threefold: music, lounging, anime
Dec. 12th, 2007 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceruseeMusic:
Pimping: Carla Bruni, No Promises. Bruni's a model-turned-songtress; her first album is all in French, and I like it, but have no idea what she's singing. Her second album, and the first one I encountered, is in English, and it's poems of Auden, Yeats, Parker, Dickinson, de la Mare and Rossetti, all set to Bruni's music. It's gorgeous. Bruni's got a very breathy sort of voice, and the whole effect is lyrical and intimate. I did not know any of the poems she chose for this album ahead of time, which probably helped, since at no point did I think, "You're stressing the wrong syllable!" I am especially fond of tracks 2 and 11--Before the World Was Made and At Last the Secret Is Out; the latter is so exquisitely beautiful that I could die humming it. Alas, I bought it via iTunes, so I can't put any of it up for a sample. Check it out, though.
Lounging:
I did something unpleasant to my back a couple of days ago. Not, weirdly, related to all the heavy lifting from either the recent move or the ongoing bookstore employment; I think it came from sitting badly in an uncomfortable chair for a few hours, and then going off to work the next day instead of resting when the pain first manifested. When I crawled from my bed to call out of work the next day, I was in such pain that I was literally unable to straighten my back. I've spent most of the last two days tucked up in bed with a heating pad, and golly, I'd forgotten how boring it is when you can't really get out of bed. I mean, I did, once to buy groceries and once to do my laundry, but each time, I could tell I was pushing it, and eventually, common sense sent me back into bed. Billy, don't be a hero.
I feel rather guilty that I wasn't productive. I have not cleaned the catbox, taken out the trash--which means we missed trash day, and I'd feel worse about that if my two roommates hadn't both been absent, which I think makes them complicit in the vague smell of rotting vegetable peels now pervading the apartment--gotten myself a parking permit, finished my Christmas shopping, or tracked down my student loan.
I did revisit the works of Esther Friesner, read several awfully good Vampire Chronicles fanfics, and almost caught up on Ghost Hound.
Anime:
Ghost Hound is the best show in the latest season of anime that I've seen. Best show, not best drama; I laugh at Miname-ke, but while the individual skits that make up each episode are pretty strong, it drags as a half-hour of comedy. Ghost Hound is the only new anime I've seen in a while that I've not been tempted to pause so I could go check LJ or brush my teeth.
In tone, it reminds me of something like Niea_7 or Zettai Shounen or Serial Experiments Lain. I've never managed to finish any of those three shows, and in fact, found them inaccessible and pretentious. I'm not sure why Ghost Hound isn't turning me off, honestly. It's got all the creep factor of Lain, with a little less artistic repetition, and some of the buried mystery appeal of Niea_7 and Zettai Shounen, only nastier. (One of the recurring, dominant images of the show is the protagonist Tarou's memory of seeing a fly land on the face of his dead older sister when he was three years old.)
Lots of things seem to happen without there being a clear plot. Tarou is still traumatized by the incident that led to the death of his sister, ten years ago; he has preternatural dreams which he describes in his dream diary, and has sessions with a super-fuckin' creepy therapist at his school. His mother is even less well-adjusted than he. A Kaworu-esque new student turns up at school to harass Tarou and snoop around in Tarou's traumatic past, and he ought to be utterly hateable, but I don't hate him, possibly because the Kaworu-esque snoop has a nice humanizing acrophobia that is clearly the result of his own severe childhood trauma, and also because the symbolism of the prying outsider constantly wearing the wrong school uniform is so obvious that it's kind of funny.
There's also a really hot traumatized fellow student whose father was probably linked to the childhood trauma of Tarou, who wants nothing to do with Tarou, and a younger female student who resides at the shrine where much of the creepy action takes place, and also wants nothing to do with Tarou. The younger student has violet eyes the size of dinner plates, sees supernatural dealies, and is not traumatized that we yet know of, but is also not genki, which probably amounts to the same thing. This is one of those animes where people never want to talk about themselves, or what they're feeling, or what the hell is going on. This may be part of why I don't resent the annoying snoopy kid, since his wandering around expositing about people's traumatic pasts is practically the only way we find out anything.
I do think there's a plot somewhere in all this mystery--I'm fairly sure that the producers know what's going on and where this is headed, but they're taking their time establishing the mysteries that they're going to explore. There's really nothing I like better than being able to cast myself at the mercy of a storyteller, fully confidant that they know what they're doing. Very, very atmospheric--the setting, a small country town with mountain-and-cliffs-scenery is gorgeous, as the acrophobic snoop comments to Tarou--very creepy, with characters more likable than they ought to be, as withdrawn as they are. I'm really interested to see where this show will go.
