Doctor Who- The Eleventh Hour

As the new Doctor, Matt Smith has a clear sense of fun and a personality. Currently, that personality seems to owe a lot to the Tenth Doctor, David Tennant, but I think there were undertones that I think Smith will be able to develop into a full fledged version of the character.

As for this episode, I think that it was much more about the personality of the Doctor and his new companion than any other plot. The introductions came fast and funny, and I actually think that it was brilliant to show the early childhood of a companion as an introduction to the character- the child actress and the adult were both very in tune with one another and shared elements of the character across the time period.

With that said, it was a little bit... pat? I guess I would say. This episode introduced the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor in way that showed how awesome he was in the lineage of the actors who've filled the role, started to hint at ways in which he would distinguish himself as a character, and had some truly funny moments that arose naturally from the progress of the plot. But the focus of the episode was clearly on scenes of character development with the Doctor and Amy, so those aspects of the plot were strongly emphasized over the others.

There's nothing I can pinpoint as particularly weak or alien to the spirit of the series, but had this plot served as only an introduction to Amy, I think there would have been more room for emphasis on the action of the plot. I never really felt the danger of the possible world-destruction, and there's one moment, where Amy halts the Doctor's forward progress by locking the loose end of his tie into a car door, that made it feel very much as if the writers were fine with breaking the tension of the oncoming apocalypse to give the characters another cute moment of interaction. It's good, it works, it's a fine introduction to the new actors and new TARDIS and tone for the upcoming episodes, but it very much felt like an introductory episode.

There was one visual effect that I thought was very out of place- in trying to locate something in a large crowd scene that had caught the Doctor's subconscious attention, the camera zoomed around and back and forth over the paused scene in a way that reminded me strongly of a prolonged analysis in Sherlock Holmes and several other films. It was flashy and it stopped the action and I think that it worked a lot better to merely have the camera focus on the Doctor as he monologues and tries to discover what caught his attention. The "Doctor-Vision" camera was honestly rather distracting and I hope that they abandon it in other episodes with a more modest effects budget.

In local news, I have found a recipe for Pasta con Sarde that looks delicious and would satisfy my fish craving with lower cost than buying salmon and much less mercury. It was featured on Grist.org here http://www.grist.org/article/2010-04-05-pasta-con-sarde-the-gateway-drug-for-sardine-obsession/ I will be trying it out later, if I can find pine nuts on short notice.

This Friday, the Roomie and I are hosting a party that has become the afterparty for a heavily-lubricated social event at my school. There may be prospective students and there may well be alcohol brought from one event to the other. I look forward to it.

Stupid smart Amazon that prevents me from using them to get my books for no shipping costs.

On another note, I am flabbergasted by the sheer number of people selling old library copies of sci fi and fantasy books for under a dollar on Amazon. I compiled the entire Young Wizards of eight books (minus the most recent volume) series for less than a dollar! If only my nefarious scheme had worked. But, sadly, the shipping costs were not to be defrayed.

So, yesterday marked the sixth month that me and the Boy have been "together." We went out for sushi uptown at a place he picked out, and he feels like we don't go out enough. As a homebody, I don't really have an opinion, but I kind of feel bad about that. (I am kind of a worry-driven person. It actually works out okay for me, so I am not going to worry about it. Ha! I made a funny.)

Anyhoo, I will be going to Good Friday services in a few minutes at the church I've been attending for several months. Good Friday is a really good litmus test for me about a church and pastor's ability to deal with heavy and deep subject matter- Good Friday is not a celebratory service, and it should not be. There are hard themes here and they must be dealt with effectively.

I have seen Good Friday done wrong- moments where, instead of accepting that this is a moment where it appears that the forces against change and the new movement of Jesus Christ have defeated Jesus and won, pastors skip that dark and hard moment and just move right on to the "death is overthrown" part. I think that shorts out my person experience of the memorial moment and it cheapens Easter. There is no Easter without Good Friday.

