On West Egg

Hairspray first: Sadly, I spent a significant bit of my workday today contemplating Hairspray and various thematic stuffs, and it's definitely more resonant and subversive than I thought even yesterday. Mostly, however, I have to wonder this: How, exactly, do you wind up with a TV station in the early/mid sixties progressive enough to hire a woman as station manager but also completely and totally "black people are scum!"? I could understand Velma having that opinion while her boss was more "Well, the audience won't like it..." and not having the balls to act, what with women's rights generally moving along faster than other minorities'.

And: something else that I've forgotten, because DEATHLY HALLOWS happened between work and now.

( Spoilers follow )

You know you've sunk to new levels of academia when you use a book as a bookmark.

(To be fair, the bookmark book is a collection of short stories, and the book it's keeping place in a book interpreting those stories as a whole and making note of the thematic through-lines that aren't necessarily evident and generally commenting on them. I've been reading back-and-forth so that the commentary comes on the heels of each story.)


(Also: if all you've ever read of Shirley Jackson is the short-story The Lottery and/or The Haunting of Hill House, you should pick up the short-story-collection The Lottery: Adventures of the Daemon Lover, though it apparently [and sadly] has lost the subtitle in recent reprintings.)

Writing is a very good stress reliever.

I wrote the second part of my book project last night, by hand, because my parents send me to bed so long before I'm tired that I've begun using that time for homework. Even though I was writing about why The Closing of the American Mind should not be on the list of books for the project, it really help... make things seem not so sucky. I wish I'd bbeen writing in pen. Pens that scratch the paper are the best thing to write with.

And the most evil things in the world of the violin are 4th-finger notes and the e-string. There is no point to 4th-finger notes. They make he tone (supposedly, I don't do them well) the same as the next higest string when it's open. I can change strings for one note easier than I can do the 4th finger. **Baps inventor of 4-th finger notes**

**Lightly baps inventor of e-strings, which are evil, but nowhere near as evil as 4-th finger notes**

Book report (really a summary) = done!

It wasn't hard, but The oddest thing is that I wrote 562 words without padding it. And 500 words was supposed to be the limit. Of course, I can't shorten it without losing the... not-badness of the paper...

I don't think Hancy'll mind too much, I usually under-write.

Appareantly, you don't need to understand the philosophy or psychology behind an author's theses to understand all of them...

Odd...

Pff.

I've got a 350-word book report due tomorrow. Not a bad assignment, but I chose a very bad book to do. Ah well. Won't take too long.

I suppose I should give you my opinion of the Harry Potter movie.

It was good. Could've been better, but it was good, given that it was already two and a half hours long. I liked the slight change of the zoo scene, having Dudley fall into the snake's habitat as it left,then the glass coming back. Dudley deserved it. Especially book Dud;ey. Movie Susley was cruel, but wasn't given enough time onscreen to be as bratty or cruel as book Dudley.

I feel sorry for movie Neville. He was hardly there. He had his important part for getting points for the house cup, but the impact of it is somewhat lost when we don't know that he's dismal in all his classes and such. The only thing we know he's bad at is flying.

And Almost no actual learning was shown, and we don't even know what McGonagall teaches. That was kinda upsetting. I was looking forward to seeing the first-years starting to try magic and not really doing well, and I wasnted to see some of the stuff they did.

Snape's class was almost completely cut, so we didn't get much of Snape's... Snape-ness.

I thought quidditch was interesting in the books, but the movie showed me just why it's the big wizarding sport. I'd kill to play quidditch just once.

And Oliver Wood is hot! He's the first person to warrant fanboy reaction from me. And quite deservedly so, mind you. He's hot, has a Scottish accent, struggled to contain a bludger while in tight pants, thereby giving a nice view of his ass... etc.

But that's quite different from my Eric-hanyaan, so don't think I've given up there.

Back to the movie, they cut Hermione finding the right potions at the end. They compensated by slightly changing the devil's snare scene into a Hermione success worthy of 50 points, and moved the joke at Hermione's expence ("ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?") to one at Ron's expense. ("Good thing I didn't panic." Watch the movie if you don't understand.)

Voldemort tempting Harry was a good addition. Doesn't change the characters at all, but it show's Voldemort's evilness well.

I can't wait for the next movie. (And book.)

Oh yeah, I've still got the main reccurring theme stuck in my head. The movie had some very good music.

Also new in my life is my decision that as soon as my older brother goes to college, I'm going to come out at school. If he weren't in school now where the information would reach him, which I don't want it to do, seeing as how he's a somewhat bigoted bastard at times, I'd already be out.

I'm thinking band camp will be a good time, unless he goes to a college with a really late (relative) start of courses, like OSU. I'll at least have that weight off my chest. I'll probably still have the Eric thing, but at least people'll know I'm gay.