Icons, interests and some rambles they've inspired

[matgb]

OK, just got in, and rather than do my usual friends list read then attempt to update, if I update first I might actually get an entry in tonight, n'est ce pas? Anyway, a meme from frightened that I've always liked the look of before anyway:

explain three icons and three interests. Comment and I'll demand explanations for yours.

She gave me:

Interests: "china miéville"; "george r. r. martin"; "steph swainston".

Icons: "Anarchist Fineas"; "Categories" (Captain Jack quote?); "Temptation".

And, well, I should've known someone would ask about dear old Fineas. Anyway, interests first. Curious that she choe the three authors, but not too hard to explain.

China Miéville

I wrote a brief review of his first novel when I first read it in 2005, I was aready a fan, having been told in no uncertain terms by Vince to buy Perdido Street Station in the departure lounge of Manchester Airport when we were waiting for our flight to CA. China describes his writing as New Weird, which has also been described as Magical Realism or similar. Essentially, fantasy novels, but set in a 'realistic' world, with an internal logic that makes sense and in which magic, if it exists, is used as a tool in the economy, not as some faffy mystical art. Perdido Street blends crime thriller with horror and fantasy, and has a lot of politics thrown in (China is slightly to the left of, well, most of humanity, having stood for election for the Socialist Alliance at one point). I was hooked then, and while at times the politics can be a little too much to take, I really like his work; really must get around to finishing reading his short story collection Looking for Jake, Reports of certain events in London is a simply awesome short story written in the form of letters discovered. There's an interview with him at strangehorizons and I'm pretty sure I linked to the crookedtimber seminar on him when they did it. Another great resource is usually the Library Thing profile, but I can't actually get there as I type this :-(

Edit (before posting even), any idea how hard it is to write a post with lots of well researched links when your wireless craps out every five minutes? Yeah, this is fun. The above paragraph? 40 minutes it's taken me to get this far. The connection has been mostly fine for ages, but today? *kicks PC* Please to be imagining there are more links in the above (and below), because there was meant to be.

Steph Swainston

I've, um, mentioned her a few times before, and I set up steph_swainston as well. Another in the magical realism school, but her books are shorter, with less revolutionary politics, more fight scenes and lots of drug taking. I really like the well realised Castle world, and she can tell stories well. I also reviewed them in the post linked above in the China section. And I'm hoping to attend a booksigning arranged by chrisdolley in which both she and Jon Courtenay Grimwood will be attending next month^[1]; I've met Jon before (it's why I started reading his books - paulatpingu leant me Pashazade), but Steph is a bigger draw, currently, anyway.

George R.R. Martin

Um, yeah, grrm. I resisted picking up the Songs of Ice and Fire books for ages; oh no, I thought, another fantasy epic, been there, done that, where are the space ships. Then Duncan and granjero made me play the Game of Thrones board game. Um, yeah. I'm a board game geek, I love board games, I especially love strategy board games, I have loads, and really need to get a group together to play them more often. So when I describe a game as "best board game ever", that means it's good ok? So, having played the game, a lot, and lost, mostly, as Lannister (because, you know, Duncan and Chris are a little better than the rest of the goddamned planet at that sort of game), I thought I could at least try the books. Um, yeah. I tried the first one. Next day I bought the rest of those printed. They are, simply, great books, fantasy, yes, but you could ignore those elements completely and read them into as an alternate background knights in armour series. All the dragons died out years ago y'see, magic is dead, no one believes in it any more. Plus, lead characters that act as the readers eye view have this wonderful tendency to die at random moments, quite unexpectedly at times. If you like traditional fantasy, try him if you're not already. If you don't, but like a bit of action/adventure that reads like it's got real actual shades of grey people in it, then give him a go; I'm rereading in a dip in and out style the first book at the moment, and it's still damned good.

Now, those next two paragraphs? Half an hour. With many many kicks. I'm going to save a draft and reboot the machine. FFS.

Icons

Fineas, my almost perpetual default. I used an earlier version of this image when I first set up LJ, and he's been my default icon pretty much everywhere for years now. I also have him in various artworks as my category icons for posts, I keep meaning to do a few more but never actually do. He's a character in the Doomtown CCG, which I'm, techinically, in charge of currently as it's a dead game and I'm appointed Shriff by the players council. But it's a really dead game. Zombie cowboys, a mining town in the ruins of a California that's sunk into the sea, mad scientists, railroad barons; what's not to love? Fineas himself is a Belgian anarchist with a tendency to fly his blimp over mining corporation holdings and drop bombs on them, but he has a sideline as a mad scientist who builds robots and ray guns. In 1867. A game I'll always love, even if it's unlikely to every get reprinted, it was too expensive to produce (they went for very high quality printing), too adult a theme and a fairly steep learning curve. Ah well, still got hte cards, can still play it. paulatpingu, mapp and shakalooloo also use Doomtwon based icons on occasions as well.

