dot points

[fahye]

By some miracle, I have tomorrow morning off. No lectures. I can sleep in. That's enough of a reason for me to break my posting-hiatus briefly, so:

- I can't remember who linked me to it, but this article by Zadie Smith on the importance of speaking with a flexible voice is fantastic. I've only ever read one of Smith's books but I adored it and mean to hunt down the others. And look, this article talks about Shakespeare!

Will had seen too many wild-eyed martyrs, too many executed terrorists, too many wars on the Catholic terror. He had watched men rage absurdly at rood screens and write treatises in praise of tables. He had seen men disemboweled while still alive, their entrails burned before their eyes, and all for the preference of a Latin Mass over a common prayer or vice versa. He understood what fierce, singular certainty creates and what it destroys. In response, he made himself a diffuse, uncertain thing, a mass of contradictory, irresolvable voices that speak truth plurally.

- I am still writing snatches of things, here and there, when I have the energy for it. My newest eyaiverse story keeps sprouting characters like nobody's business, my History Boys fic is encouragingly close to being finished, and ryokophoenix and I have hammered out a few more plot points for the heist AU (though really the plot doesn't start until the end of the next chapter, so I have no excuse not to write that).

- Mel has also started showing me Lie to Me. I am ridiculously hooked. I want nothing more than for Cal and House to be meet and be terrifyingly intelligent, perceptive assholes at each other.

- Someone just walked under my window singing a very passable version of ALW's Pie Jesu. Heh.

Comments

[brynnmck.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's a fascinating article. Thanks for linking it!

[schiarire.livejournal.com]

I can't believe someone who isn't me made you read a NYRB article! WHO IS THIS PERSON

[platypusnoises.livejournal.com]

thank you for the link to that article! it was fantastic. i'm going to pass it on to my english professor. we read parts of obama's book in class, so hopefully this earns me student points. either way, i devoured it on my train ride home tonight. i think my favorite part was the bit about halifax. i always find myself apologizing for wanting to find the middle ground between things. the part you quoted also ranks pretty high up there.

i hope you have your life under control! (i think this sort of encouragement should be more widely used. i often wish i had my life under control. everyone tries to convince me that i do when it's really quite the opposite.)

[platypusnoises.livejournal.com]

also, she mentioned the novel Clarissa, which i get a kick out of because that's my name. i really should read it one of these days...