(no subject)
Oct. 28th, 2024 08:33 pmCycling round Miramar singing to myself, I did not notice I was learning the words to 'Bread and Roses' on Labour Day - I'd forgotten what day it was til evening, since my work is closed on Mondays anyway. But happy Labour Day!
~
Read Shadows, by E.H. Gombrich: very slight survey written to accompany an art exhibition about shadows selected by the author from the collection of London's National Gallery. Probably the most interesting fact in it is that he didn't find much to choose from, shadows being a bit of a disfavoured subject; he quotes Leonardo (keen student of light and shadow in life) specifying that the sun ought to be obscured by a fine mist in painting to avoid the need to paint hard-edged shadows, as these are generally disapproved of.
Other random detail: the difficulty of tracing a shadow, since one's own shadow gets in the way, solved by casting a sitter's shadow onto a translucent screen and tracing from the other side.
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I am one-quarter less wise, and it wasn't as painful as I expected, and now that tooth won't do its yearly advance-and-retreat maneuver.
~
Other reading: bits and pieces. Some Robert Aickman stories, which I rather like though I have yet to experience him as The Acknowledged Master Of Strange Tales. (The first one I chose by chance to read my flatmate was far too long, and had a structure where you know for its entire length there's a ghost in the phone and then the story tries to go, "And then, by god, they discovered that there had been a ghost in the phone!" Though even that one is interesting from the point of view of how differently phones used to work).
I have started an audiobook of War and Peace, the Anthony Briggs translation, which seems very good. I was expecting it to be slow to catch my attention, but there's such an eye in it for humans doing human-like things that I keep on wanting to remark whenever anyone around the house says anything, 'Ah, that's like what this character in War and Peace did' to an extent that would become annoying if I didn't stop myself. It is helpful not having to interact with the book as a giant brick. (The only time I ever picked it up off a shelf, thinking 'I have read books that long', I discovered the absolutely tiny print, and put it right back again). Also I am helped by having listened to the Revolutions podcast and so being at least that informed about Napoleon, and also by having been to a production of Dave Malloy's Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812, an adaptation of a small section, which I didn't end up liking that much but which is helpful now in getting the characters straight. (I couldn't keep from reading the character of Pierre in the musical as 'Dave Malloy has some thoughts about Dave Malloy', though I went in expecting that due to reports I'd seen on Dreamwidth. I like Pierre much more as a book character so far).
Also reading Gene Wolfe's Book of Days, which has one short story per American holiday. Many are slight or just plain perplexing (I assume some of them are jokes I don't get), but come to think of it I did read the Labour Day one recently, 'Forlesen', one of those satires of a businessman's working life that I feel like I've read before but this is a good one.
~
Read Shadows, by E.H. Gombrich: very slight survey written to accompany an art exhibition about shadows selected by the author from the collection of London's National Gallery. Probably the most interesting fact in it is that he didn't find much to choose from, shadows being a bit of a disfavoured subject; he quotes Leonardo (keen student of light and shadow in life) specifying that the sun ought to be obscured by a fine mist in painting to avoid the need to paint hard-edged shadows, as these are generally disapproved of.
Other random detail: the difficulty of tracing a shadow, since one's own shadow gets in the way, solved by casting a sitter's shadow onto a translucent screen and tracing from the other side.
~
I am one-quarter less wise, and it wasn't as painful as I expected, and now that tooth won't do its yearly advance-and-retreat maneuver.
~
Other reading: bits and pieces. Some Robert Aickman stories, which I rather like though I have yet to experience him as The Acknowledged Master Of Strange Tales. (The first one I chose by chance to read my flatmate was far too long, and had a structure where you know for its entire length there's a ghost in the phone and then the story tries to go, "And then, by god, they discovered that there had been a ghost in the phone!" Though even that one is interesting from the point of view of how differently phones used to work).
I have started an audiobook of War and Peace, the Anthony Briggs translation, which seems very good. I was expecting it to be slow to catch my attention, but there's such an eye in it for humans doing human-like things that I keep on wanting to remark whenever anyone around the house says anything, 'Ah, that's like what this character in War and Peace did' to an extent that would become annoying if I didn't stop myself. It is helpful not having to interact with the book as a giant brick. (The only time I ever picked it up off a shelf, thinking 'I have read books that long', I discovered the absolutely tiny print, and put it right back again). Also I am helped by having listened to the Revolutions podcast and so being at least that informed about Napoleon, and also by having been to a production of Dave Malloy's Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812, an adaptation of a small section, which I didn't end up liking that much but which is helpful now in getting the characters straight. (I couldn't keep from reading the character of Pierre in the musical as 'Dave Malloy has some thoughts about Dave Malloy', though I went in expecting that due to reports I'd seen on Dreamwidth. I like Pierre much more as a book character so far).
Also reading Gene Wolfe's Book of Days, which has one short story per American holiday. Many are slight or just plain perplexing (I assume some of them are jokes I don't get), but come to think of it I did read the Labour Day one recently, 'Forlesen', one of those satires of a businessman's working life that I feel like I've read before but this is a good one.