aesc | meme-thingy is memed, II

Current Mood: nerdy
Current Location: deskie
Current Music: Soul Coughing, "Fully Retractable"

Entry tags:

meme-thingy is memed, II

<--check out Mr. Nigel Murray there. He is WISE, my friends, wise like a crazy owl. In fact, he totally knew the answers to the five things meme, as posed by

insight2.

Finn
Finn is my black dog! He is a rescue, and named after a character in Beowulf. (Not

sheafrotherdon's Finn :D) He is also a huge goof who eats too much for his own good and loves attention, and I can't imagine not having him around. Along with

dogeared's black dog, he is a charter member of the black dog club.

Uriel appreciation
Uriel is so badass, I love him even though we are perhaps not supposed to. Some of my love comes just from the fact that Robert Wisdom plays him beautifully, and how he will so obviously smite you if you step over the line. (I think it's related to the fact that next to him Castiel is so... short and unassuming XD and it's more knowing what Castiel is that inspires fear and trembling.) The rest of it comes from my own private fanon, Paradise Lost-inspired, where Uriel watches Adam and Eve leave the garden and humankind's first rocky, difficult days in the land just outside Eden where they learn about things like jealousy and how to kill each other. Yeah, I would not like humanity much, either :|

Language aesthetics (artses and fic and maybe RL too)
I just love language, everything about it. I love it written and signed and spoken, and how it carries almost all of what we are along with it, in its different ways. Whenever I get a chance to play with it in fic, I do--it's one of those things that moves back and forth between fandom and RL for me. (You should not even get me started on Skanr and constructed languages.) Lately I've gotten into text art and presentation... I'm not very good at it yet, but I love how text presentation can be used to play with meaning and emphasis, and how language really doesn't have to get in the way of what the picture is trying to present, but can instead work with it. SO AWESOME IN GENERAL YAY.

Orange fleece of infinite cuddliness
The first time I thought "I WANTS IT" with reference to SGA was not with reference to John Sheppard or Rodney McKay, but to Rodney's orange fleece. Now in my head it is associated with everything warm and cuddly and comforting--especially now that I have one of my own that keeps me warm in the cold corner of the house where my desk is ♥

Moleskine
Moleskines are the best notebooks EVAR. I put just about everything in them: fics and fic ideas (the Notebook, where everything fic goes, is a Moleskine), poems and songs I like, my conlangs, a novel-in-perpetual-progress, dissertation notes... yes. Everything. They're perfect for me, the lines just the right width apart, soothingly cream-colored paper, sturdy and compact... Yes. Me likey.

In fannish news: I wroted a drabble for the

deancastiel drabble fire challenge, Secretum secretorum (The Secret of Secrets), featuring Dean, Castiel, and the Impala ♥

Also, I will confess to watching a few episodes of Merlin. So far, I am prepared to grant that Merlin is adorable (aside from the hair, oh my god please change the hair), Gwen is lovely, and Arthur needs a swift kick in the pants. Also, it is not as boring as 99% of the Arthurian stuff I've been exposed to in my life... Probably this is a bad thing for a medievalist to admit, but most Arthurian literature puts me to sleep. The majority of the Morte Darthur makes me catatonic, except for the part where Lancelot gropes the open, bleeding wounds of an injured knight. Heh heh heh, wound-groping.

In other news: To quote the BBC Pride and Prejudice, "Damn tedious waste of an evening!" I had to go out for drinks tonight, which is usually not bad, but this time it was because I didn't know anyone outside of two people, and all the people I didn't know happened to be Law and Business Students. We had nothing to talk about and very little in common. ("So... you want to research medieval literature, huh?" "You're trying to get a job as an investment banker in this economy, huh?") So, I had a glass of wine, made one of the people I knew very sorry he had asked me to come, and left.

Also, all the cretins were out on the road tonight. WTF is up with that? I arrived at the bar red-faced with shouting unheard threats, advice, and curses at the morons I encountered on the way.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

In truth, I think it was reading various people on the flist talking about people elsewhere who were whining about Merlin's anachronism and how HOMG IT IS SO HISTORICALEE INACCURAAAAATE, and the whining seemed to be shrill enough that I had to check it out for myself to see what was the big deal. The literature itself (aside from the Welsh material, which is so weird it can't be boring) doesn't interest me much, but the way history is handled in it does interest me--I mean, everything in the French and English traditions is anachronistic. And in that sense, Merlin isn't much different from the romances.

