Interview

[brigdh]

That interview meme is going around again! esrafil asked me these questions; if you would like to play, leave a comment and I'll ask you five random questions.

1. What is the worst book you've read that you just couldn't put down?

The worst book I've read recently was Vurt by Jeff Noon, another failure in my ongoing attempt to find a cyberpunk book I don't hate (recommendations always welcome! And in case you're curious, Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and Raphael Carter's The Fortunate Fall are the books in the genre that I've liked the most). Vurt is terrible beyond the telling of it, and the only reason why I read the whole thing was I have this weird stubbornness about finishing books I start. The main characters are a gang of boring, self-centered, immature drug addicts (drugs in the world are taken via feathers that you stick in your mouth; why or how the hell this works is never explained); sex not only occurs between humans, dogs and machines, but somehow results in hybrid children (again, how dogs and humans could interbreed is never explained); and, to top it all off, the main romantic relationship is brother/sister incest, complete with sex scenes and flash-backs to their abusive childhood. I cannot anti-recommend this book enough.

2. What fandom do you feel most involved with overall?

Well, clearly at the moment it's Swordspoint. But my favorite of all time, even if I haven't written any stories lately, is Yami no Matsuei; there's so much to do with it, and I love the characters so.

3. If you were going to be stuck in one outfit for the rest of the year, what would you pick to wear?

Oh, that's so hard to pick. What I'd want to wear in July isn't what I'd want to wear in February. But if we pretend that weather wouldn't be a problem (or, you know, people wondering why I'm wearing the same thing day after day), I'd say my pair of dark blue jeans with the slight flare and a slit on the outside from the bottom to about five inches up, with my sleeveless top, made of of some utterly gauzy and almost transparent material, which, depending on what angle you look at it is either an abstract pattern of cream, chocolate brown, dull bronze, and faded maroon, or a sketch of leaves and branches, which falls down past my hips and ends in an asymmetrical, daggered cut. Man, it's hard to describe clothes, but I don't have any photos.

I am so ready for warm weather to come back. I'm already sick of all my winter clothes, and we've still got months left where I'll have to wear them.

4. Would you rather go to a club or to a concert?

They're very different experiences. It would depend a lot on what mood I'm in, or what band we're talking about, for the concert. But in general, probably a club. It's more interactive (unless we're talking about, say, a Flogging Molly concert with a mosh pit), and I like that.

5. Where would you most like to go on vacation (can be real or fictional)?

I'd love to see Venice sometime (I was just talking to someone about this, though I have actually had a social life for the past few weeks [!!], so I forget who specifically it was), because really, it's Venice. You can't die before you see it. I've also always wanted to go to New Orleans, which would be much easier.

And, of course, there are many people who I need to go visit, though more for the sake of them than where they live.

Comments

[kessie.livejournal.com]

What the hell: hit me. :)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

1. What is your favorite fairy tale, and why?
2. What's your favorite place?
3. I don't know if you've read Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, but everyone in that world has their soul embodied in an animal that follows them around all the time. Everyone's animal is different, to represent certain aspects of their personality (so someone who's very clever and manipulative has a monkey, for example). What animal would you have?
4. What's the worst thing you've ever had to read for school?
5. What do you want to see or do the most, when you go to Japan?

[b-hallward.livejournal.com]

That's exactly how I feel about Venice -- it's not so much that I think I'll like it as I just want to have been there. After all, you wouldn't need to spend more than a couple of days; it's the principle of the thing.

It's been a long time since I tapped myself for a tag meme ^^

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

After all, you wouldn't need to spend more than a couple of days; it's the principle of the thing.

I'm not so sure. I only spent a couple of days there, and I wish I had had more time. As a rule, I don't like cities that clearly exist now only as tourist destinations -- there's no there to them, no sense of life. But Venice is different for its sheer beauty and other-ness -- all that water-as-streets is stranger and deeper in its impact than I would have expected before I got there. I'd love to be able to spend more time there, just walking around the place and looking at it.

