A hodgepodge of an entry
Jun. 6th, 2006 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fredericksBecause things aren't quite working right in my brainz ::points to top of head for good measure:: I'm slow with responses, comments, and with the whole "making actual entries" bit. In lieu of making my wheels work so hard extinguishers are called for and because I feel moved to put *something* up in my little space I'm going to post about all the media-related randomness that's been running through my head the last couple of days.
During the Vegas trip I listened to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (IMO the best HP book yet written) on CD. CDs, to be precise: there were 23 in all. Jim Dale is the reader (or "performer", as the box loudly proclaims), and he's excellent. Highly recommended if you can get your hands on it (public libraries are your friend). Btw - spoilers for the series up that point below. Scroll past fast if you haven't read it and wish to go into it virgin-like.
There is a part near the middle of the book that moved me so much I ended up rewinding and listening to it a couple of times - it's when Hermione and Ron try to prod Harry into leading a group of students who want to study Defense Against the Dark Arts. I'll leave my analysis of Rowling's work and how the reader can often see her writing directly to children and at other times using sophistication for the older crowd for a time when I'm less sleep-deprived and more lucid, but suffice to say this part moved me because it's quite human and shows some of the first obvious bit of maturity? realism? in Harry, and it tickles the fangirl in me with its blatant (but welcome) meta-ness. And Jim Dale's delivery of it? defies description.
The context is that Hermione and Ron were retelling all the amazing magical things Harry did during the course of the previous four books, and Harry was finding himself more than a little uncomfortable with the way his friends were making everything seem so...great.
I mean, damn. I don't care if it's a bit of "hey guys, I know some of the things Harry got out were ridiculous" by J.K., I love the rawness of it and the flow.
*
Justice League Unlimited ended its run a couple of weeks back. The comic fan in me was devastated, of course; it's the first time in 13 years or so that no DC series are in 'toon production. I've been checking out clips of the series and watching repeats on Toon Disney every so often in an attempt to cope, but...*sigh*. Anywhozit, there's always YouTube for quick fix. Here's a Fan Vid with Drowning Pool's "Bodies" from this season's episode "Grudge Match", wherein Diana proceeds to kick the ass of most of the female members of the League. The episode as a whole was rather weak on plot, but the AMAZING fight animation and choreography more than made up for it. And then the ultimate Flash moment. Fine, I'm biased because 1. I have a thing for those who crack wise, 2. I drool whenever Michael Rosenbaum is mentioned, and 3. there is no three because the Flash is awesome (bow to Flash!). The meta Flash and Lex Luthor switch minds episodes was great as well. If there's one thing that really irks me about the end of JLU it's the lack of resolution with the GL/Hawkgirl romance. I mean, I know GL/Flash is OTP (wrong filter so I'll save the rant), but TPTB built up the Shayera/John bit and then -nothing. Bastards.
*
Over hibachi the other night my brother started talking about the Tom Hanks movie "Philadelphia". He mentioned that there was a scene where Hanks and Banderas' characters got busy in a movie theatre...and I promptly choked on a bit of my teriyaki chicken. I don't remember anything of the sort explicit, implied, or otherwise in the film. As far as I recall the closest bit of contact between Banderas and Hanks was a sweet slow dance head-on-shoulders moment that magically convinced the somewhat homophobic Denzel Washington character that, hey!, maybe gay people aren't all that bad after all. Now my brain keeps trying to imagine Hanks' "oh! face" and my stomach keeps trying to rid itself of its contents (although imagining Antonio Banderas' circa 1994 "oh!face" sends me to my happy place). There was no low-key theatre action in the film, right?
*
It's happened a couple of times lately where I think of something to say and then someone I'm with says it precisely as I was going to. Eerie, completely eerie. I...yes. That's all.
I just spent one hour on hair care. ONE.HOUR. I don't usually bother with the drying and all the primping -I can barely tolerate spending an extra five minutes in the shower waiting for a deep conditioner to set in- but I was feeling restless and decided to go the extra few inches. I did the dandruff shampoo (what?? my scalp gets dry in the heat), then the regular herbal shampoo + conditioner mix (some fragrant Aveda mix taken as mementos of our Vegas hotel stay), and finally a deep conditioner. Then came the blow dry: forty goddamned minutes with a dying blow-dryer in one hand and a curling brush in the other. Shit. The things a black woman with chemically-treated hair must do to look presentable. Never again, I say. I'll let the Dominicans down the block work their magic next week. I don't know how y'all do it.
During the Vegas trip I listened to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (IMO the best HP book yet written) on CD. CDs, to be precise: there were 23 in all. Jim Dale is the reader (or "performer", as the box loudly proclaims), and he's excellent. Highly recommended if you can get your hands on it (public libraries are your friend). Btw - spoilers for the series up that point below. Scroll past fast if you haven't read it and wish to go into it virgin-like.
