Five... Five? Five! 5 five

[capri0mni]

1) A thought which came to me, recently, about why sports fan enthusiasms are publicly celebrated and applauded (stripping off all your shirt in February, and painting your torso in your team's colors is terrific and will get your mug on TV, and the local paper!) but geeky enthusiasms are publicly derided (dressing up in a Third Doctor costume, accurate to a specific episode, and being able to name the costume designer who came up with it and why means you must be psychologically broken, and you probably still live in your parents' basement) --

"Geek," at root, originally meant "village idiot." Thus, it's someone who does not understand, nor values, the commonly held biases of the overarching culture. This makes "Geeks" suspect, especially by those who have a vested interest in maintaining the social status quo.

But Sports act as a proxy for society -- loyalty to "your team" equates to loyalty to your city (or high school, writes she who is currently living in the part of USA where high school football gets twenty minutes coverage on the news, every Friday night). And so this does not raise suspicion.

Geeky enthusiasms (gaming, comics, "genre" television and lit., etc) tend to be things where individual devotion and study yield as much or more satisfaction than organized group activities like sports.

Now, what this means in regards to Geek becoming "chic"... I don't know...

2) My cat Trixie has recently decided that my lap is the center of the universe, and she must be attached to it three-quarters of our mutually waking hours. As much as I love her, and enjoy having her flump over one forearm or the other... it does tend to slow down my typing...

3) Speaking of which, June and Camp!NaNoWriMo is coming, sooner than I was expecting... But I did buy a box of mini-bunny shaped cookies in preparation (to have on hand to give myself rewards for reaching word goals).

4) Semi-randomly: here's an eleven minute video on YouTube that made me so happy this week, I almost cried: Trevor Nunn Coaches David Suchet on Shakespeare's Sonnet #138 (Thank the gods and muses for unscrupulous publishers who want to profit off a playwright's fame!)

5) Regarding the Steven Moffat & Mark Gatiss reboot of Sherlock Holmes: The problem with being familiar with the source material is that the titles alone can be spoilers... So -- does anyone know if there will be a third season?

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

re 5: I think they'll draw the suspense out as much as possible. In the meantime, there's lots of good long plotty fic. I've had 95% agreement/enjoyment with the http://221b-recs-feed.dreamwidth.org otherwise known as 221b_recs

[capri0mni]

Hee! thanks for the rec of the recs.

And mostly, I'm just resigned to the same sort of ridiculous cliffhanger we got last year.

(I mean: Really?!?!!)

[jesse_the_k]

Cliffhanger is much worse this year — and don't go near the Archive til you've see the R.Fall episode.

[capri0mni]

Well, as I said in this post... As I am already familiar with the original source material for this upcoming episode ("The Final Problem," by Sir A. C. Doyle), thanks to recognizing the reference in the title, I'm already without a doubt that the cliffhanger is "worse."

I mean, even Doyle himself thought (indeed hoped) the ending was absolute... However, he never counted on the power of Fandom, and had to retcon like whoa a few years later...

So that's what I meant about the "trouble" with being an English major who is moderately well-read in Victorian lit.: I enter the game already spoiled, before the first minute of the episode even airs, just because of the title.

[jesse_the_k]

Indeed, I'd caught that reference. (I was an ACD fan young, it may have been the second or third chapter book my parents gave me.)

Good news! BBC to start filming series 3 in 2013

I just saw the Jeremy Brett iteration of Sherlock in the Final Problem, where it shows him hotfooting it behind the falls — if you're watching tonight, keep your eyes out for the secret chamber.

[capri0mni]

Heh -- just knowing that there will be a season 3 will give me a clue how to interpret the ending of season 2... ;-)

Personally, just as a matter of personality, I don't consider most "spoilers" all that spoiling.

Knowing the specific plot points ahead of time does nothing to diminish the pleasure of how those ideas are expressed... and indeed, sometimes, foreknowledge enhances the pleasure, as I can relax, and enjoy all the little details of storytelling technique.

But then again, I know I'm weird.

[spiralsheep]

2) Ha!

4) The last time I mentioned a Shakespeare sonnet by number in a group of people, three of them began reciting it without any further cues, heh. I otoh had to google 138. I didn't remember that sonnet at all. The puns are excellent. It looks like a tongue twister to recite aloud though.

[capri0mni]

2) I know you are far from a "cat person"... but I've come to the conclusion that one reason that people who love cats love them is that it's so rare to have a living being tell us:

"You know what would make the Universe Perfect, right this minute? For you to do nothing except be yourself and sit still."

4) When I have more Random Access Memory in my brain (when it's not being devoted to my own writing), I may just write up a transcript of the whole thing, 'cause I love it that much.

Trevor Nunn has Suchet read the poem as if he were a university don trying to convince his twenty-something students about the nature of Truth, and win them over to his side. Nunn points out, specifically, the double meanings in the words: Vainly, simple, habit, and lie, and how wonderfully the double meanings in each of these separate words illustrate as well as tell the audience the whole nature of truth and lies and love.

It's also a poem in my personal zeitgeist this week, as I was also watching a longer video on understanding Shakespeare's sonnets as a whole body of work, and one of the professors in the discussion professed that 138 was his personal favorite, because it addressed the thornier, more complicated nature of mature love than the facile and obviously lovely "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

[spiralsheep]

2) The two local cats here determinedly stop and pass the time of day with me though. One is a hopeful starer. The other is a mewler and purrer. I always say hello to them but have never petted either of them.

"You know what would make the Universe Perfect, right this minute? For you to do nothing except be yourself and sit still."

I understand what you mean about sharing a perfect moment with another living being... but I like to pretend I have a Higher Purpose in life than being a cat cushion! ;-P

4) I love it when the zeitgeist arrow points to poetry!

Sonnet 18 is a perfect poem but not a perfect loving sentiment imo. When I think of a sonnet encapsulating mature love then my mind turns to Elizabeth Barret Browning's Sonnets from the Portugese:

Number 43

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

My personal Shakesperian sonnet of the week has, however, been (love "delves the parallels"!);

Sonnet 60
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

[capri0mni]

Ah, yes.

Both of these sonnets are as juicy, tart-sweet, and satisfying as a ripe plum!

In Elizabeth Barret Browning's verse, I love, especially:
"I love thee with a love I seemed to lose/With my lost saints ..." particularly since that thought finishes before the end of the line. That's where form echoes meaning, by my figuring.

And, Dear old Will! Such a tease! He keeps going on about how his verse will make the person he's eulogizes "immortal," but never once does he even give the person a fictional name. ;-)

(And I also love "delves the parallels" -- clever word play on "furrowed brow" [heh], which foreshadows Time with his scythe... Why do I get the feeling that the poet is teasingly winking at us in utmost sincerity?)

BTW, did you ever see the report of this news, about a possible (probable?) Shakespeare life portrait?

[spiralsheep]

did you ever see the report of this news, about a possible (probable?) Shakespeare life portrait?

Nah, I'm not much interested in celebrity "news", heh. ;-P

[capri0mni]

LOL!

However, I was interested in the science and cultural detail of how it was decided to be an authentic portrait (dating it by matching up the tree rings in the wood panel on which it was painted to seasonal global weather patterns, and also pinpointing the year, based on the fashion style of the collar he was wearing in the painting, and the fact that those two dates lined up...).