JOURNAL: Arigatomina

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  • bland 2006-12-06 22:11:09 Dispassionate. Uncaring. Outside the issue. I used to think, for a very long time, that apathetic was the opposite of empathetic, that since to emphathize with someone meant to feel, that someone who was entirely apathetic felt nothing or at the least, very little compared to others. I used the term frequently in writing, feeling fully certain that I had the definition correct and that the term was perfect, the best word choice in my vocabulary for that particular emotion. I ran across dissenters who convinced me I was using the word incorrectly, and I stepped back and banned it from my usage because I knew if I ever used the word I would fall into the habit of using it to describe that old definition I'd attributed to it. It wasn't until years later, five years at least, that I happened to be bored enough to look the word up in a dictionary. Naturally I was bothered to find that I had been using it correctly, and that I let a few dissenters affect me to the point of dropping one of my favorite words just because they held a position of superiority on the subject - english teachers, published writers, and the like. By that time I'd reached the point of conceit where I accepted no criticism on face value, refused to make even the smallest changes without a second, and often a third and fourth, opinion. Then came the word droll.

    No one ever corrected me on the way I was using the word. I wish they had. It's a funny word because even though I used it for years with the wrong definition in mind, it still fit into the context using the correct definition. They were reading a different story from the one I was writing, one that worked either way, and was so subtly different neither side realized the intention was getting lost due to a wrongly defined word. It's funny. Once I found out, quite by accident, that I was defining the world wrongly, I decided to keep using it anyway. I know now how it will be read, and since it never caused dislike when I used it unintentionally, I see no reason to change anything. But I wonder. If someone had realized I was thinking of the wrong definition when I used that word, if that someone had caught that and pointed it out to me, would I have balked and ignored it? Twice shy. Or would I have jumped to check it for myself? Or, even after being burned once, would I have immediately stricken the word from my vocabulary like I did before?

    I reread an old favorite novel a day or two ago. I read fast and hard, particularly with favorites. I've read this particular book so often I have to tape pages back into the spine every time I open it up. It's an old library book I 'purchased' through less than proper means. In other words, I checked it out with no intention of ever returning it, and then reported it lost so I could pay the price of the book and keep it without ruining my library record. I had no choice. It says on the back of the book, "Now we offer all three in a single trade edition which will probably never be offered in a mass market edition because it's just too darn big." How else could I get the book if they refuse to sell it? I suppose I could have purchased all three novels seperately, but I was young and that wasn't an option. We had no computer, let alone internet, and forget the idea of calling stores looking for novels when the home phone doesn't have long distance calling available because a certain older brother of mine once fell in love with having husky women whisper sweet nasties into his ear for $7 a minute. Yes, I felt my purchase of the book was perfectly legitimate. Now I find it amusing. How many teenagers break into the life of crime by stealing a library book? If you count lying so you can paying the purchase price of the book and keep it forever theft. Ah, I was a rebel. Cute.

    Anyway, I had the sudden urge to read that book again. What struck me immediately is the way the author structures her writing. Mercedes Lackey. A familiar name, though I admit I've never read anything by her besides this book, and never felt the urge to look up any of her other fictional works. I like this book, not the author herself. Now I think I may have liked this book a little too much. I see a lot of my own structural style having been modeled after hers. Not sure how that happened. It's in the dialogue mostly, which is funny because I find her dialogue to be entirely unrealistic and wincingly bad if read aloud. No one speaks that way. She does well when it comes to accents and 'country folk' slang, but when it comes to casual speaking, the dialogue is far too fake. Cliche, even, and an odd mix of proper and awkward. I never noticed that before. It's surprising what you notice when you pick up a novel you haven't read in years and never read with an eye for the writing itself. I read for the stories, still do, but this time I noticed the writing as well.

    Back to the similarities that bother me now. It's not the dialogue itself so much as the way it's formatted in the sentences. Dialogue is one of my strong points, always, one of those few things no one ever picks apart. I've gotten every complaint you can think of at one point another, but for as long as I can remember I could count on the dialogue being one assured point of praise. I can hear them saying it. I can see this scene like it's happening right in front of my eyes. He sounds so real. There's no tongue-tripping words, or stilted formalities that break the illusion and kill the fantasy. I hold to that confidence. Until I'm told otherwise by more than one critic I respect, I'll continue to hold that conceit.

    What isn't good, or maybe isn't good - I haven't decided yet - is the way I crouch dialogue in descriptive sentences. I'm afraid I've taken that habit straight from this book. That scares me, embarasses me, and amuses me. An example -

    "What did you do, rob someone?" Tonno asked, teasingly.
    "No indeed," she said happily.

    If you've read any Harry Potter novel and paused to wince over the blatantly simple composition, you'll notice immediately what is "wrong" with the way that dialogue is rendered. It's the descriptions. And the placement of the words "asked" and "said". This method places emphasis on the person in the first example - what is important isn't what he said, but the person who said it and how it was said. With one word descriptions it isn't difficult to read, but it gets more complicated when actions are described with every line of dialogue.

