RaveTen 9

[slipjig3]

To quote Taylor Negron, you can cut the tension with a tension-cutting device:

That RaveTen thingy

Books: I was trying to explain to krystynayt the other day about my annual AutumnWeird. Basically, as soon as the temperature drops below summer levels, I automatically slip into this peculiar mythic-journey mode, where things turn...strange. I wasn't doing a very good job of explaining it, I'm afraid. I'm not going to even try explaining it here, except to say that Robert Holdstock's Lavondyss begins crawling under my skin every September. I understand this book. more than that, I think it understands me.

Movies: I borrowed David Lynch's Mullholland Dr. from the library one day, adn watched it at about 2 p.m. At three in the morning, I woke up and said, "Oh, now I understand it." Deliciously strange, with a performance by Naomi Watts that'll leave your jaw hanging open.

Music: Tom Waits is one of those people you can freely acknowledge is a genius even if you can't listen to his performances for more than three minutes at a time without a healthy dose of Nuprin. I mean, he's a brilliant songwriter, but that voice is the oral equivalent of trying to shift from third to reverse while still in gear. So he needs a surrogate voice, which is where John Hammond comes in. Waits himself produced Wicked Grin, a collection of Hammond's (ahem) wicked Chicago-style blues covers of his material, and it's a wonder to behold. The opening three tracks, "2:19," "Heartattack and Vine," and "Clap Hands," are alone worth the 18 bucks.

TV: I really need to stop RaveTenning TV shows that the networks have pulled from the schedules, but I have to say this in front of the world and the powers that be: when I find the guy at Comedy Central who cancelled "Beat the Geeks," one of the best game shows ever, I am going to make his life an unceasing misery. They've denied me my calling, dammit. I hope to meet Movie Geek Mark Everett Hoyt in the next mortal coil.

Web Sites: I don't know what it is about the Icehouse game (sorry, game system) that appeals to me, but it does. Fellow game geeks, what do you think?

Food: Best comfort food in the universe: toss-up between Thai green chicken curry (to be covered another time) and coq au vin. Nothing more to be said. Now pardon me while I go sit in the corner and crave for a while...

LiveJournals: As far as I can tell, there's only one flaw I can see in dwivian: He doesn't live several hundred miles closer. Seriously, every time I read his posts, I find myself wishing I could just head over to his place with a bottle of red wine and an armload of board games and just hang out. There's something about him that makes you feel welcome, even if you've never been in his vicinity. (And he single-handedly put the possibility of an Atlanta road trip in my head. Evil man.)

Shopping: Yes, I'm promoting for a friend here (albeit one I haven't been in contact with in about seven years), but even if I didn't know her personally, I'd still recommend her store, Kamala Perfumes of Evanston, IL, for their essential oils, herbs, bath and body miscellanea, massage products, candles and nigh well everything else. Click hence.

Places: I'm going with something very general here: I still maintain that airports have the best people-watching in the world. I should be keeping my hometown loyalty to O'Hare (which I do love), but I've actually developed a great fondness for the new-improved-and-quite-pretty Albany quote-International-unquote for its comfort and hangoutableness. (Side note: The fact that airports won't let you wait for incoming flights at the gate anymore is deeply heartbreaking.)

Whatever: I'm sure it's just a side effect of my current overwhelming need to get back to Champaign-Urbana and my college friends therein, but right now I am dying to play hearts. Standard or turbo rules, I care not. Still the best card game ever devised.

By the by, as per yendi's suggestion, the RaveTens have been archived in the Memories section. Thank you, sir!

Comments

[spoothbrush.livejournal.com]

Coq au vin is the kind of food that I make one day when I'm in a cooking mood and then eat for the rest of the week. Yum.

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I really need to be driving down your way and cooking with youze guys sometime. It's day trip distance, for Petunia's sake...

Shadow of the Forest

[daev.livejournal.com]

Lavondyss! A beautiful book which has baffled me every time I've taken a run at it. Mythago Wood is one of my favorite books ever, a woods walk deeper and deeper into humanity's mythological archetypes. Holdstock managed to pull together all his thematic obsessions into one brilliant and focussed work, packed with neat images and ideas. Its straightforward plot reveals endless layers of meaning upon rereading. But its sequel starts out strange, not really coherent with the previous book, takes a turn for the incomprehensible in the second half, and ends depressingly. Part of my problem with Lavondyss is, I think, in the character of Tallis, one of those naturally mystical types who are frustratingly intriguing.

Michael Swanwick wrote a review of Moonwise by Greer Ilene Gilman (if you haven't read this book, Adam, you should; I think you'd like it a hell of a lot) which began:

There is a type of young woman we have all either known or been: who worships at the altar of the romantic; plays old border ballads on pennywhistle, recorder, or hammer dulcimer; tacks a hand-lettered sign reading MAGIC IS AFOOT on her dormitory room door; reads the Tarot for friends and The White Goddess for pleasure; and treasures a hundred obscure books by measure of how close they come to an ideal world in which gypsies and scarecrows, old marbles and long skirts, elves, quilts, candles, hot chocolate with cinnamon, feathered caps, rainy days, and snug houses with big fireplaces are part of a single, inexpressibly significant enterprise.

I guess you know who I think of when I read that -- possibly more than one person! -- but in regards to Lavondyss I think Tallis Keeton is much like that character, but even more primal and inhuman. I see what you mean when you say that the book understands you ... it really does tell a story from below the hidden trapdoors of the waking mind.

Re: Shadow of the Forest

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

So. Michael Swanwick has known Elizabeth for how long now? *wink*

Seriously, you're right; he has Tallis pegged to a T. Not coincidentally, he also describes the sort of people I've always been drawn to myself. Basically, I get Tallis, even though I don't understand her, if that makes any sense. (The big difference between Tallis and Elizabeth, by the way: Tallis has no ego invested in it.)

And I will definitely read that book.

Re: Shadow of the Forest

[daev.livejournal.com]

Michael Swanwick has known Elizabeth for how long now?

Actually I was thinking of ljl, and why I got interested in her, when I read that quote. But it matches more than one Adam ex-gf, doesn't it?

And I will definitely read that book.

A warning: Moonwise is possibly the hardest book I have ever tried to read. Harder than Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow, and Pale Fire. It's deeply weird in the way Lavondyss is weird, but it's worse because it is entirely told from within the worldview of the Tallis Keeton analogue -- except for the parts told by the creatures that live in her world. Imagine if Holdstock had had the masks write his book; that's what I'm talking about.

There's a five-page passage narrated in 17th century broad Yorkshire dialect by something that isn't described for another hundred pages. This happens very early in the book. Don't let it throw you.

I finally gave up, but I believe that if you like Lavondyss for the reasons you do, you will grok Moonwise.

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

Now you've definitely piqued my curiosity. Must get that...

And yes, ljl occured to me as well, but I settled on Elizabeth only because Lauren seemed better grounded and more down to earth than that. Then again, the Lauren I knew was a few years older than yours, so your point is well-taken. (Yes. Meet Tallis, my dating history.)