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I'm as normal as blueberry pie
1. I'm not sure we had a Hanukkah party tonight. I think we had a Hanukkah blitz. The first round involved many latkes, nearly as much chicken, my brother's onion rings, and the arrival of such persons as ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thomasfreund, his excellent person who may or may not have a livejournal, gaudior, weirdquark, nineweaving, Thrud, ericmvan, bobcolby, and Eddy. Eventually most of us settled in the living room—I ran interference for drinks—and the conversation proceeded along all the usual points: opera, philosophy, religion, gaming, neurochemistry, whether or not there were walnuts in the fruitcake . . . The second round hit about two hours later and comprised fleurdelis28 and shmeislin, schreibergasse and G and the unconscionably cute Peter, Viking Zen and her husband, and Wes and his girlfriend, in a sort of intersection of flying visits. There was great carnage of potato and other things that can be fried. I did not have nearly enough time to speak with any one person. I will just have to see them all again in the near future. Especially since some of them presented me with one of the best gifts I have received, a dark red T-shirt printed front and back with D'Aulaires' Loki and his monstrous children—the figure for whom I kept taking Norse Gods and Giants out of the library and never returning it, the year I was in second grade; maybe the first trickster I ever learned. And all of them are the kind of people who make the world flower.
2.lesser_celery has rounded up the honors Not One of Us has attracted in the last year. In brief, we're pretty awesome. I will do that end-of-year accounting meme tomorrow.
3. Last night, I watched Lawrence of Arabia (1962) for the second time and the first since high school; thanks tonineweaving for listening to me afterward. Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif are two of the most beautiful people ever put onscreen alongside one another, certainly in the 1960's. But not conventionally. At twenty-eight, twenty-nine, O'Toole has a face like a classic piece of sculpture—an ephebe, not a Roman soldier—but as Lawrence all his body language is a half-step off, a missed beat, the kind of lanky inelegance that is all the more breathtaking when it resolves into grace. He looks like someone for whom the word fey was invented, here less for its sexual connotations than all the rest; off-key, unearthly, whimsical, doomed. (Can you be a cultural transperson?) In British uniform, he's the local odd bird, the gauche lieutenant with too much education and a trick of putting out matches on his skin. The desert looks the right size for mad knight-errantry, but it's like any other elemental force: it doesn't leave you anything but yourself, and if you don't know—or cannot accept—who that is? "Only two kinds of creature get fun in the desert—Bedouins and Gods; and you're neither." These words are said to Lawrence in the diplomat Dryden's office in Cairo, full of Egyptian frescoes and statuary, Sekhmet, Horus, Ra: sun-gods all. He's fair and fiery enough to stand among them; he blows out a match and the sun comes up over the desert. But it is Sherif Ali who is the dark falcon; he looks like a god of the desert, rippling out of mirage. Lawrence is a sun-god in the last downturn of his myth, Phaethon. No one is going to fish him up and put him back together. The match is blown out.
4. My mother took a surprising number of photographs on Christmas morning in which I figure, from better or worse angles; my brother got most of the photogeny in the family, but I am actually quite fond of this one. I should probably not caption it "I Can Has Consciousness?" because I was awake enough to enjoy the expression on my brother's face as he unwrapped one of his presents, but I am really not a morning person.
5. I am so tired, I feel like I'm hallucinating. I am going to read another chapter of House of Leaves, which probably won't help, and go to bed.
thomasfreund, his excellent person who may or may not have a livejournal, gaudior, weirdquark, nineweaving, Thrud, ericmvan, bobcolby, and Eddy. Eventually most of us settled in the living room—I ran interference for drinks—and the conversation proceeded along all the usual points: opera, philosophy, religion, gaming, neurochemistry, whether or not there were walnuts in the fruitcake . . . The second round hit about two hours later and comprised fleurdelis28 and shmeislin, schreibergasse and G and the unconscionably cute Peter, Viking Zen and her husband, and Wes and his girlfriend, in a sort of intersection of flying visits. There was great carnage of potato and other things that can be fried. I did not have nearly enough time to speak with any one person. I will just have to see them all again in the near future. Especially since some of them presented me with one of the best gifts I have received, a dark red T-shirt printed front and back with D'Aulaires' Loki and his monstrous children—the figure for whom I kept taking Norse Gods and Giants out of the library and never returning it, the year I was in second grade; maybe the first trickster I ever learned. And all of them are the kind of people who make the world flower.
2.
lesser_celery has rounded up the honors Not One of Us has attracted in the last year. In brief, we're pretty awesome. I will do that end-of-year accounting meme tomorrow.3. Last night, I watched Lawrence of Arabia (1962) for the second time and the first since high school; thanks to
nineweaving for listening to me afterward. Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif are two of the most beautiful people ever put onscreen alongside one another, certainly in the 1960's. But not conventionally. At twenty-eight, twenty-nine, O'Toole has a face like a classic piece of sculpture—an ephebe, not a Roman soldier—but as Lawrence all his body language is a half-step off, a missed beat, the kind of lanky inelegance that is all the more breathtaking when it resolves into grace. He looks like someone for whom the word fey was invented, here less for its sexual connotations than all the rest; off-key, unearthly, whimsical, doomed. (Can you be a cultural transperson?) In British uniform, he's the local odd bird, the gauche lieutenant with too much education and a trick of putting out matches on his skin. The desert looks the right size for mad knight-errantry, but it's like any other elemental force: it doesn't leave you anything but yourself, and if you don't know—or cannot accept—who that is? "Only two kinds of creature get fun in the desert—Bedouins and Gods; and you're neither." These words are said to Lawrence in the diplomat Dryden's office in Cairo, full of Egyptian frescoes and statuary, Sekhmet, Horus, Ra: sun-gods all. He's fair and fiery enough to stand among them; he blows out a match and the sun comes up over the desert. But it is Sherif Ali who is the dark falcon; he looks like a god of the desert, rippling out of mirage. Lawrence is a sun-god in the last downturn of his myth, Phaethon. No one is going to fish him up and put him back together. The match is blown out.4. My mother took a surprising number of photographs on Christmas morning in which I figure, from better or worse angles; my brother got most of the photogeny in the family, but I am actually quite fond of this one. I should probably not caption it "I Can Has Consciousness?" because I was awake enough to enjoy the expression on my brother's face as he unwrapped one of his presents, but I am really not a morning person.