There is a part near the middle of the book that moved me so much I ended up rewinding and listening to it a couple of times - it's when Hermione and Ron try to prod Harry into leading a group of students who want to study Defense Against the Dark Arts. I'll leave my analysis of Rowling's work and how the reader can often see her writing directly to children and at other times using sophistication for the older crowd for a time when I'm less sleep-deprived and more lucid, but suffice to say this part moved me because it's quite human and shows some of the first obvious bit of maturity? realism? in Harry, and it tickles the fangirl in me with its blatant (but welcome) meta-ness. And Jim Dale's delivery of it? defies description.
The context is that Hermione and Ron were retelling all the amazing magical things Harry did during the course of the previous four books, and Harry was finding himself more than a little uncomfortable with the way his friends were making everything seem so...great.
"Listen to me!" said Harry, almost angrily, because Ron and Hermione were both smirking now. "Just listen to me, all right? It sounds great when you say it like that, but all that stuff was luck - I didn't know what I was doing half the time, I didn't plan any of it, I just did whatever I could think of, and I nearly always had help -"
Ron and Hermione were still smirking and Harry felt his temper rise; he wasn't even sure why he was feeling so angry.
"Don't sit there grinning like you know better than I do, I was there, wasn't I?" he said heatedly. I know what went on, all right? And I didn't get through any of that because I was brilliant at Defense Against the Dark Arts, I got through it all because - because help came at the right time, or because I guessed right - but I just blundered through it all, I didn't have a clue what I was doing - STOP LAUGHING!"
[...]"You don't know what it's like! You - neither of you - you've never had to face [Voldemort], have you? You think it's just memorizing a bunch of spells and throwing them at him, like you're in class or something? The whole time you're sure you know there's nothing between you and dying except your own - your own brain or guts or whatever - like you can think straight when you know you're about a second from being murdered, or tortured, or watching your friends die - they've never taught up that in classes, what it's like to deal with things like that - and you two sit there acting like I'm a clever little boy to be standing here, alive, like Diggory was stupid, like he messed up - you just don't get it, that could have just as easily have been me[...]" p. 327-328
I mean, damn. I don't care if it's a bit of "hey guys, I know some of the things Harry got out were ridiculous" by J.K., I love the rawness of it and the flow.
*
Justice League Unlimited ended its run a couple of weeks back. The comic fan in me was devastated, of course; it's the first time in 13 years or so that no DC series are in 'toon production. I've been checking out clips of the series and watching repeats on Toon Disney every so often in an attempt to cope, but...*sigh*. Anywhozit, there's always YouTube for quick fix. Here's a Fan Vid with Drowning Pool's "Bodies" from this season's episode "Grudge Match", wherein Diana proceeds to kick the ass of most of the female members of the League. The episode as a whole was rather weak on plot, but the AMAZING fight animation and choreography more than made up for it. And then the ultimate Flash moment. Fine, I'm biased because 1. I have a thing for those who crack wise, 2. I drool whenever Michael Rosenbaum is mentioned, and 3. there is no three because the Flash is awesome (bow to Flash!). The meta Flash and Lex Luthor switch minds episodes was great as well. If there's one thing that really irks me about the end of JLU it's the lack of resolution with the GL/Hawkgirl romance. I mean, I know GL/Flash is OTP (wrong filter so I'll save the rant), but TPTB built up the Shayera/John bit and then -nothing. Bastards.
*
Over hibachi the other night my brother started talking about the Tom Hanks movie "Philadelphia". He mentioned that there was a scene where Hanks and Banderas' characters got busy in a movie theatre...and I promptly choked on a bit of my teriyaki chicken. I don't remember anything of the sort explicit, implied, or otherwise in the film. As far as I recall the closest bit of contact between Banderas and Hanks was a sweet slow dance head-on-shoulders moment that magically convinced the somewhat homophobic Denzel Washington character that, hey!, maybe gay people aren't all that bad after all. Now my brain keeps trying to imagine Hanks' "oh! face" and my stomach keeps trying to rid itself of its contents (although imagining Antonio Banderas' circa 1994 "oh!face" sends me to my happy place). There was no low-key theatre action in the film, right?
*
It's happened a couple of times lately where I think of something to say and then someone I'm with says it precisely as I was going to. Eerie, completely eerie. I...yes. That's all.
I just spent one hour on hair care. ONE.HOUR. I don't usually bother with the drying and all the primping -I can barely tolerate spending an extra five minutes in the shower waiting for a deep conditioner to set in- but I was feeling restless and decided to go the extra few inches. I did the dandruff shampoo (what?? my scalp gets dry in the heat), then the regular herbal shampoo + conditioner mix (some fragrant Aveda mix taken as mementos of our Vegas hotel stay), and finally a deep conditioner. Then came the blow dry: forty goddamned minutes with a dying blow-dryer in one hand and a curling brush in the other. Shit. The things a black woman with chemically-treated hair must do to look presentable. Never again, I say. I'll let the Dominicans down the block work their magic next week. I don't know how y'all do it.
