stigmata

it may be a bit difficult to see in the thumbnail, but my forearm has acquired a letter T, brought on by repeated random impact (volleyball). i usually only get little red and purple dots (burst cappillaries i imagine). therefore, this T must be a sign or reminder.

possibilities:
- Toronto (wins the Stanley Cup, etc)
- Thymine (UV radiation dimerizes thymine in DNA to disrupt replication)
- Tesla (i just watched The Prestige)
- Tenacity (essay and exam season requires...)
- Tact (and my utter lack thereof)
- Troglodyte (which is just a fun word)

pointless post: the art of procrastination

i have an essay due tomorrow. i started it after the hockey game last night (6-1 Leafs over Hurricanes). i spent the last hour or two reading an analysis on narrative satisfaction and the subsequent discussion (not all of it, which would be maddness^2) -- all about a tv show that was cancelled at its peak. while this is procrastination at its highest (i.e. a monolithic mis-use of time), it does serve the purpose of getting my analytical cogs turning. i originally wrote "analytical juices flowing," but that was too close to "anal juices" for my tastes (and now i've gone and juxtaposed it with "taste." gah!). if you thanked me for pointing that out to you, you are welcome.

decisions

i got out of class early last thursday so i decided to kill some time by hitting up the bookstore just to browse around and maybe fiddle with the macbook pro. upon walking in, i veered towards my usual set of shelves (english) but something inside stopped me short; i stood facing the classics section: a common enough occurance, though never my first stop as it was in this case. curious.

a book caught my eye: Greek and Latin in scientific terminology. i thought, hey, that's something i do by instinct and there's a convenient book about it.

i picked it up and flipped through it casually. it looked like my linguistics textbook -- bolded examples with a paragraph of explanation -- but with a greek/latin-to-english dictionary for the affixes. this book can potentially grant me superior wordcrafting ability! and it will look very spiffy next to the huge Quantum Mechanics text and the little A Streetcar Named Desire on my future bookshelf. i am not an avid book buyer, so that is how i determine whether or not i should buy a book; i imagine what effect it would have on my future bookshelf and how a visitor might react to it. this book would cause a favourable reaction of incredulity (hopefully!), especially when viewed in context. so i decided to buy it.

i checked the back, where the price was wasn't. without the price, i gave it a thorough weighing (i held it and lifted it a little higher) and concluded that it should be no more than $20. it was not a large book.

oh, how convenient! no one in line. the book was scanned and the price appeared. $42.05. i did a double-take.

could i absorb this cost? i should stop going out for food. will this investment return in triplicate? of course not, no one makes money making up words. Tolkien did. only nerds like him. you're a nerd. that i am. nerds are popular now. such as? dwight, whedon, lucas, jobs, etc. point taken. besides, you ought to stick with your decisions and bear the consequences. why does my inner monologue quote myself?

Renaissance

my favourite: Leonardo
because he wears blue, is the natural leader and level-headed voice of reason, and he wields twin katanas.

Greg Edmonson - Inside the Tam House

My favourite piece from the Firefly Official Soundtrack. Click title to listen (as well as the rest of the OST if you so wish. I also recommend The Funeral and Inara's Suite. I also highly recommend watching the show).

A bit of backstory: Firefly was a critically acclaimed tv show, the brainchild of Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel) that got canned by Fox, but not before muckings-about at the executive level led to schedule juggling and showing the series out of order (who shows the pilot episode only after the show has been cancelled?). The fanbase flocked to the DVDs once they were made available and Firefly was resurrected as the movie Serenity, which -- for those keeping track of such things -- never happens. Ever.

Firefly is, on the surface a sci-fi Western drama (with a splash of the self-conscious comedy recognizably Whedon). It chronicles life in the distant future (when the US and China have colonized space) aboard a small transport ship, Serenity, whose captain and crew are just out to make a living (legal and otherwise) and get by -- Millennium Falcon style. They pick up travelers for a bit of extra cash. Unfortunately, two of them are wanted criminals with bounties on their heads worth more than the ship they fly in.

Simon and River Tam are brother and sister on the lam. River, a genuinely gifted mind and dancer, was abducted by a secret government organization that sought to awaken her latent psychic abilities and turn her into a brainwashed weapon. Simon, a promising young trauma surgeon at the top hospital of the Core planets gave up his career and personal wealth to fund a network of contacts and spies that eventually led to him rescuing his sister from the government facility.

"Inside the Tam House" is a sparse and beautifully flowing piece that annunciates the longing for the life and home that the Tam's lost. The piece is supported by the rippling arpeggios of the piano at the base. Soaring above with the melody is the violin, punctuated and augmented occasionally by the woodflute.

Throughout the show (and thus the soundtrack), the combination of piano and violin are used as signatures for River and Simon (209, Goltz). Where other characters are signified by Western mainstays, like the guitar, the fiddle, and banjo -- portable instruments befitting nomadic lifestyles, the originally wealthy Tams are represented by instruments with classical and aristocratic connotations. At the base is the piano, a large, stay-at-home instrument, physically representing the nostalgia for a past life that cannot be reclaimed. The piano ripples up and down, in and out, in an omnipresent and pervading way (like some sort of river). It is supported by the elegant, but flighty violin, characteristic of River's psychotic tendancies as a result of experimentation on her brain. The violin melody is wistful and has an Asian flavour (note the Asian surname). The woodflute is a distinctly Asian instrument, further reinforcing the Anglo-Asian blend seen on the show. It evokes a sense of pastoral landscapes (important in Westerns) and of freedom from the urban Core planets (also important in Westerns).