Also, it is literature for God's sake, not a history lesson. It bothers me to a slightly ridiculous degree that people don't seem to get this distinction. There's this overwhelming need for similitude in historical writing and TV today that amuses me, because as a medievalist I'm exposed to attitudes toward that past and its representation that diverge in a lot of respects.

I mean, everything in the French and English traditions is anachronistic. And in that sense, Merlin isn't much different from the romances.

Which, when I was reminded of this, I blushed mightily. I was sleeping!! Honestly "Arthur and The Matter of Britan." Don't recall much of that class besides that anecdote I told you, and what I do recall is from T. H. White and Marion Zimmer Bradley.

Which, despite the 25 years since that class, disturbs me a bit. It left a yawning non-impression. As, actually, did most of the courses I took with that particular professor, it seems.

And....while I'm wandering down a tangent, I realize I remember more about my Theater major than the English one - except very vivid memories of my Shakespeare class and the paper I wrote on the theme of grace in the plays of Christopher Marlowe.

But to get back to your point, I think there's a need for things to be "just like the book," in some senses...maybe because we want comfort-viewing fare? Something warm and familiar that we don't have to stretch our brains too much for?

Don't recall much of that class besides that anecdote I told you

I only vaguely remember teaching Yvain and parts of Malory's Morte Darthur. I tried to get through Parzifal and could not manage it XD Really the only Arthurian-type stuff I like are the Welsh stories and poetry, The Holy Grail, and The Sword in the Stone :D

I think there's a need for things to be "just like the book," in some senses...maybe because we want comfort-viewing fare? Something warm and familiar that we don't have to stretch our brains too much for?

I think the problem with that, at least as applied to Merlin is... which book? :D The traditions are so nebulous and crazy and filtered through so many lenses that you really can't pin any of them down. And I think trying to force any modern reinterpretation of, oh, any medieval tradition into historical accuracy is to mistake what's important, and really, to miss the point that a lot of the texts we reproduce as books, TV shows, or movies, as I say, have their own relationships to history. Just, you know, sit back and enjoy the story for what it is, I guess.

Just, you know, sit back and enjoy the story for what it is, I guess.

Medieval flavored piiiiie.

Also? One of my favorite comments from the whole Checkmate thing was where the commenter wondered aloud if John's transformation was going to be like when Wart got turned into various critters to teach him things.

And I quite gleefully replied, "Castor and Pollux blow me to Bermuda!" (Which was one of my favorite scenes, along with Wol saying, "There is no owl.")

I absolutely adored Archimedes "Boy? Boy? I see no boy." and "Who who? What what?" and how he'd puff up whenever he was annoyed and/or offended, which was quite frequent :D :D

He's a very Rodneylike owl.

OMG, he IS!! ::snort giggles::

I'm with you on the Welsh stories and poems; there's also some stuff in Geoffrey of Monmouth that is weird enough to be interesting. And as to the question of "which book?", if it's not Culhwch ac Olwen, the Triads or the other scattered poems and stories (I particularly like the ones showing Arthur as an incorrigible womaniser), then it's all anachronisitic anyway

The trouble with the Welsh stuff for most people, of course, is no Lancelot and no (in the usual sense) Merlin. Though I'm working on a series of historical novels at the moment, drawing on the Welsh tales, that turns on its head the obviously nonsensical claim that Caerfyrddin was named after Myrddin (Merlin to Saxon-speakers). In Late Antiquity, a man would be officially referred to by his name, his father's name and the city he belonged to; so "Maridunensis" could be part of the name of someone generally known by a different name altogether!

Also, it is literature for God's sake, not a history lesson. It bothers me to a slightly ridiculous degree that people don't seem to get this distinction.

Yes! This! There is a giant fire breathing dragon living under the castle and also, Merlin can kill people with his mind. This series is not dripping with the realism, and it's not meant to, for goodness sake.

Ha ha, yes, I get the impression that Merlin falls more on the "fantasy" side of the equation XD

It's like... the sense of time in the stories that Merlin is based on wasn't even "correct" either. You basically have a bunch of Roman Britons mixed together with traces of pagan Celtic deities, all of whom have been Christianized and dressed up in 12th-century French armor. Not historically accurate, but 12th-century audiences ate that stuff up. (Even in the French historical poetry based on the life and times of Charlemagne, you have a bunch of 8th/9th-century Franks running around in 11th/12th-century French armor and having prophetic dreams.) So why having Merlin look like a Ren Faire with special effects is so startling and butthurt-inducing, I have no idea.

