![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Death, doom, despair
Maybe it's flu, maybe it's wanhope, maybe it's a weekend spent at a cottage on the Niagara peninsula-- a flat unbeautiful stretch of land always covered in heat haze, where people watch television because there's nothing else to do but drink. Yes, yes, they grow wine there. But you'd have to be either drunk all the time or a Buddhist recluse not to go mad at the excess of nothing on all sides, which (even worse) requires a car to get you to it. Auden's estate is ferociously copy-righted so there's no online version, and the poem itself is too long for me to type, but his Plains contains the line, "I cannot see a plain without a shudder,/ 'Oh God, please, please don't ever make me live there." Yes. Yes. *This*, as the wacky mono say.
No, it does *not* make me sleep. It screws up my time sense. I read and read and read and find that I've read a grand total of five pages and there are two hundred and fifty left to go and it's so looong and it will never eeeend and I have no choice but to see it through to the finish. (What a good thing I never had kids. That's my notion of labour as well, plus 'extreme physical pain.')
Somewhere I mentioned the term 'good bad novel.' Now I realize there's a converse, the bad good novel. It should be interesting; it should be fascinating; it's more than decently written and it's not empty or full of bumf and an editor has (possibly) taken a look at it. But it's a swamp, a sink, a sticky flaily morass that fights you at every turn. It just doesn't work and you want to cry because it *should* work. Robin Hobb is the other writer who's inspired me with the same weepy enraged 'I don't know what's wrong with this and I don't know why I don't like this and I want it to be *over* but I can't just put it down.'
But now it *is* over, thank god, and I can go read my copies of Ze that arrived today, two weeks and some after I ordered them. SAL has been very efficient in the past but I forgot that only an idiot, or someone prepared to wait, orders anything from Japan at the beginning of August or the end of December, when half of Tokyo is somewhere else, with or without public holidays to help the exodus.
And think of growing where all elsewheres are equal!Knowing what the cottage can do to me in its worst moods (ie hot sweltering mug, shimmery grey hazed sky, stink of polluted lake, and no, that's it, sorry all but I'm never going to LRD ever) I brought a backpack of books to read, including that simple-minded White Hart novel. But wanhope/ flu/ ferocious muscle spasms ruled out anything Japanese, as they did the undistinguished Martha Wells I'd also brought. (Why do so many fantasies read like tapwater? and tapwater written on a computer, to boot.) If I must suffer, let me suffer to some purpose, so I gnawed doggedly away at The Fall of the Kings. And finished it today, finally, dragging feet and ripping nails out all the way.
So long as there's a hill-ridge somewhere the dreamer
Can place his land of marvels; in poor valleys
Orphans can head downstream to seek a million;
Here nothing points; to choose between Art and Science
An embryo genius would have to spin a stick.
No, it does *not* make me sleep. It screws up my time sense. I read and read and read and find that I've read a grand total of five pages and there are two hundred and fifty left to go and it's so looong and it will never eeeend and I have no choice but to see it through to the finish. (What a good thing I never had kids. That's my notion of labour as well, plus 'extreme physical pain.')
Somewhere I mentioned the term 'good bad novel.' Now I realize there's a converse, the bad good novel. It should be interesting; it should be fascinating; it's more than decently written and it's not empty or full of bumf and an editor has (possibly) taken a look at it. But it's a swamp, a sink, a sticky flaily morass that fights you at every turn. It just doesn't work and you want to cry because it *should* work. Robin Hobb is the other writer who's inspired me with the same weepy enraged 'I don't know what's wrong with this and I don't know why I don't like this and I want it to be *over* but I can't just put it down.'
But now it *is* over, thank god, and I can go read my copies of Ze that arrived today, two weeks and some after I ordered them. SAL has been very efficient in the past but I forgot that only an idiot, or someone prepared to wait, orders anything from Japan at the beginning of August or the end of December, when half of Tokyo is somewhere else, with or without public holidays to help the exodus.
no subject
I don't think I ever want to see a plain either ... I thought that the flat Midlands country a little like that, having got used to living in the Pennines and having the Peak District a bus ride away!