Besides, two or three days is not long enough to exhaust the charm of the vaporetto system -- mass transit by water, with route maps that look exactly like the route maps for the subway in any other city.

And here we pause for another round of Damn you, George W. Bush. It wasn't so long ago that you could think about renting a place in Venice for a few weeks without also thinking about how nice it might be to win the lottery. Now, of course, not so much.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Ah, it was you I was talking to about this. Now I remember. I continue to agree with it all, and am incredibly jealous of anyone who could rent a flat there.

[b-hallward.livejournal.com]

In this case, I'd be glad to be wrong. But given that what I really love is temporarily living in cities: complaining about the size of your fridge, doing laundry, having regular bars and restaurants and the time to really start absorbing the language (Until recently I hadn't considered it worth the trouble of crossing the Atlantic if you weren't going to stay at least a month, spoiled and disconnected-from-reality as that sounds) I just get frustrated with hollowed out tourist cities, which is what friends had reported Venice to be -- though I suppose the time of year must make a considerable difference -- but if it does deliver on that alien-ness, it certainly would be worth seeing.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Well, if you're spoiled and disconnected from reality in that way, so am I: there are places I love enough to go there to spend only a few days, but I'm much happier when I can assume a month or so, and live in a place that has a working kitchen, and find out where to go for bread and fruit and poultry and cream. There are clearly differences in the details, but it seems equally clear that in concept, our notions of how to travel are nearly identical.

And your friends are right about Venice. It's a hollowed-out tourist city, and at least in my brief experience, the food wasn't terribly good. (Although here I need to issue a disclaimer, which is that I find Italian food in general oddly disappointing. So I'm not the best judge.) What appeals to me about it is purely the sensory experience of looking at it and walking through it. I'd even go so far as to say that it probably helps that I don't speak the language, and walk though the place as if I were a ghost.

Oh, and I'm sure that it did help that I was there during a particularly chilly April, well before the tourists were really in season. I suspect that it would be unspeakable from July through early September. Even the canals would probably stink.

But oh, the look and feel of the place on a cool April night, with the darkness and the little bridges over the water. I'd go back, and be glad to do it.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I will disclaim and say that I found a lot of the food in Venice pretty good, although there was some overpriced tourist stuff, too.

I understand the complaints about it being primarily a tourist city, but it's so old and so intricate and layered it really doesn't matter to me; I couldn't go out without getting lost and stumbling across another museum or gallery or church or random visiting exhibit of Dali's work.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, but I do think I'd love it. It's just that it seems so unreal and incredible, and yet so well-known to everyone, that it seems like a complete life would require at least one visit there. I don't know if I'd want to live there- I'm quite fond of New York at the moment, and besides, I'm not sure I could ever manage fluency in another language- but I do want to see it.

But I am glad you decided to tag yourself this time!

1. What language would you most like to be able to speak or read well?
2. Is there a story you'd love to write, but know you never will, and if so, what is it?
3. What is your favorite food that you can't (or prefer not to) cook for yourself?
4. What book have you reread the most often?
5. What would your ideal home be like?

[b-hallward.livejournal.com]

I meant no slight: I'm entranced by the idea of Venice; I just can't abide tourist-cities and that's what I've been told by nearly everyone I know who's been that Venice has become. (And that the food was a disappointment, which matters a great deal to me.) However I'm inclined to take Phoebe's word in this. And of course if I lived in New York I would be less motivated to travel, for a while at least. *g*

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, of course! I didn't mean to sound offended, I was just trying to clarify my thoughts. But I hardly need everyone to see things exactly my way. *grins*

Well, I hear good things about your part of the planet, too. I have a real-life friend who's considering moving there soon.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

I am not a fan of cyberpunk, but I willingly admitted I'm biased toward fantasy anyway, and if there is a fantasy variant to match an sf variant (like cyberpunk and urban fantasy), I'll take the fantasy variant.

Venice is one I want to visit, too. All that history. I've actually always connected it and New Orleans in my mind, cities of culture and mystery, masquerades and decadance and magic. New Orleans, I've been to. I will be going again. We'll see if it's the same city I remember.

