wJul 17, 2006


Books = Love

This post was written last night, but I fell asleep. It wasn't a gradual thing, either - one minute I remember typing, and then I was face-down in the pillow. These are the dangers of blogging in bed. I apologize to whoever I was talking to on AIM. I just....signed off.

So, this weekend was pretty awesome. Ryan, Louise, and I went down to Madison. Mostly for a meeting of the Anime Club tri-summerly gatherings. I had to get up at 5:00 am on Saturday to go to work, so Saturday was a really long day. I was awake for almost 24 hours, :) But anyway - Ryan and I drove down and got Louise and eventually made it to Madison. We dropped our stuff off in one of the houses we (Louise, Chad, Paul, and I) might be living in in the fall and then went right to dinner (Fuddruckers - good but expensive), and then to the Humanities building. On Saturday, we watched The Incredibles, an episode of the 1960's animated Spider-Man (we were very disturbed when trying to figure out what Spider-Man was swinging from when he was ABOVE the buildings), and the Ultimate Avengers animated Marvel....movie-thing (Saturday's theme was superheroes). After that, we spent time at Real Chili and left just before the bar crowd got there for Antoine's, where we stayed until like, 3:30. I fell asleep in a chair, but woke up instantly when Final Fantasy 7 was brought up in conversation. Sometimes, I love the way my brain works, :)

Ryan, Louise, and I went back to the house and decided we weren't tired, until I suddenly was (about 4 am). We fell asleep and then woke up at 8:30 from Gretchen's phone call and met her and Jaci for a lunch of bagels at Einstein's. State Street was having all kinds of really good sales (Steph, I thought of you - Art Gecko even had stuff on sale! I got two bracelets for $.50!). Eventually we split again. Ryan, Louise, and I visited bookstores on the west side of town before going back to Humanities for more Anime Club. Sunday's theme was "swashbuckling." We watched Captain Blood, which is a pirate movie from 1935. Good times. We left after that - ate at Panera and then left.

This weekend did kick ass. Seeing a lot of my Madison friends was good. One thing that did suck was the way I ate - way too much crap, I feel so disgusting. I'm going to eat ridiculously healthy all week long so I feel better, :/

Also....I BOUGHT BOOKS. I know, I suck. I was good all summer until now, but I COULDN'T HELP IT, THE DEALS WERE TOO GOOD.

Let's start with what I was already reading before I left:
"Evangeline" - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Kare Kano (His & Her Circumstances) manga, volume 2
One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School
6th volume of The Sandman graphic novels: Fables & Reflections

Was this enough for me, along with the mountains of unread books in my room? NO! I had to buy more. First, Creighton lent me 3 books, which are:
Diary by Chuck Palahniuk, one of my favorite authors of all time
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner - we had to read 'Intruder in the Dust' in CCE and I hated it, but Creighton has yet to lead me wrong on a book, so hopefully it's good.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (discussed in comments here)
I am such a book whore. I love it when people lend me books. Now, Creighton lent me these before I bought any, so I had no excuse. I still purchased:
Freakonomics (and can now add this to list of books I'm currently reading - very intriguing)
1st volume of Priest manga (I've been buying random volumes of this as I buy it used - I love it. Apparently there's going to be a live-action movie starring Viggo Mortensen? AWESOME.)
3rd volume of Queen's Knight manga
And now for the most freakish: The Samurai Wizard by Simon Hawke from the $1 shelf at Avol's my favorite book store. The back reads: Tokyo, Japan: The twenty-third century: a thriving metropolis powered by a blend of technology and magic. But some inhuman entity is murdering women in the Land of the Rising Sun, and Inspector Akiro Katayama, sorcer agent in charge of crimes involving magic, has just one clue to work with - a dragon's scale. It sounds horrifically bad. Lately, I've been seeking out good literature, so it's time for something obscene. The very first sentence reads The serpent took form to the music of the wind. It's going to be like reading fanfiction!

I also picked up a copy of The Onion, pretending to be from 1906.
Headlines on the front page include: "CAKEWALK SCANDALIZES THE GENTEEL" and "'SHIT-HEAD' COINED."

