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kindkitStill catching up on the question-a-day meme, cherry-picking the ones I find most interesting to answer.
September 11: Do you like having your picture taken? Why or why not?
I don't like it, as a rule. I hate having to hold a smile for the inevitable, painful length of time before the picture is actually taken, and I always look weird.
And yet. Once I've had a little longer for the testosterone to work, I think I might like to get some pictures professionally taken. I want to be able to see myself in a way that I won't hate.
September 12: Do you experiment with your hairstyle often, or do you have a classic style you stick with?
I look up "men's hairstyles" online before every haircut, and I always end up getting the same fairly boring mainstream cut (short back and sides, a little longer on top). It's not easy to even find styles that I like, because they all seem to be either Hipster Douchebag Hair or Macho Douchebag Hair. (No reflection intended upon the models, just the styles.) Anyway, I'm no better at styling my hair that I am at other manual tasks such as penmanship. So I keep it short, easy, and dull. Also I balk at the amount of $$$ I would need to pay for a really good haircut.
September 14: What are your Top Ten favorite books?
This is probably more a selection of my top 50 than an actual top 10, but here goes. Novels only, in no particular order:
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Guards, Guards!, Terry Pratchett
The Scar, China Miéville
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, John Le Carré
The Blue Angel, Paul Magrs*
On Beulah Height, Reginald Hill
The Charioteer, Mary Renault**
The Armor of Light, Melissa Scott
The Pendragon, Catherine Christian***
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin
(*It's a Doctor Who novel, okay? It's part of the Eighth Doctor Adventures series, written before new Who began, when Who novels were allowed to get pretty wild. I wrote a little overview of it and some other EDAs here)
(**With the understanding that I may never read it again, because the gulf between what it means to me and what's actually on the page is almost unbearable.)
(**This is an Arthurian story, a genre I have read a lot in. It's told from the POV of Arthur's friend and foster-brother Bedivere, who is frankly kind of an ass much of the time, and it's got some sketchy elements especially towards the end, and yet I re-read it a lot. It's actually probably tied with Mary Stewart's Merlin series for my favorite modern Arthurian story; I listed it because everyone who likes Arthuriana knows about Mary Stewart, but a lot of folks who might like The Pendragon won't have heard of it. Almost certainly out of print, but there are secondhand copies around.)
September 11: Do you like having your picture taken? Why or why not?
I don't like it, as a rule. I hate having to hold a smile for the inevitable, painful length of time before the picture is actually taken, and I always look weird.
And yet. Once I've had a little longer for the testosterone to work, I think I might like to get some pictures professionally taken. I want to be able to see myself in a way that I won't hate.
September 12: Do you experiment with your hairstyle often, or do you have a classic style you stick with?
I look up "men's hairstyles" online before every haircut, and I always end up getting the same fairly boring mainstream cut (short back and sides, a little longer on top). It's not easy to even find styles that I like, because they all seem to be either Hipster Douchebag Hair or Macho Douchebag Hair. (No reflection intended upon the models, just the styles.) Anyway, I'm no better at styling my hair that I am at other manual tasks such as penmanship. So I keep it short, easy, and dull. Also I balk at the amount of $$$ I would need to pay for a really good haircut.
September 14: What are your Top Ten favorite books?
This is probably more a selection of my top 50 than an actual top 10, but here goes. Novels only, in no particular order:
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Guards, Guards!, Terry Pratchett
The Scar, China Miéville
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, John Le Carré
The Blue Angel, Paul Magrs*
On Beulah Height, Reginald Hill
The Charioteer, Mary Renault**
The Armor of Light, Melissa Scott
The Pendragon, Catherine Christian***
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin
(*It's a Doctor Who novel, okay? It's part of the Eighth Doctor Adventures series, written before new Who began, when Who novels were allowed to get pretty wild. I wrote a little overview of it and some other EDAs here)
(**With the understanding that I may never read it again, because the gulf between what it means to me and what's actually on the page is almost unbearable.)
(**This is an Arthurian story, a genre I have read a lot in. It's told from the POV of Arthur's friend and foster-brother Bedivere, who is frankly kind of an ass much of the time, and it's got some sketchy elements especially towards the end, and yet I re-read it a lot. It's actually probably tied with Mary Stewart's Merlin series for my favorite modern Arthurian story; I listed it because everyone who likes Arthuriana knows about Mary Stewart, but a lot of folks who might like The Pendragon won't have heard of it. Almost certainly out of print, but there are secondhand copies around.)
no subject
Date: 2020-09-25 11:53 pm (UTC)I saw this one on library shelves for decades, but never actually read it! Should I ever be in the same place as a library shelf that contains it again, I'll pick it up. Bedivere-POV strikes me as rare.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-26 12:17 am (UTC)One of the things I really like about the book is that it feels thoroughly grounded. There are definitely elements of mysticism but it's not overwhelming. And Bedivere, who serves as a centurion in Rome for a while, has an awareness of the larger world that's often missing from Arthurian stories.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-26 03:19 am (UTC)(Also, there was a grim-n-gritty turn in Arthurian stories for a while, with plentiful rape scenes, and I did not care for it at all.)
I don't see why you should!
And Bedivere, who serves as a centurion in Rome for a while, has an awareness of the larger world that's often missing from Arthurian stories.
Nice! I assume Elizabeth E. Wein was on your radar? One of my benchmarks for post-Roman Arthuriana along with Mary Stewart, whom I read formatively.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-26 05:25 am (UTC)