Ah well if we can't tempt you here it's fine. It's not somewhere I would choose to go if I had the time or cash to spare. People generally come here to do business and visit other people. But to that other place go. ^_^
I recall reading Thomas the Rhymer a long time ago but can remember naught of it! Well I do sort of vaguely recall like in a kind of mist but nothing solid of it if that makes any sense!
no subject
no subject
Enjoy the Ze and good to have you back!
no subject
(FWIW when did it happen with you?)
no subject
But the taste of the feeling is very definite, even if I can't remember the book.
no subject
they grow wine there...excess of nothing on all sides, which (even worse) requires a car to get you to it
A more accurate description of the Adelaide Hills I have not seen (possibly because most people I ask are either residents, or have never heard of it). I live in the city area, but it's a city that more or less shuts down after 6 pm except for some restaurants and the pubs.
And other than the occasional festival or performance, most evenings that I'm not doing work, I watch television or read because there's nothing else to do...and alas, I do not drink (wine, or practically any form of alcohol).
no subject
That's not a city, it's a small town.
It's not like I go out in the evenings anyway myself; my friends that did that all moved away and, frankly, my manga and anime provide more satisfaction than opera and theatre ever did for a fraction of the price (even with shipping.) But it's possible to go out; it's possible to wander down to Bloor and cruise the used book stores and watch the other people who are out. The lack of possibility is what weighs the soul. Which is a comedown. Surely a good Buddhist is happy with her books and dictionaries and computer and internet access (which I didn't have either, but still)?
Two more weeks to September!
no subject
But hmm weather wise I was thinking November onwards till possibly early January. Because although monsoon season and yes it might be wet some of the time, the humid is lower during these months and this IS LRD so the sun will still shine! ^_^ and also OMG lj-get-together!!! and food!!! and there must be something interesting going on somewhere! Because it's holiday season too! Plus the Asian Civilisations Museum and the Peranakan Museum is always an interesting walk round?
I may play a lot of things by ear, but I can plan and I'll be happy to play tourist guide! ^__^
also re above comment *points up* the sky IS usually blue and at least neighbouring countries are not burning things like forests!
no subject
Food and cooler weather, definitely; interesting performances and exhibitions, probably - but the shopping madness/incessant carols/twinkling mall displays pre- and post-Christmas?
no subject
no subject
Well our Singapore Tourist Board (http://app.stb.gov.sg/asp/index.asp?) is no help only listing this (http://www.visitsingapore.com/publish/stbportal/en/home/apps/event_detail.html?pageName=MonthlyEvent&buttom=detail&eid=9484&eventType=1) as a happening in February.
also SISTIC (http://www.sistic.com.sg/portal/dt?dt.isPortletRequest=true&dt.action=process&dt.provider=PortletWindowProcessChannel&dt.windowProvider.targetPortletChannel=JSPTabContainer/sHome/Home&dt.containerName=JSPTabContainer/sHome&dt.windowProvider.currentChannelMode=VIEW&dt.window.portletAction=RENDER) gives us January (http://www.sistic.com.sg/portal/dt?dt.isPortletRequest=true&dt.action=process&dt.provider=PortletWindowProcessChannel&dt.windowProvider.targetPortletChannel=JSPTabContainer/sEventsCalendar/Event&dt.containerName=JSPTabContainer/sEventsCalendar&dt.windowProvider.currentChannelMode=VIEW&dt.window.portletAction=RENDER&orderBy=stdate%20asc&month=January%202010&total=&page=1) and February (http://www.sistic.com.sg/portal/dt?dt.isPortletRequest=true&dt.action=process&dt.provider=PortletWindowProcessChannel&dt.windowProvider.targetPortletChannel=JSPTabContainer/sEventsCalendar/Event&dt.containerName=JSPTabContainer/sEventsCalendar&dt.windowProvider.currentChannelMode=VIEW&dt.window.portletAction=RENDER&orderBy=stdate%20asc&month=February%202010&total=&page=1)
But weather-wise we should still be ok. Balmy and breezy even.
no subject
If you come here around festival time you will definitely be putting some of the 15 kilos back...but why shed any at all?Chinese New Year in Singapore = Christmas translated into Mandarin, with twice as much attendant food, noise, shopping, parties/visiting and all-round fuss.
I don't know much about the Youth Olympics either, but I don't suppose it will affect either of us that much? (temperature more or less same-same all year round lah. where got balmy except in National Day song?)
no subject
cheesiereach year.*waits for eavesdropping government agents to swoop down and arrest me*
no subject
no subject
Quite apart from being 25 kilos overweight to startCNY doesn't sound like low season. Maybe not till the fall, then.