*assassin!Misha pops a cap in their asses*

I think Merlin has a talent (and Arthur would agree) for inducing butthurt. :|

I mean, everything in the French and English traditions is anachronistic.

Exactly! You know, I worry about using language in a story that'll fling everybody out of it, but beyond that... My independent work in undergrad was basically built on the idea that Arthurian legend is fanfic. It cracks me up like crazy to watch everyone freaking out about the accuracy of this show, like there's any standard to adhere to.

I mean, seriously, the last guy who tried to be "historically accurate" about this stuff was Jerry Bruckheimer, and... well, yeah.

My independent work in undergrad was basically built on the idea that Arthurian legend is fanfic.

Basically, that's what it is! And I've seen the Arthurian tradition used as a way of pointing to the historical roots of fanfic, in that writers start with a certain canon and then branch off on their own. (Really, most of the Arthurian corpus isn't about Arthur--it's about the other knights.) I think the parallels aren't quite exact, because poets were paid or otherwise compensated for their work, and the manuscripts the romances survived in were definitely part of a high-culture economy, but the impulse to re-tell a story is certainly present, just as it is in fanfic.

I mean, seriously, the last guy who tried to be "historically accurate" about this stuff was Jerry Bruckheimer, and... well, yeah.

I actually know someone who knows the man who did the research and wrote the original screenplay for that movie, and read the script before Bruckheimer got his hands on it. Said person is an Arthurianist and really knows his stuff, and he said he really liked the original version :D

*sigh* Score one for Hollywood, I guess.

Really, most of the Arthurian corpus isn't about Arthur--it's about the other knights.

Yep. The idea that the interesting parts of the story are hiding somewhere behind what's already been told, and the focus on fleshing out the borders of this map of a place that never really existed at all... That that's a theme that's been worrying at people since the first story was told is pretty much what got me hooked on the concept to begin with. Well, that and Gawain, the little weirdo.

I actually know someone who knows the man who did the research and wrote the original screenplay for that movie, and read the script before Bruckheimer got his hands on it.

Oh, man. That would have to be frustrating as all get out, knowing for a fact that the potential was there. I'm not sure whether I envy your friend or not. :/

*sigh* Score one for Hollywood, I guess.

Yeah. I could have forgiven that movie a hell of a lot for its cast alone, and when you throw in the slash quotient... It should have worked. All the pieces were there. If only it weren't for the moments of extreme Uh, you did not think this through, did you?. My favorite was the Mysterious, Mystical Garage Door Opener that Arthur inherits in the closing stretch; this is the only explanation I could come up with for why a big-ass gate that took teams of straining guys and a couple of horses to move earlier suddenly swings open by itself because Arthur looks at it funny.

Well, that and the death of the coolest members of the round table. Couldn't really get past that. :(

To sum up: I don't need accuracy; I just want joyful asskicking in armor. I'm easy like that.

Well, that and Gawain, the little weirdo.

Gawain is probably the one knight I actually like. And of course the serial man-kissing in Gawain and the Green Knight never goes amiss :D

I don't need accuracy; I just want joyful asskicking in armor. I'm easy like that.

That is all these things should be about, really.

Fanfic it definitely is! And cultural appropriation into the bargain.

As to language, IMO anybody who is treating as canon anything prior to Malory has a free hand. Sir Walter Scott confronted the problem right back when he was effectively inventing the modern historical novel. He was criticised for the language in "Ivanhoe" on the grounds that it sounded too modern. His reply was that none of the characters were speaking a language that the reader would recognise as English anyway, and nobody would thank him if he wrote all the dialogue in Norman French and Anglo-Saxon (as it was then called). So as long as there are no idioms that refer to modern things or concepts, I couldn't care less.

(Sorry, I'm still smarting from a member of a writing group I belong to who carefully pointed out to me that such words as "engineer" and "happy" shouldn't appear in my characters' speech because they didn't come into the English language until a thousand years later. She was apparently under the impression that 5th century Byzantines spoke English)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

meme-thingy is memed, II

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject