baleanoptera (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
baleanoptera) wrote2007-10-09 11:25 pm
baleanoptera) wrote2007-10-09 11:25 pm
doing the paper thing and loving The Wire
Hmm..not much posting lately - but I'm currently trying to finish a paper and watching season 4 of The Wire.
I'm on episode six now and I must say that this season might become my new favourite, right next to season two. While I loved the whole Barksdale story of s1 and 3, there is something that touches my heart in a different way when it comes to s2 and now s4. I also love how the show has in a way expanded in this season. It is becoming clearer and clearer that this is so much more than "just a cop" show.
favourite things so far:
- the kids referring to Chris as 'the Zombiemaster'. First of it is a creepy nickname, and secondly it is heartbreaking listening to them spin tales and horror stories around these events. Its almost like they are trying to distance themselves from the all too horrid reality.
- WeeBay as a father. The whole conversation between Namond and his parents when they tell him to be a good boy and show up for work - which is working at a corner. It's bitterly ironic and so poignant at the same time.
- Bunny Colvin walking the school corridors like they are his beat. I love Bunny. I feel everything is safer with the world as long as he is there.
- Rhonda and Cedric! They are so sweet together and she makes him laugh.
- Omar. I've just seen the episode where he gets sent to jail. It is upsetting me people!
- The cunning of Prop Joe. The man is Machiavelli to the teeth!
- The visuals! The use of circles and rings throughout. I'm not sure of the symbolism yet, but I love how they build their world visually just as careful as they do with everything else. Also loved the parallels between Marlo and Royce at their respective poker tables.(tables which were round I might add.)
- The kids. I'm in awe of how this show has me worried sick about these kids. It should here be mentioned that I'm not that fond of children - especially not on film. But these kids? I just want to kidnap them and take them somewhere safe. Though I think Michael is doomed. He stands too much alone and in this show that is never good. It seems you only have a change if you reach out to other people with your problems and take comfort in friends. But that said I hope like crazy he will be fine, but it's only a fools hope.
- Carver! How did you become one of my favourite characters? When did this happen? But who cares - for you are wonderful now. You are Bunny Jr! Hee.
- Rawls. He is funny, mean and more often right than not. I'm just so glad I don't know anyone like that in real life.
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And then for something entirely different:
taken from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
appplegnat and finnygan - The ten things a reader of this LJ should know about me. Possibly...
1.After several years with either bright red. Blue, blue/green, green, purple and purple/blue hair I had more or less forgotten what my original haircolour looked like. I was pleasantly pleased to find out it was light brown.
2.The first time I was in Rome I hated the city. Now it is one of my all time favourites.
3.My mother and most of my aunts are nurses. This led to spending an entire Christmas dinner listening to them discuss phlegm. As a result it takes a lot to squick me when it comes to food.
4.I cannot travel without music. This includes going outside with the trash.
5.My field is 19th Century European art, but my favourite art, aesthetically speaking, is early Medieval European and Byzantine art.
(5.b. My all time favourite art professor once bribed the caretaker of St. Prassede in Rome, so that we, his students, could se the Zenone Chapel at night and by candlelight. It is the first and only time the beauty of art has made me cry.)
This is the nave decorations of the Zenone chapel. See how all the gold makes it almost impossible to photograph? That’s because it is light by electric light – which has a fixed, stable light source. Now imagine all that gold by flickering candlelight, and imagine standing in a tiny chapel where all the walls are decorated like this. Outside the chapel is the cold darkness of the large church room, but inside everything is golden and suddenly the Byzantine idea of creating a piece of heaven on earth makes sense.
6. I sometimes talk back to the people on television. Yes, I know they cannot hear me.
7.I’m unable to watch any episode of CSI or a similar show as the plotlines freak me out.
8.I had three Barbies as a kid, and had made them into Celtic Witch Barbie, My Lady de Winter Barbie and Cleopatra Barbie. My Barbies did not play well with other girls’.
