(no subject)
May. 23rd, 2011 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greygirlbeastAnd the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they'd made.
And the sign flashed out it's warning,
In the words that it was forming...
---
I am so very not awake. Still, it would be a decent enough day to entertain comments, so please feel free. To comment. I'll be here all day. Anyway, I took all the proper pills, but was still awake until almost five ayem. Sometimes, the old neurochemistry insists on having it's way, pills or no. Which is actually oddly comforting. The triumph of Nature over Pharmacy, even if it's annoying Nature. Then again, if I lived a more natural life, in a more natural world, I might not be suckling at the teat of the Pharmacy.
Yesterday, I wrote 1,790 words on Chapter Two of Blood Oranges. Yesterday, someone asked me of the novel, "Is there any tongue-in-cheek left?" Thinking on that question, and having talked it over with Spooky, I think the answer is yes. But it's not really a spoof or a satire. It's simplest to point to Tarantino's films. Is Kill Bill a spoof or a satire? No, not really. It's keenly aware of the layers of homage within it, and it often pokes fun at itself and the source material. But it also has an undeniable reverence for and fascination with that source material. Ergo, more homage, less satire. This goes back to the danger of setting out to do...well, anything. I really do hate ParaRom (which, by the way, I'm told by reliable sources is quickly waning in sales and popularity). But I also really do love the sources it draws upon. Also, I can only manage comedy for short bursts. I could never write a book that's funny page-to-page. Blood Oranges is keenly aware of the layers of homage within it, and it often pokes fun at itself and the source material. It frequently rolls its eyes. I've never written anything so forthrightly concerned with pop culture (in this case, what pop culture would have us believe about monsters).
Sometimes, we set out to make fun of a thing, then discover it's not really worth making fun of...well, not at tiresome length. Comedy can quickly become dull. Instead, we discover this other thing that's a lot more interesting. The "werepire" novel began as a joke; any joke that tries to go on for a hundred thousand words is doomed from the start.
---
We have a new round of eBay auctions. And here were are, my 47th birthday imminent. I have a wishlist at Amazon, and yeah, it's a little late, but ain't nothin' wrong with late gifts, right?
Yesterday, I read "A partial skeleton of the Late Cretaceous lamniform shark, Archaeolamna kopingensis, the Pierre Shale of western Kansas, U.S.A," in the January JVP.
Last night, we watched David Slade's adaptation of 30 Days of Night again. And it's actually a much better film than I remembered it being. There are big problems (pacing, for example), but it still delivers, and few films in recent memory have had such memorable vampires. Alien, gleefully vicious, sexy despite their repulsiveness...all the things vampires ought to be.
And then we played Rift. And then we read Kathe Koja. Then...well, back where this entry began.
And that's my cue to get to work.
Blearily,
Aunt Beast
To the neon god they'd made.
And the sign flashed out it's warning,
In the words that it was forming...
---
I am so very not awake. Still, it would be a decent enough day to entertain comments, so please feel free. To comment. I'll be here all day. Anyway, I took all the proper pills, but was still awake until almost five ayem. Sometimes, the old neurochemistry insists on having it's way, pills or no. Which is actually oddly comforting. The triumph of Nature over Pharmacy, even if it's annoying Nature. Then again, if I lived a more natural life, in a more natural world, I might not be suckling at the teat of the Pharmacy.
Yesterday, I wrote 1,790 words on Chapter Two of Blood Oranges. Yesterday, someone asked me of the novel, "Is there any tongue-in-cheek left?" Thinking on that question, and having talked it over with Spooky, I think the answer is yes. But it's not really a spoof or a satire. It's simplest to point to Tarantino's films. Is Kill Bill a spoof or a satire? No, not really. It's keenly aware of the layers of homage within it, and it often pokes fun at itself and the source material. But it also has an undeniable reverence for and fascination with that source material. Ergo, more homage, less satire. This goes back to the danger of setting out to do...well, anything. I really do hate ParaRom (which, by the way, I'm told by reliable sources is quickly waning in sales and popularity). But I also really do love the sources it draws upon. Also, I can only manage comedy for short bursts. I could never write a book that's funny page-to-page. Blood Oranges is keenly aware of the layers of homage within it, and it often pokes fun at itself and the source material. It frequently rolls its eyes. I've never written anything so forthrightly concerned with pop culture (in this case, what pop culture would have us believe about monsters).
