This was motivated in part because last night I pulled together some album artwork for my 4th Terminus and Midwinter playlists, which I had looked up & built quite some time ago.
There's an Academie of Magic one too, but I don't have artwork yet for it...
Now that I'm listening to the music, all I want to do draw is Lilly and her pretty pretty dresses... covered in mud. Possibly strangling someone. How are all my old sketches (mostly) not online?! Ugh...
For one of these I say it with an ernest, honest tone. Heartfelt, friendly, wistful. Possibly a little teary eyed. That book would be Valor and Vanity by Mary Robinette Kowal (book 4 of 5 in the Glamorist Histories series)
The other I say with a smirk. With a grin and a wink. With the same tone that I confess my love of Cerci from Game of Thrones with and declare Silence of the Lambs to be the most romantic film ever. That book would be Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.
Look away to avoid potential spoilers after the picture of Jane.
Jane of Valor and Vanity is so fucking sensible, it hurts. She's plane looking and normal. Times get tough, things get complicated, mistakes are made, but she keeps a level head. She does the things that need to be done, even when they're hard-- which frequently means emotionally hard rather than physically hard. She talks about issues, rather than letting them fester. Reading all of Jane's stories makes me happy, I'll probably cry after the next book comes out- I don't want it all to end. I wish I could have read this series when I was younger- here is an admirable but relatable character that strives to do the right thing and is a good, believable role model.
Amy's mind is amazing. The cadence, the logic, the poetry of her thoughts are seductive. Reading Gillian Flynn's writing was like drinking hot chocolate. How can you not love this: "... [we] fit together. I am a little too much, and he is a little too little. I am a thornbush, bristling from the over attention of my parents, and he is a man of a million little fatherly stab wounds, and my thorns fit perfectly into them" I itch to include a couple other quotes (oh Kindle highlights, how I love you!) but they'd be too spoiler-y... Amy's planning and commitment is admirable. She is without a doubt strong. She knows what she wants and she takes great efforts to obtain it. I wish I could be as strong and powerful as Amy.
Jane is the person I actually want to be, in real life. Amy is the person I like to imagine being, the ideal role-play character I wish I could play.
I wish all books I read starred such fully formed and compelling female leads.
(p.s. - I also just finished Ready Player One which I wish I had in book form so that I could throw it across the fucking room in rage. Reads like a Young Adult novel- which is fine, I read lots of those- but I wasn't expecting that and in the end all the "lessons" and "morals" and "take aways" from the story are shit/non-existant. At the end of it all the young white boy "wins" the love of the young white girl. She's just sitting there at the end, like some prize. Nothing challenging happened, there was no self reflection or growth. Waste of my time, I regret reading it)
I've been having several bad dreams recently. Cannibalism, not cool. Anyway, this one starts off and I'm somewhere and I notice there's these little creatures. They're almost cute, but a touch too disturbing. They're made up of a normal animal and where that animal's head should be, there's the torso of another animal. Not a graceful gryphon like transition... sort of a cut off & this other thing stuck on look.
In particular there's a rat with a rabbit top and a rabbit with a tiny adorable black kitten top.
The kitten is hungry. There's this... deer thing laying there. It's basically a deer but has a long chicken like neck that's mostly plucked. I try and convince the kitten to eat it-- it tentatively takes a bite of the animal's neck-- but it's a no go. I understand that if the deer-thing was dead the cute kitten would be able to eat it.
I go out looking for knives to kill the deer-thing with. Nothing I find is large enough or sharp enough to do the deed. I start to get squeamish. I contemplate looking up online where one cuts a deer's throat. Is it up high? At the base? In the end I acknowledge the fact that even if I had a knife, I probably wouldn't kill the deer-thing. Also, I think the deer thing has a human face now (curse you, Midwinter!).
I contemplate never eating red meat again.
I wake up
A couple more sketches can be found over on my Tumblr...
I switched teams at work. I am now officially on the API team at Rdio. My brain already feels happier. Am still learning what this new position means for me overall, but at least I'm getting the chance to learn iOS and Android. And writing in so many different languages that are NOT JavaScript. My brain! My brain, it rejoices!
Then I went to Lumi Island for a weekend with Adam (and Adam's friend & his girlfriend). It's always sad visiting Seattle when there's good weather because I get all sad about having left... No Internet access while out there so I brought some yarn.
Another Academie of Magic session took place- in particular my character Olivia's finale. Tears, destruction, guilt, regret, wrath. Just how I like my character arcs to end. Really wish I had a sketch ready to post from that session... Spent this evening cleaning up my basement craft-room & finishing up new green monster instead... So many interest, so little time!
Soon I will fly to Illinois for a long weekend to represent Rdio at HackIllinois.
Clearly I need to post more frequently to avoid these types of long list-y posts.... I apologize.
