Long Blog

Whoa.

Sat, 5 Jun 2010 14:59:17 -0400

I followed a link to this Charles Dickens site and immediately my eyes were assaulted by this ad.

First of all, eating with your hands is not romantic, especially if you are a vampire.

Secondly, Edward better not become the default vampire name.

Finally, I am really, really tempted to click the link.

Also, the page claims to be “dedicated to bringing the genius of Dickens to a new generation of readers.”

You better hurry, dude.

Memorial Day

Mon, 31 May 2010 17:39:24 -0400

The Sleeper in the Valley Arthur Rimbaud

It is a green hollow where a stream gurgles, Crazily catching silver rags of itself on the grasses; Where the sun shines from the proud mountain: It is a little valley bubbling over with light.
A young soldier, open-mouthed, bare-headed, With the nape of his neck bathed in cool blue cresses,  Sleeps; he is stretched out on the grass, under the sky, Pale on his green bed where the light falls like rain.
His feet in the yellow flags, he lies sleeping. Smiling as  A sick child might smile, he is having a nap: Cradle him warmly, Nature: he is cold.
No odour makes his nostrils quiver; He sleeps in the sun, his hand on his breast At peace. There are two red holes in his right side.

Person Simulators

Thu, 27 May 2010 23:21:08 -0400

“As social animals, we have a lot of specialized systems for modeling and anticipating the actions and beliefs of others. The ability to predict whether another human is likely to kill you or mate with you is pro-survival.

I think that when we experience stories, we spin up that "person-simulator" we use on real people and use it to render out the people in the story. It's how we come to care about them, to empathize with them, to worry about the danger they find themselves in and to cheer them on as they strive to overcome adversity.” -Cory Doctorow

I copied this from BoingBoing* last night. I had something totally interesting and worthwhile to say in response to it, which I have now mostly forgotten (it was at about 3 AM that I copied it). What I do remember is resolving to write a blog about said excerpt tomorrow (which is now today), so here we go.

(I should note that I’ve had several glasses of wine and also spent about five hours this afternoon making a jester’s bauble, which turned out awesome but involved a lot of hand sewing and a giant iced coffee.)

I’m pretty sure I was planning to say something about how my “person simulator” works as an actor, about how joking about things like what Horatio’s course schedule at Wittenburg was like, or whatever, is not just entertaining to me but sort of an integral part of my acting process. Which sounds rather annoyingly “Method” but is, in fact, rather the opposite. I’m not trying to think what the character thinks or feel what he/she feels but am basically of pretending that I’m doing a very detailed impression of someone who actually exists. Which somehow translates into helping me make more specific physical choices.

But that is much less interesting that what I was originally going to say about person simulators and acting, probably. Or else, I am really terrible at coming up with blog topics at 3 AM**.

Right now, the thing that strikes me most about the quote I quoted above is that “The ability to predict whether another human is likely to kill you or mate with you is pro-survival.”

Yes. It probably is.

But.

Now all I can think of is which of my friends/co-workers/acquaintances are likely to kill me and which are likely to fuck me. As though that is the entire spectrum of human interaction.

And that this is the reason I think evolutionary biology is mostly a total crock***. It’s like a collection of “Just-So Stories” for the worst parts of human behavior. Because it’s so much easier to cite “evolutionary imperative” as an explanation than to look at complicated social, cultural reasons why people do horrible things to each other.

Well.

I thought that I had more to say about that.

Have I mentioned that I have this recurring fear that, not only there will be a zombie uprising, but that it will occur and I will be the last to know? Like, I’ll just be going about my day, wondering why everyone has boarded up their windows and people are just wandering around in the street moaning****.

Okay, I give up.

*Why was I reading three-year-old Boing Boing articles? I’m glad you asked. So: I read something in defense fan fiction, which linked to a story about Steven Burst’s Firefly fan fiction (I quoted the introduction), and then I downloaded and read part of said fan fiction and was mildly unimpressed, but still went to Amazon and ordered used copies of some of his Vlad Taltos books that I haven’t read yet, since I remember really liking that series [end fascinating aside].

** Which seems impossible because I’m pretty sure that if midnight is the Witching Hour, three in the morning is the Blogging Hour.

***This is now a post about why I think evolutionary biology is a total crock. In case you’re having trouble keeping up.

****This is NOW a post about how I have nothing to write about, and also a sort of illustration about why I am on Tumblr so much these days... I seem to have a very little to say about a whole lot of stuff.

An Informative Chart

Mon, 3 May 2010 14:27:32 -0400

In case you were wondering what’s up with Girlish Whimsy.

(Seriously, though. Follow me on Tumblr).

Just Look at This

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:09:21 -0500

Just look!

I am a person of, let’s say, moderate attractiveness. People don’t fall into ecstatic swoons upon the sight of me, but neither do they turn aside and vomit.

Yet, based upon this image (a screen cap from Hulu), I am several orders of magnitude more attractive than the abomination on the right.