So, being this tired right now is worth it. This weekend was really awesome, and very much needed. I'm really excited to go back to school in the fall, but now I'll have time to appreciate things here for a while longer (like consistently being in air conditioning - no walking places).

I don't have to work tomorrow (except I might have to watch Danny for like, 2 hours), so it's going to be very nice to do nothing all day. I can just unwind - I certainly have enough books to do so!


Current Music: Going to the sea (H&C OST - bonus, most of these songs are in English!)

Holy crap, I just downloaded the soundtrack for the live action Honey & Clover movie, and I'm pretty sure it was composed by Yoko Kanno. BEST COMBINATION EVER!

OMG, WATCH THIS! "The story of Oedpius, in 8 minutes, told by vegetables." For being so ridiculous, it's very well-made. I also liked that Antigone was included, :) She is cool.
scribbled mystickeeper at 9:04 AM
10 comments
10 Comments:

I have no idea if Kanno-san did the H&C music. For the most part she's been pretty quiet lately. All I know of her latest projects is the movie Kamikaze Girls, the TV show Sousei no Aquarion, and an MMORPG called Ragnarok Online 2. Anime News Network lists her as the composer for the movie, but anyone can submit information to the site so I have no idea how reliable it is. My favorite info site on her hasn't updated in 8 months either, so my spring of info has run dry. Poop. I *will* find out if it's true or not.

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:59 AM, July 18, 2006  

Well, since she's listed as the composer on CD Japan, I guess that means it's official. It's also official that I must own this CD. If only the stupid website would LOAD!!!...

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:16 AM, July 18, 2006  

Carolyn: I'm fairly certain she definitely did. I got my information mostly from Garten, who does the anime blog called "Memento" (the only one I ever bother reading), and it's discussed here: http://www.designchronicle.com/memento/archives/hachikuro2_ep3.html#comments
The author's pretty obsessive about Honey & Clover, so I trust the info. The torrents also confirm:
http://torrentreactor.net/view.php?id=530848
http://www.torrentz.ws/torrents/Yoko-Kanno-Honey-Clover-Movie-OST-196515.torrent.html

Also, the music definitely sounds Kanno-style, while still retaining it's H&C-ness. So, I believe it.

Creighton: Yeah, it's going to be great. And I do own the first Vampire Hunter D book - at some point, I'll read it. You know, if I ever stop buying books.
And wow, when did this happen??

By Blogger mystickeeper, at 10:18 AM, July 18, 2006  

OMG YOU DID EVERYTHING I WANTED TO DO THIS WEEKEND: Shopping, friend talking, and club. It's funny to hear about happenings at places I usually attend when I'm not there, but I enjoyed your entry very much. Do you know what I did this weekend? I put cheese in plastic pockets, I re-opened those plastic pockets when they didn't turn out right, I put cheese packages in boxes, I stacked those boxes, I picked dirty cheese up off the floor, and I opened expired cheese. For 16 hours! How fun!

I discussed Sci-Fi and kick ass halloween costumes with a guy at work today. From this I've learned two things: 1. I need to watch Firefly, 2. I need to start working on halloween costumes. I cannot decide, however, whether I should make a bunch of badgers, a mushroom, and a snake, or Lust and Ed. (I've ruled out Dark Mercury and Jadeite because I'm not a size 8 yet). Or maybe I'll end up working a bunch and not accomplishing anything.

By Blogger Steph, at 3:44 PM, July 18, 2006  

I've been telling you you would like Firefly!

I vote anime characters over the Badger thing.

Of course, this means that I need to find something to be. Too bad I don't resemble any anime characters and I don't have any sewing ability. TEH SAD.

