Birthday weekend!
Jun. 12th, 2010 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrixrefugeeUnfortunately, I had to work yesterday, which put a gap in some of the festivities. I'd contemplated going to Salem today, but as it's raining, it wouldn't be as much fun, plus I'd rather wait a bit and save a little more money.
In the meantime, I've been celebrating in my own way: spent part of Thursday (my actual birthday) leisurely browsing in the Burlington Barnes & Noble: the crazy folks at Quirk Classics have unleashed another brilliant work: "Android Karenina", the Tolstoy classic now with steampunk robots! The clerk at the check out looked utterly horrified, which only made me smirk evilly. Also picked up a kind of sketch-book journal (to go with the "Smencils" -- scented pencils that my mom gave me), and a copy of Jeff Belanger's "World's Most Haunted Places". And from my dad, I am getting a new mattress (since the springs in my current one are cutting through the cover on the edges), and just not any mattress: a job-lots place in New Hampshire has been offering Tempurpedic mattresses, so we're getting one of those.
Also have been watching a lot of things, including a semi-marathon of Le Chevalier D'Eon -- pre-Revolutionary France with zombies and gender-bending, wow! -- and more episodes of Firefly. I'm planning to move on to the anime version of The Count of Monte Cristo, per Samina's recommendation ( :: Waves hi:: ) and most likely continue watching the mini-series version of Gormenghast: I've learned a lot of interesting things from the "making of" book, which I got via Amazon. Turns out Meryvn Peake and Benjamin Britten were working on an opera version, which was never completed due to Peake's illness. Also Sting wanted to produce either a movie or a rock opera based on the books. There are some interesting![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
carpe_ho_ras convergences which tie into these discoveries: Britten went on to write an opera version of Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice", and I have an unfinished -- and therefore unposted -- journal entry in which Muraki somewhat broodingly compares his obsession with Steerpike to a similar -- and fatal -- obsession which the main character of Death in Venice holds for a much younger man. Also, on the Muraki-SP fanmix which I'm tinkering with, I included Sting's "Every Breath You Take"... and I'm almost wondering if Sting might have unconsciously been thinking of Steerpike's rather voyeuristic tendencies when he wrote the lyrics. Hm. (I could just be Reading a Bit Too Much Into It the same way some of the people with odd allegorical ideas about the books do.)
In the meantime, I've been celebrating in my own way: spent part of Thursday (my actual birthday) leisurely browsing in the Burlington Barnes & Noble: the crazy folks at Quirk Classics have unleashed another brilliant work: "Android Karenina", the Tolstoy classic now with steampunk robots! The clerk at the check out looked utterly horrified, which only made me smirk evilly. Also picked up a kind of sketch-book journal (to go with the "Smencils" -- scented pencils that my mom gave me), and a copy of Jeff Belanger's "World's Most Haunted Places". And from my dad, I am getting a new mattress (since the springs in my current one are cutting through the cover on the edges), and just not any mattress: a job-lots place in New Hampshire has been offering Tempurpedic mattresses, so we're getting one of those.
Also have been watching a lot of things, including a semi-marathon of Le Chevalier D'Eon -- pre-Revolutionary France with zombies and gender-bending, wow! -- and more episodes of Firefly. I'm planning to move on to the anime version of The Count of Monte Cristo, per Samina's recommendation ( :: Waves hi:: ) and most likely continue watching the mini-series version of Gormenghast: I've learned a lot of interesting things from the "making of" book, which I got via Amazon. Turns out Meryvn Peake and Benjamin Britten were working on an opera version, which was never completed due to Peake's illness. Also Sting wanted to produce either a movie or a rock opera based on the books. There are some interesting
carpe_ho_ras convergences which tie into these discoveries: Britten went on to write an opera version of Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice", and I have an unfinished -- and therefore unposted -- journal entry in which Muraki somewhat broodingly compares his obsession with Steerpike to a similar -- and fatal -- obsession which the main character of Death in Venice holds for a much younger man. Also, on the Muraki-SP fanmix which I'm tinkering with, I included Sting's "Every Breath You Take"... and I'm almost wondering if Sting might have unconsciously been thinking of Steerpike's rather voyeuristic tendencies when he wrote the lyrics. Hm. (I could just be Reading a Bit Too Much Into It the same way some of the people with odd allegorical ideas about the books do.)