We can have the whole world

It's been years since I read Hemingway*, but as I was cleaning up my bookmarks, I ran across a dead link to something I've always loved. But here's a live link:

Hills Like White Elephants

*Please note, I haven't read everything by Hemingway, only what little could fit into a geologist's class schedule.

movie obsessing

I totally forgot to talk movies.

Brief Encounter...flippin' awesome. Trevor Howard was so beautifully intense. Celia Johnson so marvelously tragic. I'm even amazed it was made in 1945. I can't express how much I love old movies (1950s and earlier) that don't suffer from over-acting in the extreme.

Control...Informative and tragic. Sam Riley was excellent. It made me want to listen to Joy Division and New Order. My only complaint is that an excellent actress like Samantha Morton was put in the role of wife. It's not like there were awesome parts for women in it, and if I was an awesome actress, I'd want to be in Control too, but at the same time, awesome actresses should have more options than playing the wife/mother/girlfriend/sister. I don't fault Control with this, it just reminded me.

And now, I'm watching one of my mainstays: Me Without You. Aside from Oliver Milburn, who is adorable and lovable as Nat, Michelle Williams and Anna Friel give such honest performances, especially Anna who lays everything out. And then there's the romance to it. But can I tell you how much I love the word "wretched", it sounds exactly like what it means and should be used much more often. (Edited to add that the use of "I Just Can't Get Enough" by Depeche Mode is also perfect.)

Deliberation

It took a day, two movies, lots of gripes, and angry knitting to decide on the correct path. My sister and I discussed what was what and we both decided that it was best if I waited on New Moon. We then decided that maybe a change of scenery would be good, which led to Plainsong getting the nomination (although, Magic For Beginners is existing as my in-case-I-need-something-a-bit-more-genre book). In the end, too much animosity towards teens, unseasonable anger on my part, and fear that what breezed by might turn into an aching sore.

I almost (was two steps away from it) picked up Half-Blood Prince again. But then, coupled with the new July release date and information that they added a scene of much peril at the Burrow to the movie, I decided that Harry Potter and I were on shaky ground as well.

On other notes: Ghirardelli Square is as busy as I remembered it, worse for the Chocolate Festival. And I can honestly say that the only reason I didn't leave on sight (which also would have been rude to my oldest non-family friend) was because the chocolate briefly soothed my anti-social personality. Too many airports in too few weeks, and too many people with too little sense. And then, the entire dorky reason I went was a complete let-down: The Pie Hole (from Pushing Daisies) was closed and all I got was a sucky flyer. Not to mention that everyone was in San Francisco today. I did take a few pictures of stuff, but it's standard stuff and taken because although I go the SF somewhat often, I rarely go to the tourist traps, so I never see Alcatraz that close.

Two things I've learned today:

1) Dream In Color's Fatty yarn is too bulky to make a Verity without it looking absurd, even with adjusting the pattern for obvious yarn size differences. I'd take a picture, but I'm too unphotogenic at this exact moment to dare.

2) I shouldn't think that I can outsmart Ysolda on her own pattern.

Then there's the thing I'm not learning:

How much did I like Twilight? I read the first 330 pages with enthusiasm, and then around 330, I took a break because I suddenly became annoyed. And I read the remaining 170 quickly, but I was always aware of my vague sense of irritation. Now, with the book finished and sitting on the footrest/yarn-concealer, do I want to start the next one now? Do I want to take a break and read something else? Maybe Half-Blood Prince again as I don't get the movie this November? Maybe finish a book I haven't been able to finish since January? A book I should have read last summer? Or any number of the books waiting for me?

Actually, as I considered reading Under the Rose or I Love You, Beth Cooper just then, I realized that I'm not in the mood for those younger than 23, which means that maybe New Moon is a bad idea. Does one rest on one's Neil Gaiman crutch, because he does always make me happy? Or do I go non-genre? Or do I go genre, but not Neil Gaiman or Stephenie Meyer?

As nothing came to me then, I suppose I should just watch Control or Brief Encounter and refocus.

