Author: Teel

Author, artist, romantic, insomniac, exorcist, creative visionary, lover, and all-around-crazy-person.

What a strange dream

There’s something strange when I’m even late for movies in my dreams. For some reason last night/this morning I found myself dreaming of going to the movies. Except I was going to see Equilibrium again. Except I knew it should have been long out of theatres, and didn’t do particularly well when it was in theatres. And I was late, and things kept getting in my way but then … not, like, there were huge lines of people at the box office, but then I noticed a special line for people who wanted to see Equilibrium. And then the young woman taking tickets stopped me and I had been in such a hurry at the box office that I must have put the ticket someplace in my wallet… but couldn’t find it… but she knew me really well from having been to the theatre so many times and let me by after just a bit. It was weird.

I mean, I really liked that movie and would like to own it on DVD someday, but … what was that about? Was it about the trouble I had seeing movies on Monday night? Was it about overcoming superficial obstacles to get to the things in life I really enjoy? And what’s the deal with meeting a great person who lives in Canada? I’m nowhere near Canada. Gha.

Japanese

I should probably be sleeping now, but I feel like posting something so you don’t all think I’ve fallen off the edge of the world. I’m still in Phoenix, but I’ll be going home tomorrow (Wednesday). Everyone else in this house has been asleep for hours. I haven’t checked my email since Monday morning. Shouldn’t be too bad, but here’s your explanation for my not responding. Anyway, a post.

I’ve begun learning Japanese again. My younger brother Heath will be trying to learn along with me, so that should help. I have some basic software and some basic books, but I’ve recently added a whole slew of books for learning Japanese on my Amazon.com wishlist. Except I added them in the order I need to get them to learn in, so they’re on my list backwards now.

(* Dangit. One of the cats here is walking around with a dead mouse or something dead like a mouse in its mouth, making noise. I don’t know what to do about that, exactly. I don’t know what the protocols are here for dead mouse disposal. Or even how to get it out of the cat’s mouth so she doesn’t try to take it to someone who’s sleeping. … Yargh. Now that I’ve tried to take the mouse from the cat, I see it isn’t quite dead yet. Graarghh. What’s the procedure for that here? … Okay, now she’s played with it to death, but continues playing with it as though it were tying to get away by tossing it away from her then running after it. What a silly animal. I guess dead mice are just as much fun as living ones for this cat. *)

Anyway, I’ve learned the Hiragana and I’m about to start on the Katakana, but I need to get some books on the Kanji. I have a Japanese 101 book and that basic software to get me started on actually recognizing some words and being able to speak them and put together sentences, but I’d also like to be able to read and write in Japanese, and to do so at intermediate and advanced levels. That could be a long time coming, depending on how much time I can devote to it, but unless my art starts selling or I figure out some other way to earn money, I don’t know how I could afford to buy the books I need.

Maybe I’m looking at it wrong, though. Each book (for most of them) isn’t too much money, and will take me a while to get through thoroughly, and could then be shared (for most books) with my brother. So maybe I’ll be able to afford it slowly. It’s only so much money when I add it all together. Much cheaper than paying for classes. Probably when I feel more confident with my progress I’ll order a japanese keyboard for my Mac and start a Japanese blog. Figure out how to program web pages in Japanese. That will certainly be a valuable skill. You know, since I never want to do Web Design ‘professionally’.

I’m going to bed. Or… well, the cat has stopped playing with the mouse. Actually, I can’t see where it left the mouse, the cat is just harrassing me now. I’m going to try to find and dispose of the mouse and then go to sleep. Grr. Arg.

Call for AOL CDs

Don’t throw those annoying AOL CDs out! Save them for me! I’ve just begun collecting AOL CDs for an art project I’d like to do as soon as possible…. and I need something between 1000 and 1200 AOL CDs. Earthlink CDs and other annoying ad CDs are no good. Just AOL CDs. My dad had ~150 of them for me, and that’s a good start, but let me know if you can find more.

Thanks!

SF Book list going around/virtual book club

So, I guess this book list has been going around, but … well. The Science Fiction Book Club has released their list of The Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years, 1953-2002. I was going to ignore it, but … well… I was looking at it and I’m not sure what tools they used to determine which books were “significant”. Since I haven’t even heard of most of them. Here’s a chart:

Note: Potentially interesting continuation below.

1 = Heard of the author
2 = Heard of the book
3 = Started reading it
4 = Finished reading it
5 = I own it
6 = I liked it (if finished)

1 2 3 4 5 6 Title, Author
1 2 3 5 The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
1 2 The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
1 2 3 4 5 6 Dune, Frank Herbert
1 2 3 Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
1 2 3 4 5 6 Neuromancer, William Gibson
1 Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
1 2 3 5 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
1 2 Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
1 The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
Cities in Flight, James Blish
1 2 5 The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
1 Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
1 Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
1 Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
1 2 Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
1 Gateway, Frederik Pohl
1 2 3 4 5 6 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling
1 2 3 4 5 6 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
1 2 3 4 Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
Little, Big, John Crowley
1 Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
1 The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
1 More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
On the Beach, Nevil Shute
1 Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
1 2 3 4 6 Ringworld, Larry Niven
Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
1 2 The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
1 2 3 4 6 Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
1 2 3 4 5 6 Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
1 2 Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
1 Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
1 The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Timescape, Gregory Benford
1 2 To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

Okay, so what this says is what? I know I’m not very well read, but I was pretty sure I had a good grasp on ‘significant’ authors, at least, especially in the genre of books of which I have read the most. Maybe it says their list isn’t as good as it is meant to be. Maybe I just need to get through these books on my own before I say whether these books are ‘significant’ or not. Except… not ever even having heard of most of them OR many of the men who wrote them, I’m not sure how feasible that is.

If you have a copy of any of these books you’d lend me (I am very good with borrowed books, generally. Zoe once commented something to the effect that I am ‘the only person [he] knows that returns books in better condition than they were lent in,’ thought I expect he must be exaggerating.) I would be glad to read them. My lifestyle here in Pine calls for not less than three days a week (soon five) with nearly full days that can be spent reading. I was going to practice languages and then start going through my standing collection of books (and will likely move books from this list to the top of ‘the stack’), but if I could get access to the rest of these books, that would be a good thing. Maybe we could make a virtual book club out of this list.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to arrange a virtual book club anyway. I was thinking we could have a book selected to be read by a particular date and then get several people together at a pre-determined time in an IM conversation to discuss the book. Then post the log of the discussion in Reviews or a new section on Modern Evil. This could be done even if a few people were passing around a couple copies of the book if there’s enough lag before the discussion. I’m guessing Zoe would be up for it, anyone else want to throw their hat in the ring?