Sometimes, we set out to make fun of a thing, then discover it's not really worth making fun of...well, not at tiresome length. Comedy can quickly become dull. Instead, we discover this other thing that's a lot more interesting. The "werepire" novel began as a joke; any joke that tries to go on for a hundred thousand words is doomed from the start.
---
We have a new round of eBay auctions. And here were are, my 47th birthday imminent. I have a wishlist at Amazon, and yeah, it's a little late, but ain't nothin' wrong with late gifts, right?
Yesterday, I read "A partial skeleton of the Late Cretaceous lamniform shark, Archaeolamna kopingensis, the Pierre Shale of western Kansas, U.S.A," in the January JVP.
Last night, we watched David Slade's adaptation of 30 Days of Night again. And it's actually a much better film than I remembered it being. There are big problems (pacing, for example), but it still delivers, and few films in recent memory have had such memorable vampires. Alien, gleefully vicious, sexy despite their repulsiveness...all the things vampires ought to be.
And then we played Rift. And then we read Kathe Koja. Then...well, back where this entry began.
And that's my cue to get to work.
Blearily,
Aunt Beast
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first!?
Date: 2011-05-23 05:52 pm (UTC)Re: first!?
Date: 2011-05-23 05:59 pm (UTC)Para-rom? I have to look that up
ParaRom, a contraction of "Paranormal Romance," which I more usually refer to as PR.
(The red tree did that so well).
Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-23 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-23 06:01 pm (UTC)Plus a really wonderfully broken Renfield who I can only wish had had a bit more time
Agreed. In fact, I wish we could have had more time with the vampires. When they were allowed, almost, to become characters and not merely ravenous beasts, it was quite nice. That little exchange about God; brilliant.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-23 07:10 pm (UTC)there are days I swear my body is on a Mars day schedule rather than an Earth day schedule.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-23 07:25 pm (UTC)Dropped a package in the mail today. Something old to see (and an absolute favorite of mine), something wonderful to peruse, and something too-new-to-know-but-probably-awesome-also.
Which is actually oddly comforting.
One of the most spectacularly comforting things to me is the smell of an old 1950s-1960s vintage SF book that's been sitting on a library shelf for ages, turning that particular shade of tan and giving off that distinct waft of dying paper, curdling ink and fermenting ideas.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-23 07:46 pm (UTC)Dropped a package in the mail today. Something old to see (and an absolute favorite of mine), something wonderful to peruse, and something too-new-to-know-but-probably-awesome-also.
Thank you!
One of the most spectacularly comforting things to me is the smell of an old 1950s-1960s vintage SF book that's been sitting on a library shelf for ages, turning that particular shade of tan and giving off that distinct waft of dying paper, curdling ink and fermenting ideas.
I keep waiting for BPAL to bottle that smell.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-23 10:11 pm (UTC)I keep waiting for BPAL to bottle that smell.
I don't do scents, but I'd spring for a bottle of that. Some filter paper with a few drops on it, discreetly placed on a high bookshelf, would be wonderful. For you, perhaps a few drops on the pillow at night to ward off Old Man Insomnia?
no subject
Date: 2011-05-23 10:39 pm (UTC)True, but it's also quite likely you wouldn't be alive.
Glad to hear that Blood Oranges won't be entirely straight-faced, but you definitely have a good point about fatiguing the comedy factor in any parody.
It frequently rolls its eyes.
Dear god, I just had a premonition of the frothing that will ensue when some reviewer refers to the novel's "ironic" sense of humor (rather than sarcastic or laconic).
edited to fix these stupid italics.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-23 11:14 pm (UTC)True, but it's also quite likely you wouldn't be alive.
Touché.
Glad to hear that Blood Oranges won't be entirely straight-faced, but you definitely have a good point about fatiguing the comedy factor in any parody.
Thank you. I'll write more on this tomorrow.
Dear god, I just had a premonition of the frothing that will ensue when some reviewer refers to the novel's "ironic" sense of humor (rather than sarcastic or laconic).
*snerK
no subject
Date: 2011-05-24 03:19 am (UTC)(I remember a housemate who would rarely give a sincere answer to anything, unless he'd attempted a joke first. It got tiring. Then I found I actually couldn't trust him, and I moved out soon after, but that's its own story.)