Perception

One of the most popular kind of illusions are those that you don’t understand at first, but then you slowly adjust to them and understand them. Pictures of people standing straight up on wall, sideways landscapes, etc, are really fun. Even better is when you can do that in writing. When something can be misty and begin to form without really being clear.Jorges Luis Borges’ stories seem to have an underlying mythos cycle that is hinted at but never revealed. Each supernaturally-charged story has a plot and a MacGuffin, but also a sense of – not God, but – magic or mysticism.Many fantasy and sci-fi stories have complex historical sagas which require the reader to memorize them. Hard Sci-Fi has names and concepts and places too. Readers of these stories often feel superior because they are reading such advanced material, but often there won’t be a point to the story. 

Sick

I am sick. Or, rather, my throat is sick. The rest of me is fine. I feel like I could run a mile (I can’t really) if it weren’t for the hacking cough every few minutes. I bought a book recently. It’s a book on Mythology from DK, and encompasses all kinds of heroes and gods and such. Quite a few stories (Gilgamesh, etc…) had stories of a great flood in them. Which got me thinking…Why doesn’t the book have the Torah/Bible stories in there? Without even questioning their validity, aren’t they just as mythological as Odin or Raven the Trickster god? Because nowhere in the book do they even mention whether or not the stories are real, and nowhere to they mention Christianity w/out the phrase “Before Slovakia was taken over by Christianity, they had a rich mythological heritage” or some such flapdoodle.No, it’s a great book. But it does confuse me so. 

Been a while

Good lord, it’s been so long. I finally got my desk set up properly, an electric piano, shiny new iMac, Leopard, and it’s great. I’ve been trying to write something – a duet of sorts – between the piano and my . I recently saw I, Robot, with Will Smith, and contrary to popular beleif, it was actually good. My only problem with it is as to why it was named I, Robot. The title I, Robot, implies that the movie will be in some way related to the book it was named after. The movie’s only similarity was the three laws of robotics, and many movies have used that without having been associated with Isaac Asimov.I also recently saw Close Encounters , and I cannot, for the life of me, imagine why its become so dang famous. Yes, the effects were incredible for the time, but it had no plot line, and around 50 of the 135 minutes were spent with the entire screen filled by bright lights, shaking objects, or some other unexplained incident. The oddest part was as to why the main character left his wife and children and was voluntarily kidnapped by E.T. looking aliens whose spaceship played the Jaws Theme.Sophie’s World is a wholly unsatisfying yet interesting book. 

Library

I went to the library today. I got all of the books that I wanted, I took them off the shelves, and I walked up to the desk, rummaging in my pocket. Much to my suprise, my Library Card was missing. I suddenly was flooded with a vision of it lying on my desk. I walked up to the desk and grimaced.Those few precious seconds, teetering between stepping towards the desk and stepping cautiously backwards, those few seconds were perhaps the worst, ever. I was flooded with another vision that I would have to put all of the books back on the shelves, go home, get the card, come back, get the books again, and then check them out, and walk home.Luckily, I was able to use alternative ID to check them out, but that was definitely embarrasing. I was laughing at myself during the walk home.Nearly every Saturday, I get the Onion. The Onion is a political comedy faux newspaper, the literary equivalent of The Daily Show (with Jon Stewart). I have a collection of them by my bookshelves.Unfortunately, that’s all I have time for. I have to shut down my Mac so I can carry it far away to be used as a DVD player. My Mac has a slight glitch in that recently, whenever I shut the lid and it’s not off, it shuts down and refuses to be turned back on. So… I’m shutting down now.(Look!)

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Cover

The new Harry Potter book cover was released today, click for a close-up.Harry and (Voldemort?) are standing in an arena, and Harry seems to be (magically) supporting something overhead, which Voldemort is afraid of. Hopefully this picture will be analyzed for clues by experts all over the world. Mary GrandPré, illustrator of the covers and the chapter headings for the U.S. versions of all the books, must have worked extra-hard on this one, the shading is just incredible. This book will be 784 pages!In much the same way that analyzation of other language Harry Potters helped us deduce who R.A.B. is, the other countries covers will provide clues also. The UK kids edition features out three main characters breaking into a room full of jewels, with minor illustrations of Prongs and a snake inside a ball. The UK Adult edition shows Slytherin’s Locket, possibly another clue. Very cool.

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Fiction

Today I finished the famed Douglas Adams book, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. It was nearly as good as the original HG2G series, which, as I’ve expressed, is just brilliant. Now I’m reading another book, Anthony Horowitz’s Evil Star, also good. You know what? There’s just so many good books that I’m going to make a list, in order, of my favorite books. Right now.

1. HG2G series
2. Harry Potter series
3. Anything by Eoin Colfer
4. Anything by Diana Wynne Jones
5. Ender’s Game
6. Anything by E. L. Koingsburg
7. Anything by Bruce Collville
8. Most Terry Pratchet books
9. Calvin and Hobbes

and after that, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, etc…Wait! I’m not done! This doesn’t mean I like all fantasy novels. For instance, Eragon, which I tried, was just too much. I have no memory nearly eighty different characters with names like Galbatorix and Albriech and Jörmunder. Now, that’s not to say I don’t have a good memory. I have a perfeectly capable memory for regular names like Dolores or Ron or even Kreacher. If I can pronounce them, it’s fine. But books like Abarat, which doesn’t even mean anything! If it was a normal title like Neuromancer, which has some kind of english root, that’d be okay! But it doesn’t, and it’s not.

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MetaFiction

Remember, none of this is true. I wrote this all today.Metafiction means a story inside a story. In my case, there’s three stories. Read the parchment first, then the Police document around it, then the FBI review next to them both.

Please,

(click for larger)(click for larger) Comment please!

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