elliemurasaki: meme from oursin

our roads may be golden, or broken, or lost (

elliemurasaki) wrote,
@ 2013-01-22 09:18 am UTC

Entry tags:

meme from oursin

I know very little about some of the people on my friends list. Some people I know relatively well. But here's a thought: why not take this opportunity to tell me a little something about yourself. Any old thing at all. Just so the next time I see your name I can say: "Ah, there's Parker ...she likes money and cereal." I'd love it if everyone who's friended me did this. (Yes, even you people who I know really well.) Then post this in your own journal [only if you feel inclined]. In return, ask me anything you'd like to know about me and I'll give you an answer*.

*Providing it's answerable/suitable for public posting.

(25 comments) - (Post a new comment)
(Flat) (Top-level comments only)

no subject

sylvaine
2013-01-22 02:44 pm UTC (link)

Oooooh, that's a cool idea!

I used to read all. the. time. There was a time during 7th & 8th grade where I had no friends at school, so I spent all my free time reading and finished on average a novel a day. Now it's considerably less. *g* Mostly I read fic, but I kind of miss reading actual books, too, so I'm trying to read books more. Right now I'm in the middle of The Hobbit and have started rereading the Dragonlance Chronicles (fantasy epic of my nostalgic, 8th grade heart!)

What's on your reading/to-read list right now?

(Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 2 comments) (Show 2 comments)

no subject

elliemurasaki
2013-01-22 02:52 pm UTC (link)

You and me both, except I never read Dragonlance. I read Harry Potter eighteen billion times I do not think I am exaggerating (much). Not the sixth book nearly as much, not the seventh or the textbooks or Beedle more than a couple times each and anyway I was well into college age when seven came out, but the first five, oh yeah.

Got a bookmark in Seanan McGuire's Ashes of Honor, another in her Discount Armageddon, bag also contains Jim C Hines's The Mermaid's Madness and the Leverage tie-in The Con Job. Checked out from the library I have Tanya Huff's The Silvered, a book of Irish music and lyrics, C E Murphy's Demon Hunts (haven't read the rest of the series, I just wanna personally verify that Sam and Dean Winchester have a cameo in this one), Bart D Ehrman's Forged (about authorship of various books in the Bible), Madre: Perilous Journeys with a Spanish Noun (apparently 'madre' has unpleasant connotations that neither 'padre' nor 'mama' have), Discount Armageddon, Margaret Ronald's Spiral Hunt, and Death by Supermarket: the Fattening, Dumbing-Down, and Poisoning of America (which I expect will be fatphobic in the extreme but educational nonetheless).

(Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject sylvaine 2013-01-22 05:23 pm UTC (link)
	Oh yes, Harry Potter too, definitely, though like you I read the first five books much more often than the rest. Ooooooh all of those sound like interesting reads! I may have to track down a copy of Ehrman's Forged and Madre, and naturally one day I will catch up with all of Tanya Huff's oeuvre. :P (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject oursin 2013-01-22 03:20 pm UTC (link)
	When I was at what then counted as a 'new' university of no particular prestige, I captained our University Challenge team, which trounced several Oxbridge lineups to reach the quarterfinal, and fight that closely. (Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject elliemurasaki 2013-01-22 03:21 pm UTC (link)
	\o/ (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject redsixwing 2013-01-22 03:27 pm UTC (link)
	I used to be in a chess club, and was actually fairly good at the game. Haven't played in years, but I still miss it. Do you have a favorite non-electronic game? (Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject elliemurasaki 2013-01-22 03:36 pm UTC (link)
	Clue. Our set's falling apart from age, and we hardly ever play now because if Dad's home when somebody decides it's family game time then Dad has to play and Dad doesn't like Clue, but it's the best. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

no subject

blueswan
2013-01-22 04:15 pm UTC (link)

In high school I sang in the school choir. I love music and singing, but now I only sing in front of the cats or people I trust. I sing everything from tv theme songs, to pieces we learned way back when for choir, to goldie oldies, to pop music from the 70s and 80s and even country. Sometimes I make up songs that feature my cat's names which they seem to enjoy. (If you appeal to a cat's vanity, you can make a valuable ally.) Do you sing? If so what?

(Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

no subject

elliemurasaki
2013-01-23 03:17 pm UTC (link)

Dad says I can't carry a tune in a bucket. Ex-roomie says my voice is lovely, if in need of training. They both have music training, so I don't know who to trust. I sing along to the radio and that's about it, though I might (eventually, y'know, when there's time and money) see if I can find a professional opinion and maybe acquire that music training. The only music groups I know of around here that would be willing to train a newbie are affiliated with churches or high schools, though.

(Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject myaibou 2013-01-22 07:40 pm UTC (link)
	I'm a middle-aged, straight, Christian, work-from-home mom, gay rights activist. Well, more active a few years ago than now as kids' activities and work are taking up more time than they used to leaving less time for other stuff, but as passionate as ever about LGBT equality. (Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject elliemurasaki 2013-01-23 03:17 pm UTC (link)
	\o/ (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

no subject

fenella
2013-01-22 08:43 pm UTC (link)

Like the commenter above, I used to read a lot, too. I would get yelled at for reading under the desk in Grade 9 math class- usually Douglas Adams or Diana Wynne Jones :)

And ooh, Tanya Huff! I love that she wrote about the ghost of Ivan Reznikoff, my alma mater's campus ghost. And also her Smoke & ____ series makes me very happy, too. It was pretty much all the prior knowledge I had about Vancouver, before moving here for work.

And also, I have a HORRIBLE memory. Case in point- did we become LJ friends through the Tanya Huff fandom??

(Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject elliemurasaki 2013-01-23 05:05 pm UTC (link)
	Grade eight English is the one that bothered yelling at me. Apparently I was giving the other students a complex--I was reading fun stuff instead of assignment so why couldn't they? The fact that I had already read the assignment, probably twice, didn't seem to matter. I doubt it. I've never been fannish about Huff. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject somnolentblue 2013-01-23 12:30 am UTC (link)
	IDK, what would you like to know? (Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 3 comments) (Show 3 comments)

	no subject elliemurasaki 2013-01-23 03:18 pm UTC (link)
	What's a piece of media you love to pieces but have never got fannish about, why do you love it, and why do you think you're not fannish about it? (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 2 comments) (Show 2 comments)

no subject

somnolentblue
2013-01-25 06:44 pm UTC (link)

Early Dexter, say S1-2, maaaaaybe, season 3. But especially S1.

Without spoilers, reasons I love (early) Dexter:

I adore Dexter's opening credits, which is really unusual for me; they're not as awesome now, since I've seen them umpty-billion times, but at first the recontextualization of quotidian tasks into violence was a really interesting re-framing.

I remain incredibly happy at the narrative arc of S1, the way everything comes together and is interwoven throughout; it might be one of the tightest span of 12 episodes I've seen - it moves at an incredibly pace, but everything in it builds on itself.

I really love the characterizations, although I don't necessarily like the characters. For a male-centric show about someone who's cop-adjacent, there are surprisingly vibrant women characters. They're all a mess in various ways (as is every other character on the show), but their messiness is a function of who they are instead of their gender (although their gender impacts who they are, like LaGuerta climbing the ranks in the police force and Deb's sister and daddy issues and Rita's relationship with domestic violence). I don't like the later seasons as much - by stretching out the central conceit as long as they have, way too many people have to be way too stupid way too often, but it really, really worked for me early on.

I like that people actually sweat in the show. They're in Miami; of course they're going to sweat. But how often do you actually see that on tv? It's ridiculous, but it's something tiny that made me happy. (I can't speak to any of the rest of the verisimilitude, particularly cultural, unfortunately.)

I wish they had let the show end gracefully instead of spooling it out, but, well, I still think the early seasons are awesome, and S1 remains one of my favorite seasons of anything.

I tend to get fannish about things for a few reasons. One of them is other people around me or whom I read being fannish; sometimes I do follow the group and draw from that kind of synergy. Also, there tends to be some sort of character that I peg to and favor: Daniel Jackson, Sam Winchester, Severus Snape, I'm looking at you. Also, there's often some sort of supernatural/scifi/fantasy element, for that is my happy place. For fannish creativity, I tend to have questions or something I want to answer; someone who's not me would probably not notice, but i tend to read heavily different characters and pairings than I write heavily.

