throbbing light machine

We've had absolutely bats weather here - day before yesterday windgusts of 80 mph, huge trees down all over the place, but mercifully no loss of life, and no tornadoes either. The winds aren't turning, just blowing like snot.

Saw Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and just hated it - I can't remember the last time I was so bored. The total lack of narrative structure/plot/characterization is stunning. Was this supposed to be a movie? It felt more like an amusement park ride, the way the first three managed to avoid in the despite of their origin. Johnny Depp v. pretty as always, I suppose, but my irritation with the formlessness of the thing kind of detracted from my ability to appreciate his eyeliner.

BUT. I also finished The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and wow. It went somewhere MAJOR.

I do think Anne Brontë is, technically speaking, a weaker writer than her sisters. Wildfell Hall suffers from an overabundance of unmemorable, redundant secondary characters, and needs to be about a hundred pages shorter. (I've been wondering if Anne wasn't helped as much as the others were by their family writing collective because her interests turned to different genres/narrative modes/social issues. She wants to write a sober, longform realist novel, and she's stuck working with a bunch of crazy gothicists. But I have no evidence, only speculation.) Almost half of the novel keeps you stuck in the pov of Gilbert Markham, the whinging childish jealous brutish guy who's supposed to be the Good Lover, idek, and his head is a really boring place to be.

But the middle third of the novel, when you're in Helen Huntingdon's diary, is insanely banging. It's relentless, not allowing the reader to avert any of their attention from even the most squalid moments in the disintegration of Helen's marriage. The stuff with her son -! And with her husband's very clear understanding of the liberatory effect Helen's art has on her and his determination to put a stop to it -!

Because I love the girls and women in my fandoms, and think they're awesome.



( spring on horseback like a lady )

The first thing that I found myself needing to talk about after seeing PotC:DMC was Norrington. Because I am very, very afraid, but also intensely hopeful.

( spoilers )

I need a pirate icon.

I have such an odd relationship to the internet during the summer. Being displaced from my One True Laptop ends nearly all writing and most reading, because I no longer have access to my bookmarks. And, I dunno, everything is just different. I feel less articulate in the summer, less grown-up. I haven't changed anything in my bedroom here since I was a tiny little girl, and it's all just the same as it was.

I'm reading De Beauvoir and working on Blake--a few weeks ago my brain woke up and said to me, "Lo," it said, "you haven't read anything hard for weeks. Go read something hard!" So I went to the library, and De Beauvoir. It's a bit dense, but intensely interesting.

The Boy and I bought a fabulous Jack Sparrow poster that is Teh Sechs, and it is in our bedroom. We are working on pirate costumes, which promise to be fabulous. I obtained a corset yesterday, and though it is alas not made of spiral steel it is certainly better than nothing.

We went to see Devil Wears Prada yesterday, because lo it was very hot out, and I think that this film proves that good acting is everything. Fluffiest story/premise ever, but brilliant performances all around. Must have been very fun to do.

It amuses me intensely that presidential running mates are listed with a virgule. Yes, I'd vote for Gore/Obama. That's hott.

I want Gore to run. Michael Moore is running his film at the film fest next month, and I'm psyched.

Technically, wouldn' the correct translation of "psyched" be "souled"? I'm so souled, omg.