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lc1999
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Name: L
Location: San Francisco, California, United States
Interests: enjoying life
Expertise: procrastination, self denial, potions... uh, i mean... chemistry.
Occupation: Research and development
Message: message me
Member Since:
7/29/2003
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| it brings a whiff of nostalgia when i see my old CDs labeled "made in West Germany", and mom's vintage coat "made in British Hong Kong".
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| i need to remind myself how much stuff i bought in the crazy sales since thanksgiving.
bought for myself:
- 2 slip dresses
- 1 heather grey cashmere blend wool knit dress
- 1 charcoal herringbone blazer, light weight
- 1 brown herringbone blazer, winter weight
- 1 red merino wool cardigan, thigh length
- 1 green cashmere hoodie
- 1 almost-black cashmere turtleneck
- 1 intensely black merino wool sleeveless shell
- 2 button-up shirts (blue stripes and blue)
- 1 pair of grey herringbone (again!) trousers
- 1 pair of plain black trousers
- 1 pair of brown wool leggings
- 1 mini-trench coat in checks
- 1 brown cross-body bag
- 1 pair of sunglasses
- 1 hair band
bought for others:
- 3 hats (one leather newsboy cap, one wool, one broad brim sunhat)
- 1 merino wool cardigan
- 1 pair of jeans
- 1 pair of gold earrings
- 1 pair of gloves
- 2 shirts
- 1 wallet
excavated from mom's closet:
- 1 vintage leather purse
- 1 vintage navy blue raincoat
what i've bought here is probably the size of someone else's whole winter wardrobe. stop shopping, LC, stop.
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| LC was reading on binge in the last 3 weeks. (also watching movies on binge) all the plots and characters weave in my head. instead of writing an entry for each, i'll mix it allll up. you'll find my thoughts pretty confusing if you don't know where the inspirations come from.
the books are:
the Twilight series (all 4 books), by Stephenie Meyer
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey
After Dark, by Haruki Murakami
Reaper Man, by Terry Pratchett
the movies are:
Slumdog Millionaire (Indian movie)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (adapted from book, with Jack Nicholson)
Some Like it Hot (with Marilyn Monroe)
why doesn't Bella find it creepy to have Edward watching her sleep? it was super creepy to have the Man With No Face watching Eri sleep. Man With No Face was not even a predator. true, he sucked Eri into the TV, but with Murakami's surreal "point of view", who knew if it's not Eri's dream? funny how Murakami could be brutally blunt about the pain of reality, of loneliness and isolation, of sacrifice for a dream, yet he keeps the dreamly quality. i try to understand this--- his prose is as succint and straight forward as a Hemingway, but the effect is as surreal as Chief Bromden's hallucinations. Kesey has the lovely steam-of-thought style for the Chief. of course, the Chief is cuckoo, but that's what makes the book is so magical. the Chief sees not how things appear, but the metaphysical projection of their true nature. he sees the Big Nurse morphing into a monster because that's what she is. he sees McMurphy has a giant because he talks big and walks even bigger. i know there's no way all of these images can translate to a movie, especially when the Chief really lose grip with reality. but given my low expectation, the movie still sucks. i really hate how movies reduce juicy characters into 2-D cardboards. i'm complaining about Harding in this case. the book gives me an image of the husband in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"---he and his wife make 1 fine couple locked in a self-destructing relationship. he might be closet gay (only hinted, no proof), but he has a firm grip of reality and all the subtext. Cuckoo's Nest shows real, believable, human relationships, because they have believable, human characters. in this regard, Twilight underdelievers. why, everyone lives so single-mindly, they have no inner turmoil, no deep dark secret, no regret/consequences to live through. where are the "flash and blood" kind of characters that i can sink my teeth in? Twilight is a page-turner, i'll give it that. but aside from (predictable) plot, it has little to offer. and you know LC loves character development. Jacob had his moment of moral ambiguity (which LC likes), and i'm a big sucker for character in unrequited love. but this Jacob's conflict is shallow comparing to the Jacob in "the Sun Also Rises". maybe it's unfair to compare Meyer with Hemingway, i can't help but recall another Jacob that is burly and loves a girl who loves a guy who can't love her back. too much parallele, you see.
anyway, Twilight's writing is sloppy----if i were the editor, i would chop off 30% of the adverbs (preferably stuff them down the author's throat) and rewrite all her run-ons with unnecessary clauses.
but i was resolved, i figured it was a fantasy story in more ways than vampires and werewolfs. why would it matter if they deviate from reality a little further while they're already off course, you know?
1) Bella's room faces west. it was stated in like, chapter 1. and twice! not once, but twice! in later chapters, the author mentioned sunrise and the morning light shining in her room. WTF? is Bella living on another planet? as far as i know, planet Earth rotates the other way. how can her editors not catch that?
2) Edward was 17 in the year 1918. the year WW1 ends, no? it's unclear whether he undied before or after November 11, but i thought the general public was disillusioned and f-ing tired of the war at that time. so how could Edward be misguided to yearn for the "glory of war"? it's one thing to be patriotic, but it's quite another to enlist for a reason no one else believe in.
3) Rosalie was turned in 1933. the year prohibition ends. Stephenie Meyer likes to pick these historically tricky year, you see. depending which state she lived (and undied) in, and the time of year, prohibition might or might not be appealed. her being beaten to half death by a drunkard might still be plausible, but it's fishy how Meyer never mentions the prohibition, she even suggests that they publically drink for quite a while. but i have a bone to pick: Rosalie grows up in a bank clerk family. it was "stable" middle class, better off than a lot of people, she said. oh yes, i betcha having any job at all would be better than 25% of the people during great depression. but stable bank jobs survived the market crash? her dad never worried a thing? that, i really doubt.
4) Carlisle hunted vampires in the underground sewage in 1600s London, you say? i'm pretty sure the underground sewage was not installed until at least a century later.
since this book is marketed to teens, the author and editor should be more vigorous in fact checking. they should make sure they're not putting misinformation onto the youngster's blank slate.
alright, let's not turn this into a rant of Twilight. LC need to restore her faith in best sellers, so she read Reaper Man. it's always a delight to read Pratchett. this is a man who really knows satire and irony. this book has as many undead walking around as Twilight. everything is so different under his pen---he'd never call the same thing as we call it on Earth, for one thing, but you always know what exactly he's making a satire of. it was hilarious to see all the ferocious wolfman, vampire, zombie and wizard alike being appalled by a mall escalator. Pratchett always gives you something familiar, and then lead you to see it in a new light. i suppose the Chief's narration achieves the same effect. the Chief retells the story in a metaphorical sense; Pratchett tells it in a metaphysical sense.
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the entry is threatening to be too long, and i still haven't talked about Slumdog Millionaire....
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| is it possible to see someone so much, one feels sick of that person?
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| it wasn't my intention to abandon xanga. somehow it just happened. life so far.... well, it's too complicated to blog the last few months in one entry. let's just say my life in the past half week is very "pushing daisy". i don't know what to make of it now. have been doing quite a bit of introspection yesterday. i should stop now.
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it might be easier to get over if i can put it into 1 coherent theory. but, alas, too much is unknown. i can't plan or prepare for anything. and this is exactly what makes me nervous-----the totally lack of control. maybe it takes time to digest; maybe i'm just being a control freak; maybe i have too much free time on my hand. wish i can say more, but truth is: i don't know what are facts and what is just my fancy. i'll just go distract myself with a book instead.
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