BOOM! LOOK AT THAT! Amazing, isn't it? I just got back from my first taxidermy class today and I'm still giddy. SO HAPPY. I'm not saying I reconstructed the best bird ever-- in fact, I think the girl next to me did the best hen ever. I'm just over the moon at how well run and awesome the class was. I learned a lot and feel like if I ever did want to taxidermy another chicken on my own (which I don't believe I will do) I totally could. I love that my bird is tailor posed for the space designated for it. I love my bird more than any number of cooler taxidermy pieces because I constructed it. Me. My hands.
Of course, the smell of chicken haunts me. Am so happy I didn't have a poopy-butt chicken like some of the other girls did... and girls it was. The instructor was a dude but he said that of all the classes he's been teaching through Paxton's Gate, he's only had 5 dudes. Class size is limited to 6 I believe, but we only had 5. The instructor was Geoff Vassallo and the class was run by Paxton's Gate. Pricey, and LONG (6+ hrs) but I would highly recommend it if you've any interest. I don't know if I'd do another bird class (maybe if I could request something smaller?) but there's a squirrel class that I'm rather on the fence about... if anyone else wanted to do it, I believe I'd be interested.
For someone who hasn't handled raw meat much/at all, I think I did remarkably well. I think I was pretty good at, and enjoyed, the basic skinning stuff. Cutting through the muscle & mean wasn't that bad either. The head though... ugh, I was defeated. The instructor did all things involving the head interior for me, which was very nice of him. I'd say that was the best thing about the class-- he'd help as much or as little as you wanted and had a really great attitude the entire time.
I was definitely the most n00b there-- one of the girls had already skinned 2 ducks before (but failed to mount them), one of them had worked for Paxton's Gate before and had a number of dead animals in her freezer, one worked with mounting bones a lot (but never skins), and one was ridiculously gothy and absolutely cool with all the blood & guts & dead-ness. I think the above mounting by the girl who had already skinned 2 animals (and had 3 more in her freezer at home to work with after this class) did a stunning job-- and this after she had come in late and gotten the last bird that no one wanted. This cute little peeking through the wing feathers, head tilt, wide eyes, a lowered tail. So good!
Anyway, my bird is pinned in place with feathers taped up for some quality posing. Will probably take some better pictures later once the rigging can come down. I'm quite fond of my extra touches-- miss-matched eye colors and a number of feathers tucked under her toes, as if she were standing in a barnyard.
I've a number of in-progress posts that are a bit too gorey to post willy-nilly on the Net. Let me know in person if you're interested and I can flip through them/tell you more!
. The first was about a horrible person doing horrible things and getting away from it. So was the second one. American Psycho's horrible acts were far more horrible, but for some reason I found the story much more worth while.
DiCaprio's Belfort was an obvious asshole that I in no way could relate to. Everyone around him was an asshole. There was no fall from grace, no real victims other then the faceless folks on the other side of all those telephone lines, who we only vaguely understand are being hurt.
Ellis's Bateman is an asshole that is a tangled mess of things at his core. His friends are assholes, but in a way that I can almost draw parallels to myself and people around me. There are victims, some are assholes but none deserve what Bateman does to them, described in horribly clear detail.
It's unfair to compare a book to a film given the difference in length (though the movie is 3 hours long!!) and the fact that we can glimps into Bateman's inner narrative (though Belfort does speak directly to the audience a number of times). I can't really recommend either to anyone... though will probably recommend American Psycho. Just... brace yourself. After I saw Pan's Labyrinth there was a Q&A with Guillermo del Toro. When asked about the degree of violence used in the film and the need for it, del Toro responded with something along the lines of "It's like doing a deep tissue massage to the soul, to try and reach the point where you will react to the violence" (a quote lifted from some other Q&A by him). That's American Psycho.
I'm a fan of zombie films for a number of reasons and I feel like if you disassembled a good zombie film, specifically Dawn of the Dead (1978), riffle shuffled bits of it together like a deck of cards, and dealt a new hand you could end up with something like this book.
Rather then mutter on too abstractly or incoherantly, I'll just add a couple quotes from the book that I liked for some reason or another. Also, I'd like to recomment Clippings Converter as a service to manage any Kindle notes or highlights one might make.
“Hey Price,” Preston says. “Do you have one?”
“Yeah,” Price sighs. “If all of your friends are morons is it a felony, a misdemeanor or an act of God if you blow their fucking heads off with a thirty-eight magnum?”
“Not GQ material,” McDermott says. “Try Soldier of Fortune.”
“Or Vanity Fair.” Van Patten.
I’m on the verge of tears by the time we arrive at Pastels since I’m positive we won’t get seated but the table is good, and relief that is almost tidal in scope washes over me in an awesome wave.
For dinner I order the shad-roe ravioli with apple compote as an appetizer and the meat loaf with chèvre and quail-stock sauce for an entrée. She orders the red snapper with violets and pine nuts and for an appetizer a peanut butter soup with smoked duck and mashed squash which sounds strange but is actually quite good.I was both in awe and horrified with the food described in the book. It was detailed just another faucet of the casts' souless consumerism but... but... but... it's exactly how Adam and I have behave :( All the food so carefully catalogued with ridiculous detail sounded so exciting and good....