Pimping: Carla Bruni, No Promises. Bruni's a model-turned-songtress; her first album is all in French, and I like it, but have no idea what she's singing. Her second album, and the first one I encountered, is in English, and it's poems of Auden, Yeats, Parker, Dickinson, de la Mare and Rossetti, all set to Bruni's music. It's gorgeous. Bruni's got a very breathy sort of voice, and the whole effect is lyrical and intimate. I did not know any of the poems she chose for this album ahead of time, which probably helped, since at no point did I think, "You're stressing the wrong syllable!" I am especially fond of tracks 2 and 11--Before the World Was Made and At Last the Secret Is Out; the latter is so exquisitely beautiful that I could die humming it. Alas, I bought it via iTunes, so I can't put any of it up for a sample. Check it out, though.
Lounging:
I did something unpleasant to my back a couple of days ago. Not, weirdly, related to all the heavy lifting from either the recent move or the ongoing bookstore employment; I think it came from sitting badly in an uncomfortable chair for a few hours, and then going off to work the next day instead of resting when the pain first manifested. When I crawled from my bed to call out of work the next day, I was in such pain that I was literally unable to straighten my back. I've spent most of the last two days tucked up in bed with a heating pad, and golly, I'd forgotten how boring it is when you can't really get out of bed. I mean, I did, once to buy groceries and once to do my laundry, but each time, I could tell I was pushing it, and eventually, common sense sent me back into bed. Billy, don't be a hero.
I feel rather guilty that I wasn't productive. I have not cleaned the catbox, taken out the trash--which means we missed trash day, and I'd feel worse about that if my two roommates hadn't both been absent, which I think makes them complicit in the vague smell of rotting vegetable peels now pervading the apartment--gotten myself a parking permit, finished my Christmas shopping, or tracked down my student loan.
I did revisit the works of Esther Friesner, read several awfully good Vampire Chronicles fanfics, and almost caught up on Ghost Hound.
Anime:
Ghost Hound is the best show in the latest season of anime that I've seen. Best show, not best drama; I laugh at Miname-ke, but while the individual skits that make up each episode are pretty strong, it drags as a half-hour of comedy. Ghost Hound is the only new anime I've seen in a while that I've not been tempted to pause so I could go check LJ or brush my teeth.
In tone, it reminds me of something like Niea_7 or Zettai Shounen or Serial Experiments Lain. I've never managed to finish any of those three shows, and in fact, found them inaccessible and pretentious. I'm not sure why Ghost Hound isn't turning me off, honestly. It's got all the creep factor of Lain, with a little less artistic repetition, and some of the buried mystery appeal of Niea_7 and Zettai Shounen, only nastier. (One of the recurring, dominant images of the show is the protagonist Tarou's memory of seeing a fly land on the face of his dead older sister when he was three years old.)
Lots of things seem to happen without there being a clear plot. Tarou is still traumatized by the incident that led to the death of his sister, ten years ago; he has preternatural dreams which he describes in his dream diary, and has sessions with a super-fuckin' creepy therapist at his school. His mother is even less well-adjusted than he. A Kaworu-esque new student turns up at school to harass Tarou and snoop around in Tarou's traumatic past, and he ought to be utterly hateable, but I don't hate him, possibly because the Kaworu-esque snoop has a nice humanizing acrophobia that is clearly the result of his own severe childhood trauma, and also because the symbolism of the prying outsider constantly wearing the wrong school uniform is so obvious that it's kind of funny.
There's also a really hot traumatized fellow student whose father was probably linked to the childhood trauma of Tarou, who wants nothing to do with Tarou, and a younger female student who resides at the shrine where much of the creepy action takes place, and also wants nothing to do with Tarou. The younger student has violet eyes the size of dinner plates, sees supernatural dealies, and is not traumatized that we yet know of, but is also not genki, which probably amounts to the same thing. This is one of those animes where people never want to talk about themselves, or what they're feeling, or what the hell is going on. This may be part of why I don't resent the annoying snoopy kid, since his wandering around expositing about people's traumatic pasts is practically the only way we find out anything.
I do think there's a plot somewhere in all this mystery--I'm fairly sure that the producers know what's going on and where this is headed, but they're taking their time establishing the mysteries that they're going to explore. There's really nothing I like better than being able to cast myself at the mercy of a storyteller, fully confidant that they know what they're doing. Very, very atmospheric--the setting, a small country town with mountain-and-cliffs-scenery is gorgeous, as the acrophobic snoop comments to Tarou--very creepy, with characters more likable than they ought to be, as withdrawn as they are. I'm really interested to see where this show will go.