Also, your outfit sounds gorgeous. You should have photos, darn it.

And why not, ask and I shall tell...something. *G*

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Most of the time I go for fantasy over scifi, but cyberpunk has all these really specific tropes that I adore (slums and ghettos, video games, the internet, virtual reality, drugs, techno music in raves, students/hackers/bike messengers/fences/other poor and often vaguely illegal professions) and urban fantasy usually seems to be working with a slightly different set of images. Though there's certainly no reason why one couldn't do a fantasy novel with these things, even if I had to write it myself. You know, in that mythical someday-when-I-have-time.

Huh. Now that you mention it, Venice and New Orleans really do have a lot in common. And they're both cities linked with lots of water imagery- Venice's canals, and New Orleans with the Mississippi, swamps, and the port.

Thank you! Someday I'll manage to take a photo of it, I suppose.

1. If you could control the American education system, what is one book you'd add to the list of classics commonly taught in high schools?
2. Who (alive, dead, or fictional) would you most like to meet?
3. Describe your ideal character, what qualities or traits or appearance or type of backstory that would create someone you'd be enthralled by.
4. If money was no object, what piece of jewelry would you buy?
5. What's a fictional place you'd like to live in?

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

I think it used to be true that urban fantasy dealt with a different set of tropes, or dealt with them in a different fashion (usually more optimistically). Now that the genre's burgeoned to the point of having its own subgenres, though, I think you might find stuff that suits your tastes better. You also might like certain strains of horror.

I remember the drive into New Orleans as road bordered by swamp, as in no shoulder, thick with trees, the water opaque, gator crossing signs and "Do Not Get Out of the Car" signs, then you hit the bridge that swings out over lake or bay, I'm not sure which, and the water is suddenly blue and empty, with the city beckoning you at the end of the road. It was like something straight out of a dream, which could be one reason I'm not sure I'm remembering it right. *G* I wonder if it's still like that, or if the road got swept away.

You're doing project 365 (if I'm remembering the name right), yes? Take a picture of a mirror while wearing the outfit. *G*

1. Picking just one is tough. A good, well-researched overview tome of world mythology might do it, though. You get entire semester of King Arthur and Robin Hood and Greek and Roman mythology, with teensy bits of Celtic and Norse. I think a little re-balancing would lead interesting places.
2. My brain is bad at absolute orderings. *G* I'd like to meet Jim Henson, Eve, and Rumi.
3. There's not just one, but I think it can be safely said that I dig survivors, cranky, wounded badasses, and pragmatists.
4. If money had been no object at the time, I would have snatched up Daughter of the Drowned Lands (http://lioness.net/LIONESS/by%20name/DotDL/DotDL.html) like that.
5. One with at least all our current technology, but the opportunity to live on a beach.

[chthonicsiren.livejournal.com]

Guh, Venice is amazing. Just stunning. Did we talk about that? I don't remember.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I don't think it was you I was talking to, because I didn't even know you'd been to Venice. That is awesome! I'm very jealous; how long were you there?

[chthonicsiren.livejournal.com]

I was only there for three days, but it was during this big festival, and the whole city was just so bright and alive. I want to go back, again and again.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Hit me!

Venice sounds amazing; I've never been but always wanted to go. And Rome, too.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

1. If you could sew (and maybe you can! I don't know), what is an ideal piece of clothing you'd love to create for yourself?
2. What period in history would you most like to live during?
3. Are you a city, suburb, or rural person, and why?
4. If you could write a novel and have it magically finished tomorrow without actually having to go through the whole process of, you know, writing it, what story would you tell?
5. What was your favorite movie when you were a child?

