meme: ten questions answered
Aug. 25th, 2011 12:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksFrom lnhammer:
1. Who ate the last donut?
When Earth's last donut is eaten
and the pastry-bags twisted and dried
When the last meringue has been beaten
and the vogue for cupcakes has died
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it,
live on spinach an aeon or two
till the mandate of all good pâtissieries
shall put us to work anew
and those with live yeast shall be happy
to bake to a golden turn
the first of celestial donuts
from the finest of alien corn
We'll find indescribable fillings,
some living, some dead, but all sweet,
and the kneading will be worth an epic
and the crumb will be springy and neat
And only the sous-chef will praise us
and only the public will blame
(you call that a donut? they'll ask us--
are you sure that thing merits the name?)
but each for the joy of baking
and each in a separate star
will bake for the future of Terra
the donuts for spacemen afar.
... wait, what was the question again?
2. What is the book that is second-closest to you at this moment?
A tie between The Penderwicks, by Jeanne Birdsall, which I have read and do recommend, and The King's Gambit by John Maddox Roberts, which I have not read yet. About eight inches away in either case.
3. Where did you perform/create the work you are proudest of?
This is an incredibly difficult question on several axes, because it is orthogonal to how I work in such a way that I'm not sure it's answerable. But I'll try.
I don't quite know what is meant by being proud of one's work. I mean, did I do it as well as I could do it at the time? Then it is done, and I have other work to do. Did I not do it as well as I could? Well, if it isn't a thing that could only be done then, and it's not done as well as I can do it, that means it's not done. As far as performances go, I have no way of judging whether they have been done well; only whether I enjoyed doing them, which is what I try to do. As far as writing-- I mean some of it is more work than other bits? I guess? I know some of it is good. I know some is very good. I also know my eyes are brown. And the next thing will be better.
Also all of my writing takes place in the same location, which is in my fingers on my computer, with some intercession from my brain, but I don't think somehow that was what you meant.
4. Why is your favorite Latin word your favorite?
My current favorite Latin word is an incredibly obscene neologism from Beccadelli's The Hermaphrodite, and it is my favorite because, working in a language that contains all the splendiferously, ludicrously, untranslatably bawdy vocabulary of Catullus and Martial, Beccadelli decided that none of that was filthy enough... and so he made up his own word, and by golly, it is more obscene, which should not have been possible. I consider this a peak of human literary achievement.
5. How long do you intend to sleep the night after completing the 365th review?
I am a chronic insomniac. I intend to jump up and down a lot and make somebody take me out to dinner. Possibly I will play the Hallelujah Chorus, very loudly. Possibly I will even make somebody take me out to dinner about the whole thing separately from the night I finish it, because that night will after all be my birthday, so we're going out anyway.
Frommrissa:
1. Now that your 365 days of reviews are almost over, do you notice any category of books as surprisingly missing? (One imagines that "really long ones" wouldn't surprise.)
I don't see anything entirely missing that I'd have expected would be there, but there are fewer things tagged as 'archaeology', 'architecture', and 'folklore/mythology' than I would have thought. I may be rereading too much in those fields. There is also more philosophy than I really expected, and less literary criticism.
Actually, I haven't been keeping much track of length except to watch what the longest book I've read is, but a fair number of these have been really long. The current longest, which I mention here because I will at this point be surprised if it changes, is Patrick Rothfuss' The Wise Man's Fear, which Amazon lists at 1008 pages in hardcover. At least I think it is the longest; I can't find an accurate internet page count of Tristram Shandy, which is the other thing that feels like a contender.
2. If you could add one voice or type of voice to your family's singing, whose/which would it be?
We've never had a deep bass. I don't know if I'd want one permanently, but it would be fascinating to have around for a bit and see how it went.
3. How tightly/loosely organized is the mode in which you function best?
Middling. I am completely inflexible about some things, and completely don't care about others, and which I do which about is idiosyncratic. So for example I have a bazillion little slips of paper which contain things like books I want to check out of the library, lists of the kinds of olive oil that would be appropriate for that one recipe I want to try, various people's street addresses and phone numbers, and so on, and I am really pretty organized about what I put on the lists and how I use them, but I seem to frighten people sometimes because my attitude when I travel is that I am sure we will get there sometime and it is all going to work out and I don't see why everything has to be arranged all that far in advance. (In my experience it usually doesn't have to be.)
I guess the best way I can summarize it is that if someone came in and told me we were leaving for Tibet in twenty minutes, I would shrug and grab a bag and throw some stuff in it, but if someone came in and told me we were going to a movie in twenty minutes, I would yell at them for not giving me any advance warning and disrupting my plans and I would be really actually upset. People who live with me can probably testify to the equivalent of both things having happened.
4. What handcraft would you like to be able to do but cannot at this point?
Bobbin lace. I'd have to acquire a lace table before even starting to learn how and so far that has been prohibitive.
If we're talking about things I know how to do but can't due to lack of facilities, various kinds of work with glass-- I'd like to get back to both mosaic and blowing.
5. What would your 15-year-old self want to remind you of?
If I'm going to lie in bed all day being ill, it will in fact improve everything if I put on either music or NPR. I keep forgetting this these last few years because of having an iPod, which I don't like to wear lying down, but radios and CD players were the saving grace of my poor health in high school. Thank you, that was actually useful.
lnhammer: 1. Who ate the last donut?