Also, in the funerals that I have attended as an adult, the Good Friday vs. Easter vision has been extremely helpful in experiencing the wake as a period of time to grieve a death so that at the funeral, we can fully celebrate the life of the person who has left us. My mother has always said that she was a big fan of the "Irish Catholic way of dying" for just this reason, and I think she managed to pass that feeling on to me effectively.

Anyhoo, I am on my way.

Holy Crap, I have done a lot in the past three days. This is, of course, the purpose of having a devoted touristy friend over, so that I go out and become aggressively touristy for several days.

So, I have logged several miles walking all over Chicago in the past few days, and seen much that is new and wondrous in this city, and significantly worn out some shoe leather. Life is good, however, and I will have a few days at the end of all this to be productive and get ready for the new quarter.

So, now I am hanging out watching a terrible Sandra Bullock movie and chilling enjoying my belly full of tasty food and my slightly achey feet.

This icon , called the Fatherhood or Paternity Icon, depending on how you translate the Russian "Otechestvo" is a heretical and bad icon. This is because it depicts God the Father in the form of the Ancient of Days, which is forbidden. Icons may not show God the father except in certain understood symbols. Also, showing the Holy Spirit as a dove except at the instance of Jesus's baptism (where the Holy Spirit canonically showed up as a dove) is also not okay. But lots of people do it anyways.

Russian has words that distinguish "azure" from "(dark) blue" with much the same emphasis that English distinguishes "pink" from "red."- They are perceived as related but totally different colors, like pink and red in English.

In signing up for a school that has quarters, I am signed up for a full 50% more finals per year! Great fun!

Icons often show a distinct kind of perspective called "inverse perspective"- this shows objects increases in size as they get farther away from you. This is done deliberately- you are not supposed to be able to think that the icon is reality, because it's NOT! Verisimilitude was a not a virtue in the icon-writing business.

There is a really good kind of mint green tea ( that originally came out "mink grean" and I was tempted to let it stay that way for my own amusement.) at the other library's cafe that I think I might go have.

I've read all the Twilight books, and at one time or another I owned a copy of each of them. I read them based on the recommendation of a friend who has similar tastes in recreational reading. Those tastes are, by the way, fairly varied, but we neither of us mind a book with some flaws to it if there is an interesting story, and think that readings levels are suggestions, rather than mandates.

She rec'd Twilight to me while I was in Austria and needing fun books to read, and she told me that I would like the story and find the main character kind of whiney and annoying. And it was true- I find Bella kind of whiney, and sometimes annoying, but she has enough internal life that I was willing to keep reading. And, that was fine, actually. I was in it for the story, and while I was reading it, the story was actually quite engaging.

So, I kind of devoured the books in a lump one vacation, and I went back to Austria soon thereafter and that was that. There was no Twilight culture in Austria, and so I didn't get overwhelmed by it. It was, in a way, like my reaction to Americana while I was abroad- when it's not everywhere all the time, I like it. When there's too much, I rebel like a cat on a leash, but when there's just a little, I'm happy.

So I chatted with my friend about the books, and we both agreed that Edward was rather too perfect and that Meyer's attitude toward sex was antiquated at best, and then I found out that she was a Mormon and, to be frank, it explained a lot. I liked Jacob for his attitude towards the whole suddenly-a-werewolf thing, and Bella's stupid insistence on staying with Edward (who was portrayed as being too perfect for me to like him, and too pateralistic, and, frankly, aside from liking each other, they didn't seem to have any fun together- what's the point of being with someone if they can't make you squirt milk out your nose?), well, it just seemed kind of Juliet-ish.

And I don't mean that in any kind of a good way- it means she's throwing herself and her hopes away on a boy she met at seventeen. It means she does not seem like she values herself as anything more than what she is now- there's no room for change or progress or anything. At seventeen, she's who she wants to be? Really? Because at seventeen I wanted to get the hell out of my hometown and get a real life. Now, when I look back at my seventeen-year-old self, I'm kind of embarrassed. I've come a long damned way, and I frankly like myself a lot better now than I did at the time. I cannot imagine a person who, at seventeen, is exactly where she wants to be without thinking that person is monumentally short-sighted and just plain wrong.

