odds and ends

[ursula]

I read most of the second two books of Gene Wolfe's Long Sun series on the plane home. Somewhere in the middle I dozed and dreamed that someone was forcibly interrogating someone else using the fact that the someone else was some collection of finitely generated Z-modules, while the interrogator was a free Z-module and could therefore map onto his victim at any time.

The Long Sun books are beautiful but distant, and I react with incredulity every time the main character mentions that he's in love with the woman he's in love with. I think I am supposed to conclude that he's not-very-sub consciously sabotaging his priestly status; but I don't think I'm supposed to conclude that he is arbitrary and unfathomable.

***

Now that I have real internet access again, I can post this, borrowed from mjbarefoot:

Reply to this post and...

1. I will tell you what song reminds me of you. (I reserve the right to substitute other works of art as necessary.)
2. I will tell you what celebrity/public/fictional person you remind me of, either in personality or in looks.
3. I will give you one word that I associate with you when I think of you.
4. I will tell you what colors I associate with you.

***

My car works (mostly) at the moment, in case anyone's keeping score.

Comments

[arhracole.livejournal.com]

Welcome home. And hope your car stays working for longer than the moment. Though, I don't think keeping score on that one is a good idea.

And of course I'm curious about the things for the reply to this and.... I'd be willing to bet Glasseye is a big influence for you as far as I go. ^_^

[ursula]

1. Something by Pearl Jam.
2. A Sean Stewart hero. Let's say Perfect Circle, maybe.
3. Immortal :P
4. Black. And, um, pink.

I am replying cause it is all about me

[pandorasbox.livejournal.com]

We missed you this weekend, ah well, see you friday

Re: I am replying cause it is all about me

[ursula]

1. "Heart of Glass."
2. Chenille in the Long Sun series, for the energy.
3. Bold.
4. Bright red and purple-dyed linen.

Replying.

[showergrrl.livejournal.com]

Because I like to know what people think of me.

Re: Replying.

[ursula]

1. Anything by the Pogues, of course. I associate you in a general sort of way with obscure 80s music, but I don't know enough about it to come up with something good.
2. Catherine Morland, of Northanger Abbey.
3. Hugs.
4. Purple.

[alsoelsewhere.livejournal.com]

I cannot resist.

[ursula]

1. Classical piano.
2. Jude in A.S. Byatt's Babel Tower. The hero of Malafrena at the beginning of the book, though I can't remember what happens to him.
3. No.
4. Black and tan, though more in the young-men-who-wear-black-and-drink-lots-of-coffee sense than the drink sense.

[glasseye.livejournal.com]

!

[reasie.livejournal.com]

I suppose the SO gets leave to cheat on his reply. :P

A bore is someone who insists on talking about themselves, whereas a wit is one who has the wisdom to talk about you... therefore I'll post here that Ursule reminds me of! Ha!
Of course these are just the vaguest hints and ideas based on our limited contact, and I don't expect anything in return, since our contact HAS been limited, and I'd rather be active than passive- observer than observed.

1. Ursule, you are for some unknown reason linked to Pink Floyd in my mind. See Emily Play... I always got the feeling Emily was a scientist, a wizard or mathemetician, possessed of knowledge the singer cannot fathom, and that is why her motions are inscruitable.

2. You are actually a lot like Maureen McHugh. Is that cheating? She's not hugely famous, but there are manners about her that are very you. If that doesn't count, let me say Claudette Colbert for compliment's sake, in grace, if not in personality.

3. careful

4. Brown. A warm, knitting-yarn brown.

: P

[ursula]

1. "You're a girl, or maybe a wagon . . ."
2. Wookiees.
3. Cute.
4. Blue ribbons.

[glowing-fish.livejournal.com]

Can I recompile my Z module into my dynamically linked router subfunction? Do I need a titanium overlace tachymetric relay to do so?

[ursula]

You will need a diamond-plated functor.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

i totally need to know now...how do you know mjbarefoot? (b/c it's a *mighty* small world :-)

[ursula]

We had a Greek class together. I'm guessing she was one of your students?

[frog-lady.livejournal.com]

I'm glad your car is working, and it's nice to know that other people have work permeate much of the rest of their thoughts.

This is also an official reply to your post.

[ursula]

The book had a forcible-interrogation-by-teakettle scene, so the dream was solidly half and half.