Chocolate Festival tomorrow! And San Francisco buses...with tourists...at a tourist attraction...ugh.

science fiction rambles

A few years ago, my sister was in college and in her strange Humanities class, she had to read a bunch of books including Watchmen and Neuromancer. She was fine with Watchmen, but Neuromancer was not so easy. We made an agreement, we'd read it together. Why together? Because I'm a bit more well-versed in the ways of science fiction and furthermore, I understood (and still understand) the trust factor.

If you know science fiction, you probably read Neuromancer or have heard of it. (It's biggest claim to fame in recent pop culture is that the first line inspired the writing of The Matrix movies...I like to believe there was only one of those movies.) If you aren't an SF person/reader, there's an aspect of our literature that will likely scare you off, it kept my sister from getting more than a few pages in Neuromancer: world creation. Science fiction (or speculative fiction) readers, and probably fantasy readers, are able to ignore the unfamiliarity. It's not that we'll never figure it out, it's that we know that we'll catch on, we'll understand, we trust the author. Readers of non-genre fiction sadly don't seem to have the same sense of trust, which is why they tend not to stray too far from books found in that ambiguous category called "fiction and literature." Things found in that category are based in a world everyone knows, which eliminates needing to trust the author, unless an author sneaks into that section based on other books (e.g., Cormac McCarthy, Karen Joy Fowler) or based on the age of the book (e.g., Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, William Shakespeare [who should really be in poetry and plays]).

Now, I forgot all of that until yesterday, when I read an interview with Neal Stephenson. He's actually the reason I could read Neuromancer without freaking out over the things I didn't immediately understand. In fact, after reading The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, Neuromancer was pansy stuff. But anyway, he said exactly what I've been saying to my sister for years now: the reader needs to trust the author. He even wrote a foreword to his book to help out the uninitiated. If only the uninitiated would pick up one of his books and trust him.

Or maybe it's an issue of imagination, but I'd rather think that it's trusting an author that's the problem. Too many people have read Harry Potter for it to be an imagination issue, right?

Also: Finished The Road, which I liked so much more than a person probably should. Started a Clapotis and am having difficulty with wanting to do all of the purl rows. And I'm loving Good Omens, but Neil Gaiman and I have a connection.

A D D I C T E D

Forget heroin, it's nothing compared to yarn.

marketing ploys

First, I should say that to some extent, I started reading The Friday Night Knitting Club reluctantly. There's the knitting aspect (I can knit well enough, but I crochet and the world's ignorance towards crochet actually does tend to injure some and piss off people like me). Then, there's the completely ignoring crochet aspect, which pisses me off more. And then, there's the part of me that really just wants to hunker down with more Neil Gaiman because for some reason that man makes me happy with whatever he writes.

But, I actually do like The Friday Night Knitting Club (I'm on page 205 of 366-ish). I appreciate the fact that none of the women are idiots (which I wish I didn't have to admit happens more often than it should with authors of all genders), the characters are fully formed, and it's not a story about people who hurt others for no reason. And the worst part about this book is that having spent more than 48 hours away from my yarn and my hooks and needles, I feel the need to go buy more. It's not the wanting a knitting circle aspect, because I have Yarn Club which is better, I think it's the fact that someone else is waxing poetic about one of my addictions and an addict can only take so much, and I'm weak.

Now, I must go find my bra to go shuffle off to a couple of stores. Here's why:

1) Although I bought yarn online for a baby blanket (it was on super sale at Webs), I need yarn for the future baby's older brother. I'm trying to decide on what Batman symbol to use. Classic and black and yellow? Modern and black and gray? I'm thinking classic as I can't endorse a child that young being a fan of the new Batman movies, even if they are awesome.

2) I need ideas for a wedding blanket. I have two and a half months for this next one and although I have ideas, I'm not sure that they are the right ones and I need to be around different yarns to figure out the best path. (The problem is that I have a certain style, which is probably very West Coast and very bright and very folk-sy. And the recipients are East Coast and attorneys and they are pretending to be traditional, which makes me think of boring colors, and boring colors are just rather difficult for me to work with.) But then I return to my problems because I'm not sure if I want them to have a blanket or something akin to a bedspread.)

Anyway, off to find bra and succumb to the marketing that is The Friday Night Knitting Club.