The creativity, deliberation, craft and genius that went into the composition and arrangement of this soundtrack testifies to the overall creativity, deliberation, craft and genius of the show itself. The idea of a crew of rag-tag nobodies in a ship flying around avoiding the Alliance and just trying to stay in the sky became an apt metaphor for a show brimming with potential, vision and talent that did all it and its fans could to stay afloat, but ultimately failing.

Goltz, Jennifer. "Listening to Firefly." Finding Serenity. Ed. Jane Espenson. Dallas, Texas: Benballa, 2005. 209-216.

Movie Review: Wordplay (2006)

i finally got around to watching this documentary on Crossword puzzles (New York Times, specifically). Wordplay is a well-crafted and well executed piece of film making. i used to do crosswords on a daily basis every morning at school before/during my first lecture. i lost the habit toward the end of my third year as mornings got a little more sleepy and classes started later so i did not have first dibs on the newspapers. this film has reawakened that dormant desire to stretch my mind and wrack my vocabulary.

the film takes us behind the scenes of the NYT crossword puzzle making process. we see the inspiration and genius behind the boxes and the care and diligence put into editing the puzzles overall for consistency and coherence. we are introduced not only to hardcore crossword geeks (who time themselves religiously), but to celebrities or iconographic figures that also take time out of there day to sit down, strip out the Arts section and fold back the page to bare the daily Crossword.

from the brief biographies we are taken to the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (ACPT) held at the Marriott Hotel in Stamford, CT (there used to be a Dunder-Mifflin branch in that city, but it was merged with the Scranton branch a few months ago), and we see how the players we were introduced to stack up to the competition. crossword players come in all stripes and walks of life, and gather together once a year to share the one slice of joy they all have in common.

like in all documentaries, the cinematography is nothing spectacular. the editing is clever, like a crossword clue in itself by segueing scenes by innocuous statements. the soundtrack is gentle and campy, much like the characters featured. special effects were used to good effect, giving viewers an over-the-shoulder view of a player's progress. the story is -- as it is with even the most banal of competitions -- dramatic.

the most notable moment was when Will Shortz, the Puzzle editor of the NYT described his favourite puzzle. he immediately recalled the genius puzzle written by Jeremiah Farrell for the American election day 1996. written before the election results were published, clue 39A 'predicted' who would win.

questionable content: what i've learned from Courtship in Literature

i'm currently working on finishing a report about Ultraviolet disinfection of sewage wastewater. therefore, i am woefully bored. and when i am woefully bored, i like to entertain others, and what better way to entertain others than by blogging about something rather creepy?

i've been good, in recent days, albeit unconsciously; i haven't made or giggled at any bawdy puns or innuendos since i don't remember when. so my professors have taken it upon themselves to pick up the slack for me. yay!

yesterday, my professor was going over A Streetcar Named Desire and discussing Blanche Dubois' dissociative nature (shy, wispy innocent woman vs. sexually aggressive womb raider) and something about "riding that rattle-trap street-car (the one named Desire) that bangs through the Quarter, up one narrow street and down another...", which she interjected with a, "so to speak," in all the right places. she also brought up this very disturbing mythical notion that was symbolized by Blanche's frilly mirror. it was a new term for everyone so she wrote it on the board, "vagina dentata." that translates to "vagina with teeth," and she asked us to remind her to erase the board before the next class.

so i've crowned this concept the newest top scary-thing herman is quite squeamish of. the original title-holder was the dreaded Toilet Snake. actually, it's a toss-up.

PS: if you click the wiki entry, and hop to the next most interesting article, you will probably have a good time.

i had an adventure

on Wednesday, i visited a residence suite with some ACF buddies before the ACF program. they were borrowing the kitchen so that Jenn could make some suut choi yok si tong u-dong (snow vegetable meat strip soup fatround noodle).

it was my first time in a residence at UTSC while it was in use. i've always wanted to live on residence, which was an impossibility having decided to attend school in town. having seen what 6 guys can do to a suite though, i am somewhat glad i stayed in town.

the kitchen/living room area seemed to be making a spirited imitation of a landfill, only failing in the fact that one could see the floor in some places. i put my stuff down and set about fidgeting because i had the irrepressible urge to clean up.

Joy pointed out how surprisingly organized it was, and in an expressionist sort of way, it was. in one corner resided the pile of plastic bags, indicating a predilection toward the local Sobey's as the grocer of choice. to the left of that was a pile of cardboard boxes and cartons. on the window ledge was an impressive array of bottles sporting the branding of their favourite alcoholic beverages. all of this faced the door and a table sporting containers that did not fit on the cramped kitchen counter and a microwave encrusted within with whatever splattered in the past 3 months.

the kitchen sink was full of utensils, plates and washing apparati. Jenn couldn't find any bowls, so Joy and Jeff resigned to eating straight out of the available pots. while the others ate (they had an exam in a few minutes), Jenn and i set about washing the dishes and miscellany in the sink. she found a jay cloth that seemed to have sprouted a dark mould and she tried to scrub it down with soap and boiled water amidst "eews" and "ughs" and "it's slimey!" she was later informed by Tom, a resident, that that particular cloth was the one everyone had agreed early on to never touch, thus remaining in the sink until that day.