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

1. I can sew but never do clothing (too hard!). I would *love* a perfect pair of jeans. Soft, worn blue, they'd fit at my hips and my thighs, and would be the perfect length. I'm short, and never find good jeans. Then I'd wear them and wear them and wear them.
2. Mmmm, mid-classical Rome, so I can have a salon, and as many books as my heart desires, read to me by servants all day long, with fabulous food and a personal set of baths.
3. City. I grew up in the suburbs, mostly, but I'm a city girl at heart. I love that I know all of my neighbors now, that the coffeeshop people know what I order, that I can be known and anonymous at the same time. My neighborhood is full of artists, working class, upper class, mixed races, families, kids, young punks, retired folks. It's so...interesting! Plus: bookstores and libraries and as much good coffee as I can guzzle. I suppose rural would be okay, if I still had Amazon, but not as much fun.
4. Ah. There's this stalled novel on my harddrive. It's modern day, and the fairie world exists among the mortal world. And the fairies are colonizing America, just the humans did. And it's just as violent and unexpected and wild to them now (because it's still early days in their view) as Jamestown was to the early settlers. The Marquis of Boston's daughter is a feral mage; her father's blood power is from the sea (he's part orca and has pearl-like skin and replacable teeth and hunts in a pack) and her mother's is earth. She goes cross country with Dog Girl (and her dogs), a Fey tax collector, and the Lord of the Hunt (bribed by her father to escort her there safely), to replace the rose tree in the land of the Duke of Riverbend. They end up killing the duke, she gets herself unwillingly engaged to the Hunt (she owes him an unspecified favor, whoops), the tax collector sacrifices himself to the land in the old fashioned way, and Dog Girl and her dog save the day. It's a perky, cheerful little tale.
5. Fantasia.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

2. Hee. Sounds good.

3. Me too! Non-cities are nice enough places to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. It must be an difference in aesthetic tastes, or something; I've never quite understood the appeal of suburban or rural areas, no matter how much their adherents try to explain it to me.

4. Oh, wow. That sounds really interesting. It's such a cool idea.

5. That's such a lovely movie.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Go for it.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

1. If you were part of a famous and talented band, what song would you want to do a cover version of?
2. Money is no object: what would be your perfect Halloween costume?
3. What book/movie/anime/manga would you like to step inside, if just for a little while?
4. If Fishes gets made into a movie, who would you cast to play yourself, out of all actresses, both living and dead?
5. What is the loveliest place you've ever seen?

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

1. God, that would be awesome. Right now I am in love with the radio version of Fleetwood Mac's "Peacekeeper," but probably because I associate it with sisabet's brilliant Buffy vid.

2. Trinity from The Matrix.

3. How can I possibly choose... I always really really REALLY wanted to imprint an Anne McCaffrey dragon. Diane Duane's worlds all strike me as wonderful places to live, including her Star Trek: full of aliens and magic, opportunities for love and adventure, a really positive atmosphere without being smarmy. And I feel like I could be a part of those worlds, unlike Narnia and Middle Earth, which are wonderful but I can't really see myself there.

4. Janeane Garofalo would be good for adult!Rachel. And Sarah Silverman could play my mother-- they seriously look a lot alike. Younger Keisha Castle-Hughes could play kid!Rachel.

5. The temple gardens in Kyoto: Myoshinji in rain and mist, with jewels of water at the end of every pine needle; Eikando in autumn, when the maples blazed scarlet and their leaves floated in the ornamental pond that reflected the leaves above. Or maybe Venice in the morning, with its extraordinarily delicate light over the water and the sense of magic and hidden wonders.

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

I want to play!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

1. If you had a big dinner party for all your friends, what would you cook for them?
2. Do you have any phobias?
3. What's your favorite CD or album?
4. You have one day with no obligations or any work, and money is no object: what do you do?
5. What's a famous book you wish you'd written, or one that you'd like to rewrite in a new version?

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

Urgh, stupid LJ notifications have been acting up, hence the lateness.