With a show like Dexter (see also: Rome (highly recommended, btw, if you like period pieces at all); late-season Leverage; The Wire [with the caveat I stopped watching in S4 because I didn't find that story-arc engaging]), I like the show itself, but I don't feel the need to push it or ask questions or flail or read around the show. Part of it is probably the lack of scifi/fantasy elements that have always just flat worked for my in my leisure reading. Part of it is that I'm getting what I want from the show itself for whatever reason; I'm not... curious/engaged/whatever at a point of seeking or creating extra-textual material, I'm simply engaged at the point of the text. Like, these things are all really well-done*, and that's sufficient for my happiness with them.

*I don't know if I would say Leverage was always really well done - there's a lot in there that strains credulity, some v. strained plots/cons, and I pretend a lot of S3 doesn't exist. But, by late Leverage the actors were so identified with their roles to me that the space for my fannishness is eclipsed by that, if that makes any sense. The plots and pacing don't hit my sweet spot, but the acting/characters were really strong. (I ignore Nate, so take that as you will.)

(Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject elliemurasaki 2013-01-26 10:07 pm UTC (link)
	nodnod (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject topaz119 2013-01-23 01:11 am UTC (link)
	::waves:: hello, hello -- I love to cook, just get into the kitchen and mess around and see what happens. And I tend to read cookbooks like other people read novels... not so much for actual recipes, but just to see how the author pairs things off and what happens when different things get put together. (Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject elliemurasaki 2013-01-23 03:18 pm UTC (link)
	:) (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject tifaching 2013-01-23 03:16 am UTC (link)
	Hi! I love to travel and have been to many places across the U.S. and northeastern Canada. I've been to Mexico twice and London once. I have yet to see a rainforest and the gorgeous birds and wildlife they contain, but that's what I most want to get to in my life. What's the best place you've ever traveled to? (Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

no subject

elliemurasaki
2013-01-23 03:22 pm UTC (link)

That sounds like fun.

Haven't traveled really. Used to do a lot of being driven cross-country, but that was always going from home to relatives and back, though occasionally relatives would be found at Seven Springs Ski Resort in Pennsylvania instead of their homes in other parts of Pennsylvania or in New Jersey. (Always did Seven Springs in the summer. Haven't been there in a few years, not since the time I flipped my sled on the Alpine Slide, which is concrete, and took half the skin off my leg. Spent most of the rest of the trip sat in a chair in our rented condo wearing T-shirt and panties, surfing on Dad's laptop.) Acadia and Shenandoah National Parks are gorgeous; they're also the only ones I remember ever being to. I opted out of the family trip west, which had Yellowstone and I don't remember what else, because they were camping every night, I loathe camping, and I was plenty old enough to stay home.

(Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject echan 2013-01-24 10:16 pm UTC (link)
	I played flute for 7 or 8 years, in grade school. Was in chorus for a bit longer than that. I love that feeling you get when you and someone else are playing/singing different things but completely in step and tempo synced and playing together. (Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject elliemurasaki 2013-01-25 06:17 am UTC (link)
	:) (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

no subject

dawn-bat.livejournal.com
2013-01-26 04:56 am UTC (link)

My current favourite books are the Temeraire series, by Naiomi Novik, partly because she is constantly *surprising* me, and I don't get really surprised by authors that often. Dragons. The Napoleonic Wars. A diverse cast of charactors, obtained in such a way as to never stretch historical credibility (though you do have to look at the series as a whole for that, and not book-by-book, especially the first one). What's not to like?
What's your current favourite book or series? (Other than Harry Potter.)

(Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

no subject

elliemurasaki
2013-01-26 10:11 pm UTC (link)

Seanan McGuire's October Daye books. Faerie noir. Kickass female lead, great female friendships, snark snark snark, it's heteronormative early in the series (doesn't help that the first-person narrator is straight) but McGuire clued in and started making the background queerness foreground which proves that we're dealing with an author who is an ally to my people and capable of learning from her mistakes, and what tipped me to McGuire to begin with is she wrote that essay about there isn't going to be rape in her books ever.

(Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

(25 comments) - (Post a new comment)
(Flat) (Top-level comments only)

Account name:	Log in with OpenID?
Password:	Forget your password?
	Remember me