1. Why, anything by They Might Be Giants, of course.
2. Several incarnations of the I character in Years of Rice and Salt.
3. Cabled.
4. Dark green.

[hankshiny.livejournal.com]

I once had a fairly traumatic dream about maximal ideals.

[hankshiny.livejournal.com]

Oh I totally didn't notice that I was asking to be memed. You can if you want to, but only if it amuses you.

[mangonini.livejournal.com]

i am replying!

[ursula]

1. Anything on any of the various mix CDs, tapes, etc. you've made me, as well as classics such as "You know you need a ride/ But there's a voice inside . . ."
2. Diana in the Aubrey and Maturin books. Though I think it would have been more interesting if I had said Maturin.
3. Not one word so much as long arguments about whether such-and-such a word really exists.
4. Blue, but also orange, as the color of evil.

[nobu.livejournal.com]

i'm an attention whore too :P
but didn't my cards say your car would be ok in the future? :)

[ursula]

But how can I believe your cards when God was a week off about the snow? ;)

1. "She's Losing It," Belle and Sebastian, as well as random stuff I've heard you playing on your car radio.
2. Fiorinda in Gwyneth Jones' Bold as Love series.
3. No-holds-barred.
4. Green, and the blue of that mitten yarn.

[cattifer.livejournal.com]

Oh man! I want in on this!!

[ursula]

1. Stuff by the Cherry Poppin' Daddies.
2. The younger sister in E. Nesbit's The Bastables.
3. Wishing.
4. A clear yellow.

[betzle.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm curious.

[ursula]

1. Miscellaneous electronica.
2. The geologist-musician in Lisa Mason's Pangaea series.
3. Buses.
4. Sky blue.

[metaplasmus]

Ooh... me!

Alright...

[alaric.livejournal.com]

Hey, we missed you at the wedding - and he was wearing a kilt. Still makes me laugh when I think about it! I hope that we get the pleasure of your acquaintance at some point in the next year!

[ebeneezergoode.livejournal.com]

I'll bite, but you're prohibited from picking stuff off of the regular Gentlemen's Night playlist.

[ursula]

1. I associate whole rafts of music with you: the Bats, Belle & Sebastian for approbation, Sixty-Nine Love Songs for disapprobation, the White Light/ White Heat album, and so on and so forth.
2. The punk-rock friend in Buddha of Suburbia.
3. "Fuck you, can we go now?"
4. Black, cream, and burgundy.

[kargashina.livejournal.com]

sure....

marya

[ursula]

1. Dance music.
2. Vickie in Nancy Kress' Beggars series.
3. Cat.
4. Pink.

I like your icon, by the way.

[jakemainstreet.livejournal.com]

I'm late, but curious. Songs by the Magnetic Fields tend to remind me of you.

[ursula]

1. "Shut up and sleep with me" for reminiscence' sake. Velvet Underground's "Pale Blue Eyes."
2. Eustace from the Narnia series (at the end of the books, not the beginning).
3. Questions.
4. Blue, and a sort of light red.

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

Remember the narrator here is Horn, who is jealous of (and dislikes) Hyacinth. He doesn't like to dwell on Silk's relationship with her, and skips past without much detail, both because he finds it distasteful and because it really is unfathomable to him. It's uncomfortable to describe your idol's feet of clay, and it wouldn't make sense for Horn to aptly describe what makes Hyacinth so wonderful.

This concept reappears in The Book of the Short Sun with more confidence: massively important scenes occur off-stage, and are only deducible from their absence, because the narrator is unwilling to revisit them.

[ursula]

I hate having literary discussions about books I read a couple of years ago, because I always retain strong feelings and forget the supporting evidence :)

This was my response partway through-- my response at the end was more 'never mind, then, I guess it was supposed to be unfathomable'. But it's clear to me that I became less interested in what was going to happen once I knew who the gods were, and I think some of that was related to the reaction described above. (I also think that it should be possible for Horn to make Hyacinth viscerally sexy, even while disliking her. Maybe I'm just too far from the target audience?)

My reaction to Miéville's The Scar was essentially 'this is fascinating world-building, but I don't like being manipulated'. I'm telling you this because (although I liked Book of the Long Sun much better) my thoughts on the two books may be birds in the same flock . . .