1. Probably tacos, they are cheap and self serve. I tend to bake more then I cook.
2. Condiments, all of them. (Mustard, mayo, ketchup, salad dressing, etc.) I can be sitting in my room and tell when anyone in the house is eating ketchup because (I think)it stinks that much.
3. Some people are really into music, but I have only ever owned a handful of Cds. The ones I do own tend to be anime related though, so I have the soundtrack from the Last Unicorn, Digimon, Sailor Moon, and Hellsing. If we are talking non-anime music, I have The Kaiser Chiefs on my MP3 player.
4. First I would call my friends and tell them to call off work, then while I was waiting for them to get ready I would call and finance a few movie projects, a nice Bridge of Birds, and the rumored live-action The Last Unicorn, hit the bookstore and buy anything and everything that looks interesting both for myself and my library. Then go to someplace really fancy for dinner, because we normally can't afford something like that.
5. I think I have to go with the Last Unicorn for this as well. It's such a beautiful novel that made a huge impact on my generation, and I don't even care that most people had never read it. I would kill to be able to write that way.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

1. What exotic animal would make a totally awesome pet?
2. What food would you cook for me if we had dinner together?
3. If you had a baby, what lullaby would you sing to him/her?
4. What's the best TV show for mindless vegging out (past or present)?
5. What's the worst nightmare you ever had?

[syonakeleste.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'll bite.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

1. If you had a year and the money to live in any one place on the planet, where would you rent a house/apartment?
2. What's your favorite kind of candy?
3. What's a fictional character you heavily identify with?
4. What section of the newspaper do you read first (or, if you don't read newspapers, which section would you read first)?
5. Money is no object: what resturant would you go to, and what would you order?

[tadity.livejournal.com]

Ha ha. Joining the following. ;) Question me.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

1. What's your homepage?
2. If your only other option was starving to death, would you eat human flesh? What if it was from someone you knew?
3. What's your favorite non-video game (board games, card games, hide-and-go-seek, etc)?
4. Do you drink coffee, and if so, how do you take it? If not, what's your favorite drink?
5. How many pairs of shoes do you own?

[veleda-k.livejournal.com]

I'd like to try this meme out.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

1. What's an icon you really want, but can't find (or make)?
2. What are you using for a screensaver?
3. What's your favorite holiday, and why?
4. What's something you like to daydream about?
5. What's one thing from the past that you wish people still did now?

[chiasmus.livejournal.com]

Venice is really high on the list of places I've been. That and Florence. I was there... ten days, and gladly would've stayed longer if we'd had the money. I liked just wandering the back alleys and getting lost and going into wherever happened to look interesting. I think I saw almost all of the city, not always intentionally, from the tourist traps to random flats with blue bunny graffiti on them.

(I didn't really care for Rome or Verona, but I didn't really get to do a lot in either.)

Also, interview me. :D

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

You've been to Venice, too? Man! I am so jealous of everyone. And ten days is fairly long; that's awesome.

1. What's the wallpaper on your computer right now?
2. What's a group you've never seen in concert, but would really really like to (past or present, alive or dead)?
3. What's something you've seen in sci-fi that you wish we already had (flying cars! Jet packs!)?
4. What's your favorite way to travel: airplane, bus, train, car, boat, etc?
5. If you could time travel, where (or when, I guess) you spend a week?

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

Hit me!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

1. What's your favorite piece of art that you own?
2. If you could arrange for one book (or short story, or whatever), to be made into a movie, what would you pick?
3. What's a talent you don't have, but wish you did?
4. What color(s) clothing do you like best?
5. Does your computer have a name, and if so, what is it?

[lynndyre.livejournal.com]

Ping. ^.^

The brother-sister incest thing amused me, because I've been reading my way through PD James lately, and there is this recurring theme of weirdly intense brother-sister relationships in nearly every one of her books. Only one is explicitly incestuous, but it just feels so *obvious*, and I can't help wincing that this extensively published, widely acclaimed old lady's fic kinks are showing.

Also - Yami fandom was wonderful. Must write things.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

(Sorry I took so long to reply to this! Comment-notifications were being weird.)

Hee. I'm not squicked by incest, actually, I was just annoyed that this author thought he was so clearly Pushing Boundaries and Being Transgressive, when really, it was just sort of badly written and annoying.

1. What's your favorite dessert?
2. If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
3. What's a type of art you don't do yourself, but really admire? (Anything that could count as art- dancing, signing, calligraphy, sculpture, etc)
4. What was your favorite subject in high school?
5. What's something in popular culture that you hate?