5. I am so tired, I feel like I'm hallucinating. I am going to read another chapter of House of Leaves, which probably won't help, and go to bed.
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that is freaking fabulous SAHGOPWEI HPBJDSKLF: KEYBOARDSMASH
Do you know how I loved him when I was a child? My atheistic but freethinking parents told me that they did not subscribe to a set of beliefs, but I could pick out a church for myself when I grew up, if I wanted. I read and reread the adventures of Loki and Thor, Best Asgard Friends Forever or at least until Loki's chaotic evil gets the better of him, and then I told my parents that I wanted to be Norse when I grew up. They didn't laugh at me, bless them. They told me that was fine.
(Mind you, I think I was also into it because Sif had living gold hair and Freya had a whole suit of hawk's feathers that enabled her to fly anywhere she wanted. But I was mostly in it for Loki.)
Oo, could you take a photo of yourself in the Loki shirt?
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Nine
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Sure. One of the other Christmas photos is the same principle: myself in the opal-leaf necklace my brother gave me as a birthday/holiday present in October, because he spent most of Christmas Day with his fiancée's family. Give me a day or so.
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The Loki t-shirt sounds particularly awesome.
2.
Glad to hear about the honours.
3.
Your description makes me want to watch Lawrence of Arabia again. I saw it several times roundabouts high school, it being one of my father's favourite films, and once in the theatre, but it's many years since I've watched it through.
4.
I'm not a morning person, either. Am v. glad both that we weren't up especial early Christmas morn and that photographs weren't being taken. I'm glad you were able to enjoy your brother's expression. And good on you for having a bathrobe that matches the furniture. ;-)
5.
I hope you sleep better tonight.
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I seem to be collecting bands, operas, and mythological beings. This makes me happy.
Glad to hear about the honours.
Go tell
I saw it several times roundabouts high school, it being one of my father's favourite films, and once in the theatre, but it's many years since I've watched it through.
I think it will infinitely repay viewings; it's an incredible film.
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Excellent.
Go tell [info]lesser_celery. Buy a subscription! Small-press publications of the world unite!
We'll see. If I find the dinero to spare, I will.
I think it will infinitely repay viewings; it's an incredible film.
It is, at that. I seldom actually manage to watch movies, but I might see if I can't watch it sometime in the not-too-distant.
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Lawrence is a sun-god in the last downturn of his myth, Phaethon. No one is going to fish him up and put him back together. The match is blown out. That's a marvelous image and analysis--I'll show the girls; I bet they'll agree.
Your Hannukah party sounds awesome--what a collection of wonderful people. Mention of Hannukah parties, though, makes me recall that yesterday, through supreme social cluelessness, I managed to corner this poor guy I know into inviting me to *his* Hannukah party. Ouf, I felt like an idiot.** And then when I was telling the story to my kids, Little Springtime did a facepalm and revealed that in school, before it let out, she had been guilty of almost precisely the same social awkwardness with this guy's son (who is in her grade)--which maybe explains why this guy said, "And bring Little Springtime along."
I am so tired, I feel like I'm hallucinating. I've experienced this--I've actually hallucinated a little when extremely sleepy (very, very dull hallucinations, but in dangerous circumstances, such that I vowed never again to be so sleepy in those circumstances again), and other times, I've had the slipping-in-and-out of consciousness thing, where it's hard to tell when you're dreaming and when you're awake. You know the other day when you mapped your train of thought? Well, I've wanted to map the journey into dreaming, and getting very, very tired seems like a way to do it... one moment you're typing on LJ, next moment you're in a dream... if you could map where the mind goes, each step of the way, it would be fascinating.
**ETA something for the asterisks to refer to. Originally I was going to tell another tangential story, but... I get tired of the sound of my own voice, even just in print.
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Chibi Omar Sharif! Your children rock.
That's a marvelous image and analysis--I'll show the girls; I bet they'll agree.
I think it's substantiable, too. David Lean doesn't strike me as the kind of director who would just leave symbols lying around where anyone could bark their shins on them.
I've actually hallucinated a little when extremely sleepy (very, very dull hallucinations, but in dangerous circumstances, such that I vowed never again to be so sleepy in those circumstances again)
Mostly I just get visual disturbances; almost never noises that I'm not aware are hallucinations, so maybe they don't count.
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Brilliant! Chibi Sharif and O'Toole! You're lucky to have such charming childer.
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Lawrence of Arabia was a real hit with all of us.
Cool. I'm a little less worried about the younger generation. ;-)
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Yes. I realized that it was almost certainly my introduction to Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quinn, and (unless I had already seen Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) by that point in high school) Alec Guinness. Not a bad place to start.
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How to you pronounce 'photogeny', though? To rhyme with misogyny? Or like something that might grant wishes if you rub its Box Brownie? Neither seems quite right, but I prefer the second.
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Thank you! You have a good face yourself.
Neither seems quite right, but I prefer the second.
Yeah. Hm. I say we reduce it back to Greek—φωτογένεια—and sidestep the problem entirely.
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But which pronunciation will we use for the Greek? Modern Greek, reconstructed ancient Attic, or the English one where it's sort of like public school Latin?
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You are already invited. But I expect to see you before then!