Finish Reading
Smiley's People, John le Carre
Mansfield Park, Jane Austen
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon

Read
Freddy and Fredericka, Mark Helprin
The Hunter's duology, Michelle West
The Terminal Spy, Alan S. Cowell [zomg nonfiction!]
A Soldier of the Great War, Mark Helprin
Shadowplay, Tad Williams
Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad
Fortune's Fool, Mercedes Lackey
The Snow Queen, Mercedes Lackey
The Redemption of Althalus, David & Leigh Eddings
Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes
The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Wind, Fuyumi Ono
That collection of five novels by Dashiell Hammett (Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, The Maltese Falcon, The Glass Key, The Thin Man)
The Cabala, Thornton Wilder
A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
I, Claudius, Robert Graves
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller Jr.
The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
The Westmark trilogy, Lloyd Alexander
Enchantress from the Stars, Sylvia Engdahl
The Snow Queen, Joan D. Vinge
China Men, Maxine Hong Kingston
Into the Dark Lands, Michelle Sagara West
Lisey's Story, Stephen King
Lords and Ladies, Terry Pratchett

Acquire then Read
The Yiddish Policeman's Union, Michael Chabon
Atonement, Ian McEwan
The rest of the Sundered series, Michelle Sagara West
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
The Man who was Thursday, G. K. Chesterton
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Persuasion, Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Your Face Tomorrow, Javier Marias
The Inspector Lynley series, Elizabeth George
Everything Mark Helprin has ever written that I don't already own


This is, naturally, going to be edited as we go along.

Stolen from levade! I like this version.

Pick one of my rp characters and I will tell you...

( Questions and character list )

Meme time!

Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!", and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your journal, and explain what they mean to you.

( Two sets of responses here )

So.

This occurred to me while listening to the soundclips of that press conference today.

Just what is Sarah Palin on?

Sounds a little like she's on speed or something.

If I were to recommend one series to people who believe they can't like manga and anime to change their minds, it would not be what most of you probably think. It would not be Haibane-Renmei. It would not be Mushishi (that'd be my second choice). It would not be Stand Alone Complex. It would not be Princess Tutu. It would not be Mononoke.

No, it would be Urasawa Naoki's Monster.

Which I've been on a massive kick for recently. And I realized how negligent I've been in promoting it. That changes now.

Monster, for those of you who don't know, is the ultimate exercise in "no good deed goes unpunished." In 1986, in Dusseldorf, the brilliant young Japanese surgeon Tenma decides to defy hospital politics and be an ethical doctor, saving the life of a young boy named Johan who'd been shot. Big mistake. Soon, several of his superiors are mysteriously dead. Tenma is suspected, but there's no definitive evidence. Nine years later, the Iron Curtain is no more, and Tenma is happy in his job. But people are mysteriously dying all over Germany. And soon a patient of Tenma's ends up dead too. That's not so mysterious to Tenma. After all, Johan shot that patient right in front of him.

What ensues is an epic, somewhat Hitchcockian plot involving a doctor on the run and determined to stop a serial killer, the serial killer's twin sister who is also determined to stop him, a brilliant but misguided detective, a bitter drunken ex, a villain who will creep you out like no one else, the abuses performed by eastern European communist regimes, the social divisions in Germany, and so much more.

And if that alone isn't enough to sell you-( allow me to fangirl. )

I believe that if it was handled right, a good dub of Monster could succeed on an American network in prime time, up against the crime shows, ect. It is that good.

And it's all up on Onemanga. (Though I naturally strongly encourage buying the official release, because Urasawa cannot be compensated enough.)

You can find a lot, maybe all, of the anime on Youtube, too. Just search for "Monster episode [number]." Here's the opening and first ending.
...And because I can...the opening in lego.

I haven't been around. At all. I apologize for this. I don't really have a decent reason. Just, you know...life and being lazy.

