Do you like what you're doing? Or is it that you can do nothing else?
What actually happened last night was I watched the first two-thirds of a serial of Sapphire & Steel and then did my damnedest to pass out, failed, watched the sun come up, and finally managed to fall asleep sometime after the twenty-four-hour mark. I have spent most of my day not on the internet, doing laundry, cleaning things, baking an angelfood cake with whipped cream and lemon curd. (It's for a friend of the family with a birthday tomorrow.) I have a doctor's appointment I'm not looking forward to. I should do actual work somewhere in here.
1. Talking about politics in the previous post, I realized that my original model for being catapulted unprepared into high office is not the Emperor Claudius or even George VI, but Kaliko, the Royal Chamberlain of the Nome King Ruggedo in L. Frank Baum's Tik-Tok of Oz (1914). It was my favorite Oz book when I was in elementary school and Kaliko was my favorite character in it. In hindsight he's kind of a shoo-in: kindhearted, harassed, hates his job. He spends most of his days managing his short-tempered king's bad life decisions (and dodging the heavy objects that get thrown at him in the process; Ruggedo also threatens at one point to turn him into a potato and make Saratoga chips out of him) and his nights writing himself wistful letters of recommendation against the day when he can look for work in a less hazardous household. He hides the heroine in his own room when Ruggedo has an army of nomes out looking for her and is rewarded with a kingdom for his kindness: asked point-blank by a dragon (it's a long story; there are fairy politics involved) if he thinks he could do a better job of ruling than Ruggedo, Kaliko is so surprised that all he can stammer is, "Well, I couldn't be a worse King, I'm sure." He's certainly pretty decent for the rest of the book.
(He later returns as the villain in Rinkitink in Oz (1916), which struck me as so out of character at the time that I decided the book was, although I didn't have the word for it then, non-canonical. I felt vindicated to learn as an adult that Baum had originally written Rinkitink with Roquat/Ruggedo as the antagonist, shelved it for a decade, and then reworked it into current Oz continuity without changing anything about the Nome King except his name, with the unfortunate side effect of character assassination. I much prefer Kaliko in the short story "Tiktok and the Nome King" (1913), where he's still Ruggedo's Chamberlain and uses his surprisingly badass robotics skills to rebuild the thinking metal man after Ruggedo has smashed him in a fit of temper. Apparently I am not alone; I did not expect to find fanart of Kaliko on the internet, but I'm not complaining.)
2. I did that angel name meme. Due to the way my name is constructed, "Taoafiel" is somehow not as ineffable as I think it's supposed to look. I've practically heard telemarketers pronounce it.
3.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch: "In other news, Mayor Joe just favorited a thing I retweeted where a proud Londoner invited Trump to fuck himself."
Me: BRAVO TO ALL CONCERNED.
1. Talking about politics in the previous post, I realized that my original model for being catapulted unprepared into high office is not the Emperor Claudius or even George VI, but Kaliko, the Royal Chamberlain of the Nome King Ruggedo in L. Frank Baum's Tik-Tok of Oz (1914). It was my favorite Oz book when I was in elementary school and Kaliko was my favorite character in it. In hindsight he's kind of a shoo-in: kindhearted, harassed, hates his job. He spends most of his days managing his short-tempered king's bad life decisions (and dodging the heavy objects that get thrown at him in the process; Ruggedo also threatens at one point to turn him into a potato and make Saratoga chips out of him) and his nights writing himself wistful letters of recommendation against the day when he can look for work in a less hazardous household. He hides the heroine in his own room when Ruggedo has an army of nomes out looking for her and is rewarded with a kingdom for his kindness: asked point-blank by a dragon (it's a long story; there are fairy politics involved) if he thinks he could do a better job of ruling than Ruggedo, Kaliko is so surprised that all he can stammer is, "Well, I couldn't be a worse King, I'm sure." He's certainly pretty decent for the rest of the book.
(He later returns as the villain in Rinkitink in Oz (1916), which struck me as so out of character at the time that I decided the book was, although I didn't have the word for it then, non-canonical. I felt vindicated to learn as an adult that Baum had originally written Rinkitink with Roquat/Ruggedo as the antagonist, shelved it for a decade, and then reworked it into current Oz continuity without changing anything about the Nome King except his name, with the unfortunate side effect of character assassination. I much prefer Kaliko in the short story "Tiktok and the Nome King" (1913), where he's still Ruggedo's Chamberlain and uses his surprisingly badass robotics skills to rebuild the thinking metal man after Ruggedo has smashed him in a fit of temper. Apparently I am not alone; I did not expect to find fanart of Kaliko on the internet, but I'm not complaining.)
2. I did that angel name meme. Due to the way my name is constructed, "Taoafiel" is somehow not as ineffable as I think it's supposed to look. I've practically heard telemarketers pronounce it.
3.
spatch: "In other news, Mayor Joe just favorited a thing I retweeted where a proud Londoner invited Trump to fuck himself."Me: BRAVO TO ALL CONCERNED.
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Nine
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It's the facial expressions and the hair.
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"Foosxiel" does have a nice ring to it. Very Biblical.
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Angel of transgender dapperness, now and at the hour of looking for the right hat, pray for us.
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ETA: Tweet by @GlennF "Donald Trump is a demon who feeds off sleep disruption. Everything else is incidental."
Angel name? Gialniel. Which sounds more like Tolkien on a bad day.
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Bleh. I hope you can get better sleep tonight.