9.I would probably sell your soul for good chocolate – especially White Lindt Chocolate.
10.If a fiction book does not grab me within the first 20 pages, it is highly unlikely I will finish it. However I have been known to drag myself through 600 pages of stunningly boring French Structuralist theory just because it made me mad.
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And some links for last:
schionutlander has a fascinating post on the art of Otl Aicher. It is based on the life and theories of the medieval philosopher Wilhelm von Ockham, and is a modern interpretation of medieval art. Very interesting!
mr_kit has made some nice and creepy icons of Kittelsen's Old Mother Plague illustrations. (which I wrote about here)The icons capture the mood and the composition of the illustrations, all while being clear and a bit frightening. Highly recommended.
I'm on episode six now and I must say that this season might become my new favourite, right next to season two. While I loved the whole Barksdale story of s1 and 3, there is something that touches my heart in a different way when it comes to s2 and now s4. I also love how the show has in a way expanded in this season. It is becoming clearer and clearer that this is so much more than "just a cop" show.
favourite things so far:
- the kids referring to Chris as 'the Zombiemaster'. First of it is a creepy nickname, and secondly it is heartbreaking listening to them spin tales and horror stories around these events. Its almost like they are trying to distance themselves from the all too horrid reality.
- WeeBay as a father. The whole conversation between Namond and his parents when they tell him to be a good boy and show up for work - which is working at a corner. It's bitterly ironic and so poignant at the same time.
- Bunny Colvin walking the school corridors like they are his beat. I love Bunny. I feel everything is safer with the world as long as he is there.
- Rhonda and Cedric! They are so sweet together and she makes him laugh.
- Omar. I've just seen the episode where he gets sent to jail. It is upsetting me people!
- The cunning of Prop Joe. The man is Machiavelli to the teeth!
- The visuals! The use of circles and rings throughout. I'm not sure of the symbolism yet, but I love how they build their world visually just as careful as they do with everything else. Also loved the parallels between Marlo and Royce at their respective poker tables.(tables which were round I might add.)
- The kids. I'm in awe of how this show has me worried sick about these kids. It should here be mentioned that I'm not that fond of children - especially not on film. But these kids? I just want to kidnap them and take them somewhere safe. Though I think Michael is doomed. He stands too much alone and in this show that is never good. It seems you only have a change if you reach out to other people with your problems and take comfort in friends. But that said I hope like crazy he will be fine, but it's only a fools hope.
- Carver! How did you become one of my favourite characters? When did this happen? But who cares - for you are wonderful now. You are Bunny Jr! Hee.
- Rawls. He is funny, mean and more often right than not. I'm just so glad I don't know anyone like that in real life.
And then for something entirely different:
taken from
appplegnat and finnygan - The ten things a reader of this LJ should know about me. Possibly...1.After several years with either bright red. Blue, blue/green, green, purple and purple/blue hair I had more or less forgotten what my original haircolour looked like. I was pleasantly pleased to find out it was light brown.
2.The first time I was in Rome I hated the city. Now it is one of my all time favourites.
3.My mother and most of my aunts are nurses. This led to spending an entire Christmas dinner listening to them discuss phlegm. As a result it takes a lot to squick me when it comes to food.
4.I cannot travel without music. This includes going outside with the trash.
5.My field is 19th Century European art, but my favourite art, aesthetically speaking, is early Medieval European and Byzantine art.
(5.b. My all time favourite art professor once bribed the caretaker of St. Prassede in Rome, so that we, his students, could se the Zenone Chapel at night and by candlelight. It is the first and only time the beauty of art has made me cry.)
This is the nave decorations of the Zenone chapel. See how all the gold makes it almost impossible to photograph? That’s because it is light by electric light – which has a fixed, stable light source. Now imagine all that gold by flickering candlelight, and imagine standing in a tiny chapel where all the walls are decorated like this. Outside the chapel is the cold darkness of the large church room, but inside everything is golden and suddenly the Byzantine idea of creating a piece of heaven on earth makes sense.