I'm alone in the house right now. My parents are off attending a relative's wedding, and won't be back until very late Monday. I'm here on the off chance that I get a call for a job interview. Which is slightly possible, since I have connections at the last place I applied to. Other than that, I've been hanging out with karakael and aubergine_pilot, doing yardwork, making actual healthy dinners, organizing things, figuring out more details about my next school year, discovering that I can still draw, and trying not to loose flexibility. All very boring. But I do like having the house to myself. I can really blare NPR while I do the dishes. ...I'm so lame.

I have also been in an odd state of mind due to combining very heavy reading materials that somehow amplify each other nicely. Yes, you will be subject to thoughts on that soon.

So, how are all of you?

An elderly gunman opened fire with a rifle inside the crowded U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday, gravely wounding a security guard before being shot.

Today was going alright until I saw this.

Or: Seinen Does It Better

I have recently read the first volume of excellent official Astro Boy fanfiction, a volume of a thriller which is mysterious and awesome, and, most importantly, THE VOLUME OF MUSHISHI WHERE TANYUU TURNS UP AGAIN.

Yeah, I've been waiting for that last one for over six months. I am VERY HAPPY to have it.


( Mushishi volume 7 )

( Urasawa Naoki - Pluto and 20th Century Boys )

So there you have it. Seinen doing it better.

Just so you know- if I am completely ignoring you this week and weekend, it's nothing personal, it's just that I'm busy panicking over and writing papers. And trying to get a job. And maybe figure out housing. And stuff with China. Yeah.


...And because I feel like sharing this...

Things you do not want to see 30 seconds after putting away the first volume of 20th Century Boys: the headline on Yahoo! "Did Conan date a 'Friend'?"

Of course, it was talking about the sitcom Friends, not "Friend" in the 20th Century Boys sense. Still very creepy! Especially when it is rather late because you stayed up too late reading said volume of 20th Century Boys, because you kept going "just one more chapter!" until you reached the end. Mind you, I've never had much patience for Friends, viewing it with a creepy overtone in mind could greatly improve my ability to put up with it...

Focusing.
I can't seem to do it.
So here's a poll on an extremely important subject that's been nagging at me. Namely, what should my epic rereading project for the summer be?

Poll #1407457 REREADING FOR GREAT JUSTICE!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

What should Orlando re-read this summer?

HEY dreamoflight, I HOPE YOU'RE HAVING AN AWESOME BIRTHDAY~! ♥


And now, questions from babilu. Actually answered fairly promptly, which is shocking.

1. What kind of roles did you pick (or were given) in your acting classes?

Hmm, thinking back on it, darkly comic or dramatic. There was this one scene we did where I played a hilariously creepy evangelist woman (I wish I could find that thing, I wouldn't have thrown it out...). And one other person and I did a scene from Arthur Miller's Playing for Time once (orchestra in a Nazi concentration camp. very serious stuff.).

Also, for years I used Lyra's epic lie about her father and the Turk from The Golden Compass as an audition piece ("it took him five whole minutes to die"). Really. People loved that thing.

2. Is there a particular pet you have always wanted?

I am actually very fond of cats, and have always kind of wanted one! I catsat for a neighbor one summer. But my mom's allergic. Also, I am lazy and do not entirely trust myself.

3. What is one song that will get you singing and dancing (no matter what)?

Adding the dancing bit narrows the range of songs quite a bit. ...Oddly enough, a number of the songs that qualify for this are from the Stand Alone Complex soundtrack (Yoko Kanno, I am powerless against you ♥). But the most recent addition would be "The Bomb," by Bitter:Sweet. It's fun.

4. ARE YOU A STAR TREK FAN?

I have very fond childhood memories of The Next Generation! I also have memories of being scarred as a small child by The Next Generation (I did not take my first exposure to character death well). I quite like the bits of Next Gen and Voyager that I've seen over the past few years thanks to karakael, but I'm not really a fan. That would require me giving it much more attention than I do.