ETA: Tweet by @GlennF "Donald Trump is a demon who feeds off sleep disruption. Everything else is incidental."
Well, that's horribly plausible.
Angel name? Gialniel. Which sounds more like Tolkien on a bad day.
Or a digestive medication.
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I haven't re-read it since my childhood, I felt so burned by it. I suppose I could give it a try, carefully thinking of it as something completely different.
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Ruggedo's a charmer isn't he? Hats off to Mr Townsend!
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It is definitely not the worst thing that has happened with that meme. [edit] Evidence elsewhere in comments!
Hats off to Mr Townsend!
In case you hadn't seen this, either, I like the idea of London's Mayor as Superman.
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*I like the idea of London's Mayor as Superman.*
HAHAHAHAHA. That's great!
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My angel name comes out Foartiel, which sounds noisomely close to fartiel, so I think I'll pass. Taoafiel at least looks vaguely Maori. .... Except for the -fiel part.
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I keep forgetting that the internet, along with all the horrors making the news lately, is also populated by other people with weird favorite characters. That part I appreciate.
(How did Ruggedo go bad again after drinking from the oblivion fountain after his invasion?)
You know, I am honestly not sure Baum ever explains it.
My angel name comes out Foartiel, which sounds noisomely close to fartiel, so I think I'll pass.
Yikes. Good call.
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*toasts you*
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That's pretty great! [edit] Seriously, at least in comments here, you and
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And then there was nothing else in the post about it! That's just too cruel. ;-D I am all agog to know now. Was it A2? (It is long and slow but excellent.)
My angel name would be Jeiitiel or Jeivtiel, depending which parent's first name I used (I don't have a middle name). I think I prefer the first. (I'm just wondering about Scottish (& Irish) people who are highly likely to end up, by those rules with, Mc[whatever]iel which is a pretty entertaining thought.)
(I'm pretty sure I read Tik-Tok of Oz, although we didn't have many of the later ones in my library, but it was too long ago to remember a thing. I liked the art, and the tale of the unfortunate, accidental character assassination.)
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It was Assignment 2. I finished it with
My angel name would be Jeiitiel or Jeivtiel, depending which parent's first name I used (I don't have a middle name). I think I prefer the first.
It has a good rhythm.
(I'm pretty sure I read Tik-Tok of Oz, although we didn't have many of the later ones in my library, but it was too long ago to remember a thing. I liked the art, and the tale of the unfortunate, accidental character assassination.)
I had a childhood library with almost the full complement of Baum and Thompson, which I'm not sure I really differentiated as a child, although I knew that I liked some better than others and some of the things I can remember about both series are just bizarre.
I should really look for fanart of obscure favorite characters more often. The internet contains multitudes.
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Oh, lovely. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I rewatch 3 and 6 the most, because of Silver, but A2 is wonderful and chilling. (I think it's fair to say that the heights are reached by the even numbered assignments! A1 is good, but handicapped by the obvious children's TV trappings that it hasn't yet shaken off; & though I liked A3 a lot and not just because of Silver - I think it really works for the series to have one threat that comes from a different direction - it is very beige and odd, and the message is *cough* not subtle in some places! And A5 is... well, it's not written by PJ Hammond, which is very noticeable, but you'll see what you make of that when you get there.)
I would have imprinted hard on this show if I had seen it at a formative age. It's doing a pretty good job on me anyway.
*nods* It genuinely isn't like anything else, I think.
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I have not yet gotten to the second half of the series, but my first impressions (beyond THIS TV IS THE BEST TV) are up.
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"I'm not a cab driver, I'm a coffee pot!"
(Condolences?)
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this is the sort of thing that leads to a desire for the one ring, dammit.
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I suggest commiserating with
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(are you on Tumblr?)
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That's not bad at all. These comments are starting to resemble that scene in Many Waters when the nephilim and the cherubim name themselves.
(are you on Tumblr?)
Not even slightly—like Twitter, it is a form of social media that I think would only consume my time in ways that are not helpful to me—but I read about half a dozen of them due to their belonging to friends and linking useful, beautiful, or fun stuff.
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I don't hate Tumblr, but it's not designed for conversation—which is to me the point of social media—and I know that the the process of discovering and sourcing and providing context for photos or images I liked would eat me alive and I just don't have the time. Twitter I think I feel actively antagonistic about. It's good for spreading news quickly, but not for nuance.
I'm hoping DW will make a comeback....
I would enjoy that.
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Seconded!
Well, except Trump, obviously.
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I feel that can go without saying!
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BRAVO TO ALL CONCERNED.
Bravo!
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I've re-read a few since, though not the majority; I retain a lot of fragmentary, striking images and some feelings about characters. I re-read Tik-Tok about ten years ago and had a kind of double-exposure experience in that the way I had construed the language almost thirty years ago was very different from the way it read to me as an adult, but I could still remember the older impressions as I went over the words again. I re-read Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz around the same time and holy blap is there nightmare fuel in that one.
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I read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) and The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904) first because we had them together in one volume in the house when I was growing up, I think with the original illustrations. Everything else I got out of the Cambridge Public Library, in very old hardcover editions with white-inked Dewey decimals on the spine. I can't remember if I read them in order. I expect I did to the best of my ability, because I have always cared about that sort of thing, but I mostly remember reading my way through the shelves until I ran out of books. It didn't seem strange to me that some were by Baum and some were by Thompson, even though I don't think now that I liked any of the Thompson as much as the Baum. [edit] I do remember noticing that she changed the spelling of "Nome." I thought that was Wrong.