By Blogger mystickeeper, at 3:50 PM, July 18, 2006  

oh man so much stuff happens on your web log, it is hard to keep track.

i read those comments on hol and ye all i can do is add my assurance that it is quite possibly the greatest book ever written.
it isn't dry, as your friend creighton said, but it is hardashell to keep track of, especially during the twenty pages the text gets flipped upside down, is in backwards cursive script, etc.

actually, i shouldn't have told you that. when you're reading it, resist the urge to flip through it. it'll ruin the experience.
this is what mutton told me, when he lent the book to me on my birthday.
he also told me to write notes in it, which is something you should do as well. it took mzd ten years to write, and is therefore something to be studied and read again and again.

holy crap, what an awesome book.

sandman, yay. ^_^ f&r is surely one of the best of the ten. all of the stories are awesome, although most of them are fucked up and depressing as hell.
thermidor is the only thing about it i don't like. actually, i really really dislike that story. i think the art of it is quite good, especially how orpheus is drawn, but srsly it is so annoying having to read some of the font.

tell me about freakonomics. i keep hearing about it, but nothing actually about it. people just keep saying, oh, yeah, freakonomics, great book, but not telling me at all what it's about or like.

By Blogger uriah heep, at 5:05 PM, July 18, 2006  

I know, sometimes I have a hard track of keeping up with my blog too, lol. When I blog late at night, I'll read the post the next morning and will thoroughly enjoy myself because I don't remember what I wrote.
Really, I am very surprised that so many people read it on a daily basis.

I will take your advice about note-taking. Probably on post-its or something. It is Creighton's book, and I know if somebody wrote things in a book that I lent them, I would probably slit their throat.

I'll look forward to Sandman VI - fucked up and depressing as hell makes for good stories, :)

Freakonomics, from what I've read so far, seems to make an attempt to dig deeper than most people would to come up with answers for why society behaves the way it was, but doing so with common sense.

For example, in the introduction, the authors seeks to explain why, in the 1990s, there was a sudden decrease in crime when all the experts kept saying it was going to keep getting worse and worse and society would go to hell, and all of a sudden, crime rates kept going down. Most people attribute it to gun control and a good economy. The authors attribute it to the legalization of abortion - most women who are addicted to drugs or who live in poverty would raise sons who would eventually become criminals. If they abort their children, then crime decreases.

I'm currently reading a chapter on how teachers in the U.S. cheat on their students' standardized testing scores and why (the No Left Behind Act uses standardized testing to rate schools. If a school is seen as "failing," its funding is taken away. Which makes absolutely no sense.).

By Blogger mystickeeper, at 10:06 PM, July 18, 2006  

mr. hogg: you misunderstood me. what my statement was meant to express was that it isn't dry, as your [jackie lee's] friend creighton [yourself] has already told you.

freakonomics sounds quite interesting.

so i was in a book store yesterday evening, reading constantine, when i noticed that there is a new "remastered" full colour edition. struck passages and minotaur appear in red while the word house, the Xs and the boxes are all in blue. also, the only struck passage in chapter 9, or 13, is in purple.

it looks so sexy.

i peeled a sticker for only revolutions, mzd's next book, off of the cover.

By Blogger uriah heep, at 3:43 PM, July 19, 2006  

I'll look for an uncolored one when I read it, but if I had a page number, I could look now.

Marc - when did you find out my last name? Not that I really care, but if it's on my blog somewhere that I put it, I want to delete it. I'm assuming, though, that Ben told you.

By Blogger mystickeeper, at 6:08 PM, July 19, 2006  

oh damn. last names on the internet.
:(
i always forget that people care about these things. soooorrrrrryyyyy. i don't think i can edit/delete comments.
:((

yes benjamin told me.

c.h: it isn't hardcover. looks exactly like the normal edition, except ogod it's so much sexier. in the publishing notes, there are a bunch of boxes on the bottom detailing the different editions (normal, blue, red, original bundle of papers), and normally, these boxes are just blue, but in the full colour, the kind of fade from purple into blue.

ohmanitlooksawesome.

i am pretty, like, very very sure that house is blue all the time.

i remember seeing the word housing one (1) time, and noting that the letters "hous" were blue, i.e., it is the phonetic word that matters, not the spelling.

if you go to houseofleaves.com, the different language forums (do not go before you finish the book!) all have random words that, i guess, mean house in whatever tongue.

?

By Blogger uriah heep, at 5:00 AM, July 22, 2006  

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