Mind you, I have every intention of catching that movie while it's in theatres.

5. I know you read, but do you write outside of RP?

I used to write. A lot, actually. I've got some awful short stories lurking in some places and a few halfway-decent poems. Many of my creative sides slowed down or got cut out completely when I hit college, and writing for myself (other than rp or rp related) was one of them. I really want to fix this, it's one of my many Summer Goals. Right now I'm most intent on actually scripting out an idea I have for a graphic novel retelling of "The Snow Queen." ....Though if I actually can make myself buckle down and do the metric ton of Middle East research I'd need, I've been strongly drawn to the idea of making a novel about the assassination of Rafik Hariri (or a fictionalized version of him) for quite a while now.

There are also a number of fantasy book ideas I've never moved past the basic concept stage. ...With the exception of that series I came up with in 3rd or 4th grade which became pretty detailed but would need massive retooling in order to be remotely readable. Though I would like to salvage it, mainly on account of worldbuilding and side characters that got added on later (my fantasy world is going to have countries with paper currency and central banks, take that gold coins!). ...Come to think of it, just making a trilogy or something about one of the supporting characters would probably be a much better idea...

...Er, so the answer is "not at the moment." But I do tl;dr.


If anyone wants questions, tell me so in a comment!

And now, in honor of the Glorious 25th of May, a message from your local Vimes fangirl.

( They rise heads up, heads up, heads up, they rise heads up heads up high )

Random thoughts on reading bits of Grimm at night while tired.

1) The anti-semitism, it buuurns.

2) There is actually a story in there the moral of which is "Do not beat your wife, even if you have verbal trickery skills, you will not get away with it."

3) Why tailors? What significance (or lack thereof) did they have in the social hierarchy of the time?

4) Dammit, I want to do a retelling of "Fitcher's Bird." I don't know how, but I do. I love that story. (Partly because we had this cool version with photographic illustrations when I was a kid, and I remember how it freaked me the hell out. I should see if we still have that...)

5) I could swear I read a version of "King Thrushbeard" where he turned her away at the end. I think I like it better that way. Must look into that, wiki says nothing.

First off-
HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY TO proud_illusion AND magicdragonomg!
( Also, I am pretty sure I missed someone's birthday the week before last, I am sorry. ): )


Anyway, I figured it was time to post the full results for the IMDB keyword meme. There was only one movie that wasn't guessed! You lot are educated~ ♥ ...Or I just made it too easy. :P

( I should have done 25, really. )

1 movie left to guess on the IMDB keyword meme.

On the technology front, is anyone else on my f-list a mac user? I find myself desirous of an m4a to mp3 converter that'll work on a mac.


But what I really wanted to do was give in and make a completely useless post that I've been wanting to do for a little while now. You have now been warned of the (lack of) content that lurks behind the cut.

( In which Orlando babbles about the Bourne movies. Yes, again. And for longer than even she initially thought she would. )

Welcome new people! ♥

I...had a bunch of things to blather on about, from dance to anime recommendations (those will come in the near future). But Russian homework has killed a surprising amount of brain. Also that Chinese Culture midterm I have tomorrow. And needing food probably doesn't help.

Anyway, let us celebrate movies instead! With a meme stolen from haleysings.

IMDB keyword meme

1. Go to IMDB.com and look up twenty twenty-two of your favorite movies.
2. Post four official IMDB "Plot Keywords" for each.
3. Have your friends guess the movies! No Googling!

( IMDB keywords can be hilarious )

Happy Birthday, psi_yamaneko~!

And may there be many more years of your awesomeness!

First, a note that is completely unrelated to the rest of this post. Putting pecans into cheesecake is a brilliant idea. Especially when cinnamon is also involved.

But now! Onto and extremely overdue round of "Orlando inflicts you with her increasing levels of film geekness."

( Duplicity, Breach, and Good Will Hunting )