Lorna asks if it's a Captain Jack quote. Yup, it is. Torchwood, the show that should've been great, but failed. Take a decent franchise, some interesting characters, a great concept and some damn attractive actors (well, except the guy who plays Owen), give it an after watershed timeslot and proceed to fuck it up completely. Nice one Rusty. Why do I use it? Well, partially, it's a great quote. But mostly it's because, like a fair few people on my friends list, I hate categories (innerbrat [2] wrote a great article about categories last year in which she declared she's not 'bi', she's a Gynophallophile - made sense to me then and now). When people ask me, I tend to reply with "I'm 95% straight", because people seem to want labels. Am I 'straight'? Or have I simply not yet met a man I found attractive enough to want to go to bed with? I don't know. Jennie and I are trying to sort out the parameters on our relationship. We're not 'polyamorous', we love each other, we just think sex needn't be about love, exclusivity seems pointless. But people want to know, they want labels, they want to slot people into categories, black/white, straight/queer, with us/against us. No thanks, not for me. I'm me, I'm not a number, deal.

I like icons that portray a meaning fairly obviously, it means they can't be misread, and they can help add meaning and depth to a post or comment. I dislike adverts all over LJ (obligatory plug for both no_lj_ads and lj2wordpress), but think the idea of a community paid for by a film promotions company that interacts with fans in a good way could be cool. mydarkestsecret was very well done, and appealed directly to a big LJ demographic. A good way to raise revenue for the site, without being plastered with dodgy flash ads for dubious products. Plus, y'know, cute girl in werewolf movie, what's not to love? OK, I nver got around to going to seeing the film, but whoever said I was perfect?

---

[1]Thursday, June 7th with a mass signing at Waterstones Piccadilly (5:30pm - 7pm) with Steph Swainston, myself, John Lambshead, Andrew Dennis, Steve Savile, Eric Brown, David Devereux, Jon Courtenay Grimwood and Robert Holdstock. tyrell is also planning to be there, jantshira / faeriecween? I know you both like Steph, pretty sure you liked Jon as well but I forget.

[2] Who, let's face it, should be on everyone's friends list, just because, ok?  Plus, she looked damn hot in the outfit she wore to Sin City Friday night, which is an added bonus in a friend I always think. Don't believe me? Reflections and Opinion. Go read. Plus, did I mention the dinosaurs? Yeah, she plays with dino bones for a living.

ETA: TWO HOURS this post took to get online and edited for my little tags not being closed errors. Two hours. Gah!

Comments

[js84.livejournal.com]

Ooh. Can you ask me?

I know a good half of my icons were from you in the first place, but meh.

[matgb]

Interests: acoustic guitar, dmitri shostakovich (partially because my brain refuses to remind me what he wrote, despite having studied and liked him), ralph vaughan williams (because my music teacher was Gerald Vaughan Williams, a nephew IIRC).

Icons: Default, Pirates are cooler than ninjas (so not true), Coffee (because I'd like to know why you like it - I had no idea you'd taken it)

[js84.livejournal.com]

Interests:

Acoustic guitar

I have been playing guitar properly since my last year at uni (2005). Although along the line my Dad tried to buy me a cheap classical guitar when I was 7, I never took to it until quite recently. The reason this is my greatest interest and the only instrument I play now is down to the epiphany I had when I heard the artists Michael Hedges (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29CMRsWlDt0) and Preston Reed (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NdUL-AkfkQ). They demonstrated that there was a near infinite number of techniques and musical possibilities with an often understated instrument. You know, it would make me very happy if you had a look at those videos.

Dmitri Shostakovich

If you studied him you probably know that he was the main scapegoat in the arts under Stalin's regime. His music was attacked for not being optimistic or patriotic enough, but his reply to this was the clever 5th symphony which managed to ridicule whilst sounding apparently OK. As he died in 1975 he also wrote a fair bit of film music too. Sorry, that description sounds terrible. It's been a while since I've had to write essays on him. My high point of piano was when I played his 2nd piano concerto with the uni orchestra. It's an enjoyable piece worth listening to.

Ralph Vaughan Williams

He is probably my most influental composer and has the style of music that I'd most like to draw upon when I get good enough to compose for the guitar. At a time when British classical music was in the doldrums he was partly responsible for reviving it. I mentioned in one meme that fell upon deaf ears that his popular piece 'The Lark Ascending' for solo violin and orchestra is my most favourite classical work of all time and is like a signature tune to me. It must have been cool to have known a relative of Vaughan Williams.

Icons:

Default

What is there to say? It's me innit? I told you it was based around Peter Gabriel's 3rd album cover, but nearly everyone just thinks it's plain odd that it is a bit blurred. Gah. I need a new icon of myself...

Pirates are cooler than ninjas

I don't remember where I found this. Probably on some icon website. I wouldn't have gone for one that looked any more credible and serious as I like the naive cartoony style of it. I have no proof that ninjas have any value although I used to read White Ninja, but that's different.

Coffee

I do read QC every day but I liked the icon before I knew it was to do with it. I guess I thought I could do with another tiredness icon and the fact that Jeff Jacques probably thought of it on the spur of the moment adds to the enjoyment factor. If you're asking why I like coffee itself, I guess it's because it has a more complex taste than tea. I gladly drink both but now that I'm in full time employment it tends to be tea more often.