![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
We're all in this together
4 April 2021 05:19 pmThere ain't no good guy,
there ain't no bad guy,
There's only you and me
and we may disagree...
there ain't no bad guy,
There's only you and me
and we may disagree...
Neil Gaiman FTW
22 August 2013 09:55 pm
How do you do this in only 178 pages, Neil? How?? How???You know how there are some books that, when you finish them, you don't want to start another one, at least not right away? You don't want the experience you've just had to be overwritten, or diluted; instead you want to cherish it for a little longer. Let it steep, as it were.
This is that sort of book.
The main character is a child, but this is not a children's book, not by a long shot. A healthy dollop of myth, a bit of poetry, a glimpse or two of deep mystery, frosted with horror and seasoned with that pure intensity of emotion that's hard to recapture outside of childhood...
Oh, just go read it, will you? Preferably now, and in one sitting. It's brilliant.
I finally had a chance to sit down and dig into Clockwork Angels, which I got for Christmas and which I'd been eagerly anticipating. I'm a huge fan of Rush and have been since high school; largely thanks to Neil Peart, who's incredibly widely-read, many of their songs and albums are strongly story-oriented (think Fountain of Lamneth, or Red Barchetta, or all of 2112), so a collaborative book/album project sounded intriguing. In the end I enjoyed this book very much as far as it went, but was left wanting a lot more. The steampunk-y world-building had many lovely little details: the Clockwork Angels of the title, the invented names of alchemical stones and minerals, the news office of Barrel Arbor and its announcement of the daily predictions, the personal letters the Watchmaker sends to every citizen on important occasions, the brief glimpses of other people and continents beyond the kingdom of the Watchmaker, and lots more. Taken as a whole, though, the story reads like a parable because in the end that's all we're given: little details and glimpses. The characters -- except for Owen Hardy -- are ultimately one-dimensional, and even the Watchmaker and the Anarchist are in the end nothing but symbols of the two extremes between which Owen Hardy is pulled, the Watchmaker's total predictability and the Anarchist's total unpredictability.
I was happy for Owen that he eventually found a happy medium, but I wish he'd spent a lot longer exploring. I had a nagging sense that I was missing out on lots of exciting things just out of sight; I felt like I was constantly craning my neck out the back window or trying to sneak off down alleyways to see things for myself and getting brought up short.
Tiny cosplayers
17 July 2012 11:03 pmAdorable children cosplay at Comic-Con. I like the faintly resentful-looking Dalek; you can almost hear her thinking, "I wanted to be a ballerina, but hell no, not MY parents..."
And what do you call a bunch of tiny Ironmen? A magnitude, perhaps? A deposit? Yes, I like that: a deposit of Ironmen. *giggle*
And what do you call a bunch of tiny Ironmen? A magnitude, perhaps? A deposit? Yes, I like that: a deposit of Ironmen. *giggle*
I have another "reptilian hindbrain" surprise, but I think I'll save that in favor of one that I was reminded of last night as we were watching Supernatural (digression: Yay the Impala!) and enjoying the classic rock music.
When you're a kid, you think all grownups are old and boring. They do boring thing like go to work and pay bills, and the things they do for fun are a real snooze, like going out to dinner. Right? And then at some point something happens, and you are amazed to find that hey, they're not that different from you, and you get your first inkling that the gap between kid and grownup isn't some unbridgeable chasm, on the other side of which Grownup You will be some unrecognizably alien and different being from Kid You. Instead it's a continuum, a long and a winding road with no gaps, just slow changes, and for the first time you can (sort of) picture yourself somewhere up ahead on that road.
This happened to me when I was about thirteen. I babysat one night for a couple that I thought of as "old" because they were married and had a baby, though of course they were probably in their early 20s. As per usual, the husband had picked me up at my house around dinnertime, so then when they got home he gave me a ride back to my house. On the way home he had the radio on. We're putt-putting along, I'm kind of sleepy because it's late, and all of a sudden he says, "Oh man, I love this song, do you mind if I turn it up?" Of course I said "No," and he cranks the volume and the windows are practically vibrating to the beat of The Knack's My Sharona.
Now I loved that song as well (still do, actually -- shameful secret LOL!), and of course one must listen to at a very high volume :) So I distinctly remember the surprise I felt at this: A sedate grown-up wanting to blare loud rock music?? What is this??? Grownups don't do that!!! And for the first time I could actually imagine myself becoming a grownup, because here was something that I liked and (apparently) they liked too, at least some of them.