Guys, I have just come to the (dare I say?) revolutionary conclusion that teenage girls* may not have the best judgement.

*Not to neglect the poor judgement of teenage gay males.

Though I maintain that some day, R. Patt will coming screaming out of the closet, and on that day, those scattered, eye-liner wearing goth boys you see occasionally amongst the hordes of screaming girl-fans will be vindicated.

And I further predict that when that day comes, someone will write an extremely tiresome opinion piece explaining that the reason the romantic ideal of a generation of young women is a gay man is because The Feminists have ruined them on the red-blooded, monster-truck-driving American manly ideal and made want someone with “thoughts” and “feelings” (things only queers have), thus dooming them to life-long sexual frustration.

And, in bitching about said opinion piece, I will be forced to come to the reluctant defense of R. Patt and Twilight fandom in general.

And then I will probably implode.

THIS I PROPHECY.

It’s Official

Sun, 7 Mar 2010 22:42:05 -0500

WordPress and I are so over.

Update your RSSers, or whatever.

So, I hear the Oscars are going on tonight. I’m not watching them, because I don’t have a TV.

However, last year I did have a TV, on which I watched the Oscars. I had just started Girlish Whimsy, and it was one of the first things I wrote about.

One of the things I wrote was:

“Robert Pattinson is still playing that stupid vampire! Why’s he gotta leer at every body? Get a new facial expression, Edward!”

And that was the very first time I ever complained about R. Patt and/or Twilight. But it was not the last.

Happy Blogiversary

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:10:36 -0500

One year ago today* I started writing at girlishwhimsy.com. A little more than a month later, I moved my blog to Blogger, where it lived until, in the fall of 2009, comments inexplicably stopped working and I moved on to WordPress. WordPress was always a hassle to work with** but I stuck it out there for nearly five months.

Then I discovered the joys of Tumblr, which says “If regular blogs are journals, Tumblr blogs are scrapbooks.” Though I can’t deny the attraction online scrapbooking has for me,*** I don’t want to give up on the idea of keeping a long-form blog. So, one year later, I’ve come full circle and am going to give blogging here a try once again.

*Or tomorrow, or the next day
**See “Stereotypes for Users of 40 Websites” which lists “WordPress: Bloggers who’d rather be coding.” I would rather not be coding, mostly.
***Despite the fact that scrapbooking is lame

I Am Not Surprised...

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:56:13 -0500

…by this bit of tomfoolery from my former high school:

This is exactly the sort of personal attention ETHS students and alumni come to expect.

It does raise the question, however, if there is a 2001 grad who DID die and is listed as live and well. Or perhaps this is a warning to Maurice to watch out for falling pianos.

I’m not sure how I would feel if I were listed as dead in the alumni directory. Honestly, I’d probably think it was kind of awesome… and perhaps it would deter awkward Facebook overtures from people I’d rather forget.

New Art

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:57:38 -0500

The Vellum app for the iPhone is my newest favoritest thing.

Check out all the creativity it made happen.

Little
Characters

Nearest Book Meme; A Sad Attempt to Find Something to Write About

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:54:38 -0500

Rules: * Get the book nearest to you. Right now. * Go to page 56. * Find the 5th sentence. * Write this sentence . * Copy these instructions. * Don’t look for your favorite book or your coolest but really the nearest.

“My plots are subtle in ways that Charles Dickens could never fully perceive, much less manage in his own obvious (to any discerning reader) meandering machinations of haphazard plotting and self-indulgent asides.”
-Dan Simmons, Drood

I had to guess a bit which book was nearest to me, since they’re all on my “new” bookcase* across the room, so I extended my arm and pointed and then used the book that I was mostly pointing at.

Scientific!

Also, it seems as though the Fates are putting special effort into making me feel inadequate** tonight. Firstly, I bought the book in question almost on the day it was released, in hardcover (a great expense for the starving actor, let me tell you) because I was so sure I would love it. It seemed to have everything I could desire in a book (in fact, you might say that “Historical Fiction about 19th century Authors with Supernatural Mystery Elements” is one of my favorite fictional genres), and it was by an author I already knew and liked.***

Yet, I must confess, I have been incapable of finishing this book. It’s good, and I want to read it, and yet… It’s so big. And heavy. And takes up so much room in my bag… So it’s been living on my bookshelf for nearly a year, as a reminder of my shame.

Secondly, everything I’ve ever written could probably be described as “meandering machinations of haphazard plotting and self-indulgent asides.”

Touché, universe.

*Not actually new, but newly moved to my Michigan dwelling-place
**Don’t put yourselves out, Fates. I already feel that way most of the time!
***A funny but mostly unrelated story: When I was in graduate school, I went to great lengths to ensure that whatever books I chose to read on my own time would not be remotely Shakespeare-related and yet, somehow, I always failed. Perhaps the most spectacular fail was Dan Simmons Illium, which is basically the Illiad set in space, and seemed pretty Bard-proof. But it turned out that one of the major characters is a robot obsessed with Shakespeare’s sonnets.