When Earth's last donut is eaten
and the pastry-bags twisted and dried
When the last meringue has been beaten
and the vogue for cupcakes has died
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it,
live on spinach an aeon or two
till the mandate of all good pâtissieries
shall put us to work anew
and those with live yeast shall be happy
to bake to a golden turn
the first of celestial donuts
from the finest of alien corn
We'll find indescribable fillings,
some living, some dead, but all sweet,
and the kneading will be worth an epic
and the crumb will be springy and neat
And only the sous-chef will praise us
and only the public will blame
(you call that a donut? they'll ask us--
are you sure that thing merits the name?)
but each for the joy of baking
and each in a separate star
will bake for the future of Terra
the donuts for spacemen afar.
... wait, what was the question again?
2. What is the book that is second-closest to you at this moment?
A tie between The Penderwicks, by Jeanne Birdsall, which I have read and do recommend, and The King's Gambit by John Maddox Roberts, which I have not read yet. About eight inches away in either case.
3. Where did you perform/create the work you are proudest of?
This is an incredibly difficult question on several axes, because it is orthogonal to how I work in such a way that I'm not sure it's answerable. But I'll try.
I don't quite know what is meant by being proud of one's work. I mean, did I do it as well as I could do it at the time? Then it is done, and I have other work to do. Did I not do it as well as I could? Well, if it isn't a thing that could only be done then, and it's not done as well as I can do it, that means it's not done. As far as performances go, I have no way of judging whether they have been done well; only whether I enjoyed doing them, which is what I try to do. As far as writing-- I mean some of it is more work than other bits? I guess? I know some of it is good. I know some is very good. I also know my eyes are brown. And the next thing will be better.
Also all of my writing takes place in the same location, which is in my fingers on my computer, with some intercession from my brain, but I don't think somehow that was what you meant.
4. Why is your favorite Latin word your favorite?
My current favorite Latin word is an incredibly obscene neologism from Beccadelli's The Hermaphrodite, and it is my favorite because, working in a language that contains all the splendiferously, ludicrously, untranslatably bawdy vocabulary of Catullus and Martial, Beccadelli decided that none of that was filthy enough... and so he made up his own word, and by golly, it is more obscene, which should not have been possible. I consider this a peak of human literary achievement.
5. How long do you intend to sleep the night after completing the 365th review?
I am a chronic insomniac. I intend to jump up and down a lot and make somebody take me out to dinner. Possibly I will play the Hallelujah Chorus, very loudly. Possibly I will even make somebody take me out to dinner about the whole thing separately from the night I finish it, because that night will after all be my birthday, so we're going out anyway.
From
mrissa:1. Now that your 365 days of reviews are almost over, do you notice any category of books as surprisingly missing? (One imagines that "really long ones" wouldn't surprise.)
I don't see anything entirely missing that I'd have expected would be there, but there are fewer things tagged as 'archaeology', 'architecture', and 'folklore/mythology' than I would have thought. I may be rereading too much in those fields. There is also more philosophy than I really expected, and less literary criticism.
Actually, I haven't been keeping much track of length except to watch what the longest book I've read is, but a fair number of these have been really long. The current longest, which I mention here because I will at this point be surprised if it changes, is Patrick Rothfuss' The Wise Man's Fear, which Amazon lists at 1008 pages in hardcover. At least I think it is the longest; I can't find an accurate internet page count of Tristram Shandy, which is the other thing that feels like a contender.
2. If you could add one voice or type of voice to your family's singing, whose/which would it be?
We've never had a deep bass. I don't know if I'd want one permanently, but it would be fascinating to have around for a bit and see how it went.
3. How tightly/loosely organized is the mode in which you function best?
Middling. I am completely inflexible about some things, and completely don't care about others, and which I do which about is idiosyncratic. So for example I have a bazillion little slips of paper which contain things like books I want to check out of the library, lists of the kinds of olive oil that would be appropriate for that one recipe I want to try, various people's street addresses and phone numbers, and so on, and I am really pretty organized about what I put on the lists and how I use them, but I seem to frighten people sometimes because my attitude when I travel is that I am sure we will get there sometime and it is all going to work out and I don't see why everything has to be arranged all that far in advance. (In my experience it usually doesn't have to be.)
I guess the best way I can summarize it is that if someone came in and told me we were leaving for Tibet in twenty minutes, I would shrug and grab a bag and throw some stuff in it, but if someone came in and told me we were going to a movie in twenty minutes, I would yell at them for not giving me any advance warning and disrupting my plans and I would be really actually upset. People who live with me can probably testify to the equivalent of both things having happened.
4. What handcraft would you like to be able to do but cannot at this point?
Bobbin lace. I'd have to acquire a lace table before even starting to learn how and so far that has been prohibitive.
If we're talking about things I know how to do but can't due to lack of facilities, various kinds of work with glass-- I'd like to get back to both mosaic and blowing.
5. What would your 15-year-old self want to remind you of?
If I'm going to lie in bed all day being ill, it will in fact improve everything if I put on either music or NPR. I keep forgetting this these last few years because of having an iPod, which I don't like to wear lying down, but radios and CD players were the saving grace of my poor health in high school. Thank you, that was actually useful.