That husband probably didn't think of himself as very different from what he'd been as a kid; looking back, that long and winding road is easy to see. Looking forward, though, it's unimaginable: how will I change, across that gulf separating Now from Then? What will I be when I'm done? Will I even recognize myself? This was my first clue that there is no chasm, no gulf, no sudden transformation: just the drip-drip-drip of accumulated little changes, a thousand-mile journey composed of one small step after another.
It was a strange sensation, almost like a snatch of time travel, seeing through the eyes of Future Me...
When you're a kid, you think all grownups are old and boring. They do boring thing like go to work and pay bills, and the things they do for fun are a real snooze, like going out to dinner. Right? And then at some point something happens, and you are amazed to find that hey, they're not that different from you, and you get your first inkling that the gap between kid and grownup isn't some unbridgeable chasm, on the other side of which Grownup You will be some unrecognizably alien and different being from Kid You. Instead it's a continuum, a long and a winding road with no gaps, just slow changes, and for the first time you can (sort of) picture yourself somewhere up ahead on that road.
This happened to me when I was about thirteen. I babysat one night for a couple that I thought of as "old" because they were married and had a baby, though of course they were probably in their early 20s. As per usual, the husband had picked me up at my house around dinnertime, so then when they got home he gave me a ride back to my house. On the way home he had the radio on. We're putt-putting along, I'm kind of sleepy because it's late, and all of a sudden he says, "Oh man, I love this song, do you mind if I turn it up?" Of course I said "No," and he cranks the volume and the windows are practically vibrating to the beat of The Knack's My Sharona.
Now I loved that song as well (still do, actually -- shameful secret LOL!), and of course one must listen to at a very high volume :) So I distinctly remember the surprise I felt at this: A sedate grown-up wanting to blare loud rock music?? What is this??? Grownups don't do that!!! And for the first time I could actually imagine myself becoming a grownup, because here was something that I liked and (apparently) they liked too, at least some of them.
That husband probably didn't think of himself as very different from what he'd been as a kid; looking back, that long and winding road is easy to see. Looking forward, though, it's unimaginable: how will I change, across that gulf separating Now from Then? What will I be when I'm done? Will I even recognize myself? This was my first clue that there is no chasm, no gulf, no sudden transformation: just the drip-drip-drip of accumulated little changes, a thousand-mile journey composed of one small step after another.
It was a strange sensation, almost like a snatch of time travel, seeing through the eyes of Future Me...
::: The Drifters (Michener)
6 May 2009 11:06 pmThe Drifters is right up there with The Quartzsite Trip as far as coming-of-age novels go. Twenty-five (or so) years ago it made me want to sell everything I had and run off to Torremolinos. It's a dangerous book for a young person.
Rereading it now, Mr. Fairbanks' (the narrator's) perceptions of the young people -- their thoughtfulness, their passion, their music, their attitudes, their openness to new experience, their freedom (sexual and otherwise), their rejection of old morals, old codes, old ways of thought -- seem both dated and innocent. They traipse from Torremolinos to Pamplona to Marrakesh, sleeping with anyone they like, trying this that and the other place, drug, idea, religion...and (apart from one character's death, which is not-so-subtly attributed to personal weakness rather than the environment) nothing bad happens. Nothing!!
This is incredible and would never be the case in a novel today. Someone, or more than one, would get punished for seizing all that freedom. They would get murdered or raped or pregnant or arrested or AIDS. There would be Darkness. This novel has no Darkness. It has a few shadows, but no Darkness. Maybe that's why it seems so innocent, this conviction that -- for some people at least -- "finding yourself" in the bars of Torremolinos or the beaches of Morocco is not only possible, but admirable.
The times, they have a-changed.
Rereading it now, Mr. Fairbanks' (the narrator's) perceptions of the young people -- their thoughtfulness, their passion, their music, their attitudes, their openness to new experience, their freedom (sexual and otherwise), their rejection of old morals, old codes, old ways of thought -- seem both dated and innocent. They traipse from Torremolinos to Pamplona to Marrakesh, sleeping with anyone they like, trying this that and the other place, drug, idea, religion...and (apart from one character's death, which is not-so-subtly attributed to personal weakness rather than the environment) nothing bad happens. Nothing!!
This is incredible and would never be the case in a novel today. Someone, or more than one, would get punished for seizing all that freedom. They would get murdered or raped or pregnant or arrested or AIDS. There would be Darkness. This novel has no Darkness. It has a few shadows, but no Darkness. Maybe that's why it seems so innocent, this conviction that -- for some people at least -- "finding yourself" in the bars of Torremolinos or the beaches of Morocco is not only possible, but admirable.
The times, they have a-changed.
