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Dec. 29th, 2004 11:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelseagirlSome of the benefits of having been ill this past week:
I wasn't mentally up to reading anything too challenging or teaching-related, so I finally got to finish the Patrick O'Brian series. The characters are old friends by now and even if I missed some stuff in my fog, these are getting reread someday . . . What amazes me is that he never seems to slacken or burn out -- there were a few minor inconsistencies I think I caught, but the quality of the writing and the stories stays strong throughout. I love the fact that the series ends in progress, because Stephen and Jack's Excellent Adventures would and should never ever end! In my own happy world beyond the end of book 20, Stephen and Christine will live blissfully ever after -- what a great character she is. I'm not quite done, because I've got a copy of 21 -- or strictly speaking, I've got a copy of The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey, as that is the title of the British edition, which this is, in front of me.
Lots of DVD watching time, too, in the lack of anything more productive happening. In my joy at the announcement about more LFN DVDs, I rewatched season 1. Not only does it hold up, but the darkness of the world and some of the performances (esp. Roy Dupuis) amazed me all over again. Much as I love Alias, I'll have to say that when six-foot tall Peta Wilson kicks the butt of many large men, I kinda find it easier to believe than when smaller, delicate Jennifer Garner does same.
I can wear my maroon velvet trousers to M.'s office party (on New Years' Day, of all times); I'd put on a little bit of weight, just enough that a few things no longer fit, when M. was out of work and doing the cooking (large plates of steak frites do not maintain my sylphlike form) -- now that I'm eating in my own more healthy and sparing way again I will keep it off but I hadn't been quite sure how to get it off. The whole "no interest in food" part of the illness helped there.
And in non-illness related happiness,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
seanmoon's announcement a week or so ago that Chow Yun-Fat will be in the Pirates sequel has me very, very happy. I'm a big fan (and have a great big crush on the guy), and have many of his Asian and Hollywood films on DVD, but frankly after the mediocre Bulletproof Monk, I was afraid his star was on the wane. For someone with CYF's charisma to have to share the spotlight with William Seann Leonard? He just hasn't broken through quite as strongly as Jackie Chan or Jet Li, maybe in part because his acting tends to involve, you know, language more, and his English is still getting up to speed. . . . So yay for CYF the pirate -- ya'll can keep Jack Sparrow for yourselves if I can have him!
I wasn't mentally up to reading anything too challenging or teaching-related, so I finally got to finish the Patrick O'Brian series. The characters are old friends by now and even if I missed some stuff in my fog, these are getting reread someday . . . What amazes me is that he never seems to slacken or burn out -- there were a few minor inconsistencies I think I caught, but the quality of the writing and the stories stays strong throughout. I love the fact that the series ends in progress, because Stephen and Jack's Excellent Adventures would and should never ever end! In my own happy world beyond the end of book 20, Stephen and Christine will live blissfully ever after -- what a great character she is. I'm not quite done, because I've got a copy of 21 -- or strictly speaking, I've got a copy of The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey, as that is the title of the British edition, which this is, in front of me.
Lots of DVD watching time, too, in the lack of anything more productive happening. In my joy at the announcement about more LFN DVDs, I rewatched season 1. Not only does it hold up, but the darkness of the world and some of the performances (esp. Roy Dupuis) amazed me all over again. Much as I love Alias, I'll have to say that when six-foot tall Peta Wilson kicks the butt of many large men, I kinda find it easier to believe than when smaller, delicate Jennifer Garner does same.
I can wear my maroon velvet trousers to M.'s office party (on New Years' Day, of all times); I'd put on a little bit of weight, just enough that a few things no longer fit, when M. was out of work and doing the cooking (large plates of steak frites do not maintain my sylphlike form) -- now that I'm eating in my own more healthy and sparing way again I will keep it off but I hadn't been quite sure how to get it off. The whole "no interest in food" part of the illness helped there.
And in non-illness related happiness,
seanmoon's announcement a week or so ago that Chow Yun-Fat will be in the Pirates sequel has me very, very happy. I'm a big fan (and have a great big crush on the guy), and have many of his Asian and Hollywood films on DVD, but frankly after the mediocre Bulletproof Monk, I was afraid his star was on the wane. For someone with CYF's charisma to have to share the spotlight with William Seann Leonard? He just hasn't broken through quite as strongly as Jackie Chan or Jet Li, maybe in part because his acting tends to involve, you know, language more, and his English is still getting up to speed. . . . So yay for CYF the pirate -- ya'll can keep Jack Sparrow for yourselves if I can have him!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2004-12-29 05:20 pm (UTC)"A movie in which Chow Yun Fat, a talented and subtle action, is surrounded by ham. Every fifteen minutes, someone walks up to him and says, 'Oh, no, Mr. Fat, please do not eat me with mustard, for though I am ham, I am not for eating.' Combat then ensues."
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Date: 2004-12-29 06:08 pm (UTC)BTW, though I haven't read the comments which ensued, I totally agree with your comments on the bizarre ignore of racial issues in sf. I've seen Nalo Hopkinson twice -- once at the Astor Place Barnes & Noble, when Salt Roads had just come out. The audience was 80% black and from the q&A it was clear they were interested in the Afro-Caribbean aspect of the text, and that most of them had heard about it on NPR that week. 20% were white sf fans or sf writer friends of Nalo's. It was *so* clear that it was two entirely different crowds. Then at ICFA (an academic sf/f conference) she talked about editing her collections of Afro-Caribbean (Whispers from a Cotton Tree Root) and Afro-North American (Mojo: Conjure Stories) fantastic fiction and how rare it was to find writers of color who actually wrote sf or fantasy (though magic realism is not so unusual) and etc etc. I think there may have been one person of color in the room besides Hopkinson, though this was a group that was very concerned about these issues. However, everyone at ICFA is a writer or an academic, it's not a fan-attended con.
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Date: 2004-12-29 05:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-29 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-29 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-29 05:55 pm (UTC)I'm glad you're feeling better!
no subject
Date: 2004-12-29 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-29 06:28 pm (UTC)Surely you recognized him in this icon, where he's sleeping on the floor next to his daughter and Nikita gets on the couch, leans down and kisses him (I cropped her out). I mean, come on, you *had* to have recognized this!
I'm thinking of officially adding "obssesive" as my middle name. ;)