. Possibly plot, there's not enough of it - and far too much focus on sex (but it is a romance novel). The ending felt a bit rushed. But they all feel rushed with these books. It's as if they build up to a crescendo 85% of the way through, then suddenly are wrapped up neatly in a bow. There's a climax...but not much of a denouement.
I know I shouldn't analyze or criticize these types of novels, sort of like analyzing or critiquing cotton candy. But I can't help myself. That's part of the fun.
Anyhow, it's odd, but the writers in the 1970s and 1980s had more plot in their romance novels, than the one's who are writing today. Granted their plots were on the twisted side at times. Also this is just my memory of them, memories can lie.
3. All caught up now on Mad Men - it got better in the last five to six episodes. I'm glad I stuck with it. Picked up the pace and had a few interesting twists.
Don't have much to say about it though. Except that after checking out a site regarding Mad Men style, I began to notice the color scheme in every episode. There's definitely something going on with yellows and blues. I mentioned this to my mother, who told me that my father used to tell her back in the 1960s and 1970s - that yellow and blue were power colors. Yellow, blue and red. A yellow tie stated confidence. Interesting. The best things about Mad Men are the style and framing/cinematography. There's some great framing shots. It really does say some nasty things about the advertising business and our society's dependence upon it. A society that puts that much emphasis on advertising...is a bit soulless and miserable.
In Mad Men, everyone is miserable. Their happiness a facade. All it is is image or smoke and mirrors, nothing is real. Don Draper who is beautiful on the surface and whose image is seemingly charming and desirable, is an empty shell beneath it. A narcissist, he defines himself by what he sees in the mirrors around him. And constantly seeks reflections that show how great he is. Projecting his self-loathing onto anyone who feels anything remotely close to love for him.
It's a great critique of the advertising and marketing world - where it is just smoke and mirrors, nothing is real. It's plastic. I spoke with my landlord about it the other day, he's an art director for television commercials - and he said yes, it's all quite fake, you see how fake everything truly is.
4. Have The Tudors (via MD's recommendation) and Scandel S1 - via netflix on TV stand. May watch them next or will watch Defiance, which I find a bit slow and silly in places.