Work goes well; I'm now on one of these "normal" sleep schedules which is rather odd after the whole school year of being decidedly collegey. Have acquired air conditioner because I'm a wimp who can't deal with Massachusetts summers even though this will be what, the nineteenth, twentieth time trying? Everyone who I laughed at when it was cold out and I liked it is now laughing at me, and by "everyone" I mean beat_the_beaver. At least summer is only three months long, and winter is at least five, so I win in the long run. Mua ha ha.

Gina and I have been making our way through James Bond movies, with the goal of watching them all this summer. We finished The Spy Who Loved Me tonight, which I rather liked although I was terribly disappointed by their decision of which toothy character to kill off at the end.

Reading the damnation_alley community has reminded me that Roger Zelazny is gone ten years today. I have a beat-up/well-loved Zelazny paperback on my desk that'll be superseding the library books for tonight right after I hit "update" on this in a few seconds.

It seemed like the sort of book that actually does lend itself to reading all at once while curled up and quiet. ( Perks of Being a Wallflower rambling. )

( A pretty depressing list, actually. I am SO shallow. )

I think even more depressing than the number of un-bolded things on that list is the number of underlines. OK, that and the fact that half of the bolds are courtesy of elementary school. :P

So I'm typing (almost) all the Fountain pieces, and I think I've done them all. But nooo, I missed one. It's a really long one too, and I'm near the end, and then I realize: this is the one where I liked it mostly except for the last paragraph, where the author proceeds to neatly undermine the last two solid pages of imagery and pretty words, where I wince like clockwork at every period.

I think I deserve a medal for typing that paragraph anyways.

... Now on to layout. Whee.

nota bene -- I'm really not as bitter as I seem about this -- not bitter at all, actually, I just enjoy complaining.

So I saw someone a couple days ago talking about how the barcode tattoo on the cover of Jennifer Government did not, in fact, say what it should. I found this immensely amusing. Then I went and read the book anyways -- got it Thursday evening leaving work and finished it Friday night, because it's one of *those* books. The books where you know you're going to be a total zombie in school the next day, but it's okay if you can just finish this one more chapter before your eyelids lose the battle against gravity and sink shut.

I ended up reading a lot of the press on the afore-linked site before actually reading the book, including a couple deleted scenes -- it didn't mess with my enjoyment of the book or the twists of the plot much, if at all, except for the first one which is pretty spoileriffic. Anyways, it definitely piqued my appetite, so I highly recommend that you do the same. Er, the book? Oh yeah. I think the author puts it as "alternate present" -- not high-tech science fiction, but a time like now except for the minor detail that the world is ruled by corporations -- capitalism to the extreme. The plot is quick-moving and intriguing and all that jazz, and the author's cynical, satirical sense of humor is all over the place Reminded me of Paranoia occasionally.

Possibly even better is Max -- excuse me, Maxx -- Barry's other book, Syrup. It's a send-up of the marketing industry, ridiculous and sharp and hilarious, and everyone should read it now. My little sister is reading it at the moment, also finding it funny though she's not quite as cynical as I am. And, er, I'd give it the credit it deserves, but I kinda have homework to do, and I wanted to ramble briefly about one more thing.

I'm still in the middle of Gregory Maguire's Lost, and it's not grabbing me so much. Though it's full of wry insight and interesting turns of phrase, though the plot is at least a bit intriguing, I've been trying to drag it out because I'm writing about it for an English project thingie, and that's really detracting from my enjoyment of it. :/ I think I'll just finish it soon and then try to write all the assignments before every page vanishes totally from my mind... in theory, at least. It's not bad, and I haven't read any of Maguire's other books (which I'm told are excellent), but it's not quite what I expected upon picking it up and it's not quite what I'm used to, and oh the pain of expanding one's horizons. :P

While reshelving today, I caught sight of the childrens' book Nightgown of the Sullen Moon -- I didn't get a chance to read it, since I was working, but I did flip through it. It seemed just as interesting and strange as the title would lead one to suspect. The real reason it caught my eye, though, is that there's a They Might Be Giants song of the same name, which I'd heard was named after a kiddie book. (The song actually comes up more than the book in a casual google search...) So it was pretty neat to see the inspiration for that.

In other news, someone (probably my mother) has got my school e-mail in their address book and whatever that new virus is. "Partial message available". Ha.

Disclaimer: Like all the best conspiracy theories, this one is blissfully unhindered by fact. I'm too lazy to doublecheck any of this in the book anyways. If it's all wrong, I'm sorry.

So we're told in the play that Duncan is a spectacular king and a great guy. Besides singlehandedly solving his land's problems, he also routinely helps little old ladies across the street and would never dream of kicking puppies.

That's what he WANTS you to think.

Sure, he's a great leader. Everyone loves him, and his kingdom hasn't been torn apart by his various evil neighbors (yet), though obviously they're pretty belligerent, given the war situation at the beginning of the play. His blatantly untrustworthy subordinates (see exhibits A and B, both thanes of Cawdor) have yet to knock him off the throne, though they all want it.

A guy this competent must have some intelligence, be somewhat canny. And it doesn't take too many brain cells banging together to realize that naming whathisface, Malcolm, as heir to the throne is pretty much painting a big fat target on his back. Duncan must have known this. Immediately before naming his son heir, he says something to Macbeth along the lines of "gee whiz, I can't thank you enough!" Macbeth is a hero in war; Malcolm a wimp captured by the enemy right off the bat. And Duncan, successful lord of a warring kingdom, must value valor at least somewhat.

So I'm telling you: by naming Malcolm heir Duncan is all but telling Macbeth to go kill his son! Really! He knows that Malcolm isn't really the top choice for a king and he wants to get his incompetent son out of the way without the scandal of ordering an assassination himself. I'm telling you, Shakespeare was implying it all the way. He was!

All right, do I need to move on to Hamlet or what?

"The most famous plot device in recent SF is the Babel fish, the joke about which is that it's such an obvious plot device that it implies the existence of an author."

This article on the care & keeping of plot devices. made my day. Make sure (if nothing else) you read the bit about Stephen Donaldson -- it's part 2, or just search the page for "clench".

Also good: this excerpt.
"The time has come, young man, for you to learn about the Plot." "Darth Vader is a servant of the dark side of the Plot." When Ben Kenobi gets written out, he becomes one with the Plot and can speak inside the hero's head. When a whole planet of good guys gets blown up, Ben senses "a great disturbance in the Plot."