J&B I am thinking. Glass of J&B in my right hand I am thinking. Hand I am thinking. Charivari. Shirt from Charivari. Fusilli I am thinking. Jami Gertz I am thinking. I would like to fuck Jami Gertz I am thinking. Porsche 911. A sharpei I am thinking. I would like to own a sharpei. I am twenty-six years old I am thinking. I will be twenty-seven next year. A Valium. I would like a Valium. No, two Valium I am thinking. Cellular phone I am thinking.
“The client had the boudin blanc, the roasted chicken and the cheesecake,” he says.
“Cheesecake?” I say, confused by this plain, alien-sounding list. “What sauce or fruits were on the roasted chicken? What shapes was it cut into?”
“None, Patrick,” he says, also confused. “It was … roasted.”
“And the cheesecake, what flavor? Was it heated?” I say. “Ricotta cheesecake? Goat cheese? Were there flowers or cilantro in it?”
“It was just … regular,” he says, and then, “Patrick, you’re sweating.”
“What did she have?” I ask, ignoring him. “The client’s bimbo.”
“Well, she had the country salad, the scallops and the lemon tart,” Luis says.
“The scallops were grilled? Were they sashimi scallops? In a ceviche of sorts?” I’m asking. “Or were they gratinized?”
“No, Patrick,” Luis says. “They were … broiled.”
It’s silent in the boardroom as I contemplate this, thinking it through before asking, finally, “What’s ‘broiled,’ Luis?”
“I’m not sure,” he says. “I think it involves … a pan.”
and it struck me that I was infinitely better-looking, more successful and richer than this poor bastard would ever be and so with a passing rush of sympathy I smiled and nodded a curt though not impolite good morning
“Doin’ the crossword?” dropping the g in “doing”—a pathetic gesture of intimacy, an irritating stab at forced friendliness.
“It’s okay,” I stress. Something snaps. “You shouldn’t fawn over him.…” I pause before correcting myself. “I mean … me. Okay?”
My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this—and I have, countless times, in just about every act I’ve committed—and coming face-to-face with these truths, there is no catharsis. I gain no deeper knowledge about myself, no new understanding can be extracted from my telling. There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. This confession has meant nothing.…
The book started off so well and then spiraled so wildly out of control into horror that I'm still left somewhat stunned and confused. Hand waving. I start to ponder whether events were real or all in his head- it's really not conclusive- but then I remind myself that it's all fiction and it doesn't matter. I dwell on Bateman and his self reflection. He loathes those around him but never proves to be anything different then they are. I imagine this inner narrative that is the novel could have been running through all the characters' heads simultaneously.
In conclusion and entirely unrelated, here's some skull sketches I did today during the football game, referenced from my delightful book Skulls
The basic recipe as I half scrawled on on the back of an envelope:
The second part was the kiwi paste interior. I gutted a handful of kiwis... 5? 7? (they were lifted from my office) and pureed them with a immersion blender. Poored them in a small pot, added some (but not enough!) agar agar powder and brought to a boil. Then I poured them out into two dishes and let cool/set. In my case I did not weigh the puree nor measure out the agar agar and this was a BAD idea because they did not set firmly enough. My test batch the day before was smaller and had way more agar agar in comparison and they set solid. REALLY solid. So solid that they didn't budge while cooking the cookie. The larger batch I worked with was mushy and barely held its form.
Anyway, to assemble the cookie I rolled the dough into a long log then squared it & chilled it for an hour. Then I cut slices off the log and assembled them around the paste center. Then I cooked them at... 370°? for... 15 min? and it went all to hell. The paste center was not strong enough so each and every carefully assembled square went PHFFFHHFFHffhfhf... and fell over in the oven. Lame.
While that was going on I was compelled to try and add some make some meringue santa hats to gently rest upon the Grinchies. I followed this meringue mushroom recipe directly and was greatly assisted by Adam, who actually wound up doing all the initial whipping by hand. Turns out meringue is suuuuper awesome to make and work with, but really isn't my type of thing. In a futile attempt to cut the sweetness and error back towards tart I added some malic acid to the "red" parts of the santa hats... but I don't think it was really noticeable.
After the required number of cubes were made I had all these leftovers so I made little tiny cookies-- lard cookie base, kiwi paste middle, topped with a puff of meringue.
In the end it wasn't a horrible, horrible, vomit-in-your-mouth failure. But it certainly wasn't a success. I shouldn't have been so stingy with the agar agar and I shouldn't have worked with lard in a style I've no experience with (un-melted). Also, while the cookies were great if you knew what was in them, I found out from my mother's horrified expression that if you're not expecting the paste center, they're not fun to bite into. Makes you think it has a massive uncooked center.
Oh well, there's always next year... and 12 months in the mean time to expand my skill set.