So, I kind of had an opinion about Bella and her choices. I was pretty well on Team Jacob, but on the whole I thought the books were a little silly and that there was no real reason to be so entranced by the whole series. The story was decent, but there've been better, and there've been worse. I've read a lot
of vampire fiction (Vampire Diaries, Anne Rice, Sunshine, The Time of Feasting, Dracula, Fang, Vamped, the Silver Kiss, Salem's Lot, I am Legend, the Historian, and a selection of LJ Smith) and Twilight? was really just another take on the issue for me. Some new elements, but generally the pattern of a girl falling for a vampire was not a new plot to me, and vampires were something that came in a variety of shapes and colors, only one of them sparkly. And I had no problem with that- it was just one way of telling the story, and if Meyer wanted to tell it like that, fine by me.

And then I got back to the US.

And there were people who really, really liked Edward. And who really liked Bella. And who really, really did not view the whole issue as vaguely funny, but were emotionally invested. And, even then! I was not annoyed by this. There are books on silly, silly topics that I am totally passionate about, and I can bore you with my strong opinion. But it was like the time in 6th grade, where I was reading Harry Potter and other kids in the school had read it. And wanted to talk to me about it. Which had never happened before in my entire. freaking. life. Suddenly, it was there, and having admitted to reading the books, it was assumed that I had a strong opinion about them. And that I would really like to discuss them. And that I was A Twilight Fan.

And that, gentle reader, is where I went off the rails. Because, here's the thing: I read what I want. I read juvenile fiction at age 23 because I like it and I think it's smart and that the stories can be intriguing and there need to be more powerful women in my fictional repertoire and because I give a damn. There are books I am willing to fight for. There are books that I am willing to go to the mattresses for, books I will acknowledge as silly and fluffy and light reading and I will still say that they are important and valuable because reading them brought me an ounce of pleasure and opened my mind by a hair's breadth or by a hundred yards, books that that ran to my heart as straight as a Roman road. I am not ashamed of the "trash" that I read.

I read Twilight because I wanted to. And if I read it again, it will be because I wanted to. But right now, with all the fuss and botheration, with all the foolish young women who want desperately for some perfect man to come and swoop them up at seventeen like I wanted some perfect man to swoop me up at seventeen, I have to say that I will not fight for Twilight. It's not good enough. It's not worth it to me. It's neither as bad as its worst enemies say nor as good as its proponents claim, but quite frankly, I just don't care. This book did not touch me enough for me to care. This book did not excite me enough for me to really care. And this book sure as hell did not make me think a new thought about my life, except "Dear God, I am so glad my head is not that screwed up." There is a reason that I viewed this book as a guilty pleasure, which is that it neither reflected life as I knew it nor painted a new life as I might wish it to be. It was a story. It was entertaining. I read it cause I wanted to. And now I don't want to anymore.

At best, Twilight was harmless. I want something better than that.

I just found out (ok, yesterday, but I've been too busy to post since then) that I got the summer internship in Chicago that I wanted! Yay! There's even some money.

There's a girl in the Harper library sitting across from me. She's quite pretty the common kind of way of girls of about 19- slender, dyed blonde hair from a pretty decent salon, dark eyes and eyebrows to let me know it's fake, but really horribly ugly chunky black glasses. And she's been cursing and swearing at her computer as she violent taps the keys for the last ten minutes. Ouch. Nice going, my dear.

Some thoughts that have been making their way through my head recently-

- Meeting people is nice. And, generally, most people are quite happy to meet and talk with you. I am told (by an incredibly biased source that I am charming, and I consider this to be a great asset on that front.

-I have quite pretty legs. Go me!

-Process theology is looking more and more interesting to me.