6. I sometimes talk back to the people on television. Yes, I know they cannot hear me.
7.I’m unable to watch any episode of CSI or a similar show as the plotlines freak me out.
8.I had three Barbies as a kid, and had made them into Celtic Witch Barbie, My Lady de Winter Barbie and Cleopatra Barbie. My Barbies did not play well with other girls’.
9.I would probably sell your soul for good chocolate – especially White Lindt Chocolate.
10.If a fiction book does not grab me within the first 20 pages, it is highly unlikely I will finish it. However I have been known to drag myself through 600 pages of stunningly boring French Structuralist theory just because it made me mad.
And some links for last:
schionutlander has a fascinating post on the art of Otl Aicher. It is based on the life and theories of the medieval philosopher Wilhelm von Ockham, and is a modern interpretation of medieval art. Very interesting! mr_kit has made some nice and creepy icons of Kittelsen's Old Mother Plague illustrations. (which I wrote about here)The icons capture the mood and the composition of the illustrations, all while being clear and a bit frightening. Highly recommended.
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Hee! I find CSI has a strange (but therapeutic) effect on me - I fall asleep in 15 minutes flat.. :D I usually watch it "good and proper" on TV , not on computer (our programs show at least 2 CSI a day) when I want to fall asleep quickly. :D
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3.My mother and most of my aunts are nurses. This led to spending an entire Christmas dinner listening to them discuss phlegm. As a result it takes a lot to squick me when it comes to food.
I had a room mate who was a nurse and I have a younger brother with whom I would compete to 'outgross' when discussing topics so I'm largely immune these days, which used to really distress a very squeamish cousin who couldn't even hear the word 'gag' when eating dinner without feeling sick :)
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I am absolutely with you there. If, for some reason, I have to go somewhere - anywhere - without my iPod, I feel strangely amputated and lonely, and I never like the experience.
And I really need to see this The Wire thing. I have a feeling that I might enjoy it.
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I need to travel and to study with music. The iPod has changed my travelling life, now that it's so easy to transport my music, yay!
I love CSI (though not Miami). I went through a brief phase when I wanted to be a coroner! I'll commit the perfect murder someday. Plus, CSI is a great metaphor when I'm
banging my head against a brick wallworking with my students on writing, what with the whole "follow the evidence, see how they hold up AND explain why a slide/blood drop/hair is important and adds to the narrative??" thing.(no subject)
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I've just finished reading Guy Gavriel Kay's Sailing to Sarantium, which is set in a fantasy version of Byzantium with a mosaicist main character. The character spends a lot of time looking at the way light falls in certain places and what that will do if he places these tesserae at this angle - at one point he's figuring out how to make a mosaic torch look like it's flickering when flickering candle light falls on it. (He also spent a lot of time traveling and doing plotful things, though, so now I want to get the sequel where he's going to do a lot more mosaic work.) So that picture really helps me imagine exactly what he's talking about!
Also, very cool links.
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And I envy you for this art-history-professor of yours! I wish I had had an equally enthusiastic professor! And this experience with the mosaics in candlelight must have been breathtaking. Now I understand why you like them so much! - I once could see a Baroque church in candlelight and it was really beautiful. It's so much closer to how these buildings probably were seen by contemporary visitors.
I won't say much to your Barbie comment because I and my sister had not only three but probably thirty, all sitting in accordant decorated houses. A lot of these things were antiques (furniture from much older doll's houses) or made by us out of wood together with our father who is really talented with these things. We even sewed a lot of the costumes ourselves, historic ones with crinolines etc. And then we (my sister and I) used to sit in this room and tell us stories inspired by Prince Valiant, Robin Hood, or even the Musketeers. Ahem.
And for the French Structuralist theory you have my utmost respect. That's where I normally give up. If scientific literature is not written in a way that I can understand it I give it maximal three tries before I skip it. Unless it is unavoidable, of course, but than it is accompanied by a lot of grumbling...
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