    "Thank you for getting my things," she said, when it occurred to her that she hadn't thanked him herself.
    "You're welcome," he told her, serious and proper.

    No one ever just says things, all disembodied from the visuals of the characters actions and demeanor. How many times in real life do you ever have a conversation where the participants remain motionless, in a 'scene' with nothing important besides the he said she said dialogue taking place? Rarely if ever. But it's simpler to read if you cut out everything but the he said she said and leave the visuals to the more descriptive scenery paragraphs. Check a Potter book and read the two sentences used (once only) to describe the Potions' classroom. Two sentences and never another mention, yet entire scenes and dialogues take place in this blank space where nothing matters but what is written between the quotation marks - just
    so long as names are used to note which he and she are doing all the saids.

    It's not just the Potter books using this format, it's widespread and "proper". Because it's simple and easy to read, and doesn't bog down scenes with more information than the reader needs. When it's complicated, describing visuals and actions that tie into the dialogue being spoken, the reader doesn't ignore and skim over the "said this person" and "asked that person" - they pause to read who is saying what and what the person is doing as the words are being said. This is complicated. This doesn't sell easy to read books. And I don't think it's a bad thing though I realize other people do.

    I didn't realize I had adopted that formatting myself. I knew I used it, just not where I might have picked it up to begin with. Now I wonder, have I been using it so long that I just never realized I "picked it up" somewhere? Or is it a sign of how old I am? Maybe the style during my extreme reading days was more detailed and complicated than it is now. Or maybe I'm just running across the wrong books when it comes to more recent fiction. I've been an avid fanfiction writer/reader for years now. I have noticed that my favorite authors are old, my age or thereabouts. They have a similar style and I like it because it's familiar and done the way I prefer my own writing to be done. The other sect is younger. I fell into the habit of assuming their sentence structure was so simple and unnadorned because they were young, smaller vocabularies, less experience with description and visualization, and generally either bad or just coming into their own. Now I wonder if it isn't intentional, and a benefit on their part. I'm often told my stories are "easy to read" and I've never dumbed down anything for a younger audience. Now I wonder if the people saying that to me aren't saying it because they're my age, and they come from the same background of reading materials - familiar with the same style of formatting that I (and they and those novelists) use.

    Disjointed again. Self doubt. But I'm quite apathetic about even that. So far past the stage of caring that it's more a matter of curiousity than anything I'd actually worry about. Call me a stubborn old thing and I'll happily agree. It's just interesting to think that I may have been more influenced by a single book than I ever realized. Funny. I never read anything else besides this "The Free Bards" trilogy of Lackey's. Compared to all of the authors I followed fanatically - Stephen King, Peter Straub, Anne McCaffrey, Piers Anthony, Isaac Asimov, Dean Koontz, Clive Barker, Orsen Scott Card, and dozens more - it's sad that one little fluffy book with poor dialogue had such an impact on me. At least I can be content in the knowledge that my painfully verbose nature can be blamed on King. Damn him and his thousand page novels of doom. ^^ 
  • hierarchy (sp?) 2006-12-05 17:13:23 Yeah. Not so good without a handy spellcheck. Anyway.

    It's funny seeing how calmly people are responding to that org list. I wrote up something like that a few months back, but I was much more cynical, sarcastic, and dare I say hateful about it. Naturally I never made the journal entry public. No sense ruffling feathers. I like seeing someone do a list like that without being mean to anyone, and in a way where even the dubbed elitists can nod smuggly and say, yeah, I'm in that category. Like it's not an insult if the "e" word isn't used.

    I think there's a category of lurkers being left out of the list. I don't know where they would fall, but they'd be somewhere with the critics, the meanies, and the mascots. You know the ones. Those people who post now and then, and even though the new guys have no idea who they are, others seem to recognize them as if they had a presence once and slowly dwindled away until they were nothing more than an occassional loud voice adding two cents to random threads. Not known for pro or one-trick-pony videos, not known for their current forum presence, not really hateful or frequent enough to be known for anything, but for some reason they waltz in and out as if they own the place and no one seems to think it strange. I think the old OT-junkies fall here - the few who still show up now and then. And I think some of the "suck-ups" are being wrongfully placed - they're lurkers who used to be pros, or lurkers who used to be friends of pros, or who used to be critics who happened to like videos by pros - just because they only show up for those special vid announcements doesn't make them suck-ups. They're lurkers whose 'category' isn't recognized by the new generation because they're no longer active.

    Me, my first response was to wonder if I would count as a critic or a mascot. Then I wondered if I were still active enough to be counted as either. I was a critic once. In the second half of my first year here, I was an insanely active critic for someone on dial-up who wrote a lot of detailed ops. I had a forum presence, too, once I stopped avoiding the place like the elitist plague. I don't know if I actually had pro friends, but I exchanged ops with some editors I considered far above me, and I was buddies with a lot of the newbs who signed up the same time I did. Not known for award winning vids, or even a one-trick vid, but I was known. That would qualify me for mascot. Now that I think about it, though, I'm pretty sure I'm a lurker. My day has passed. Never good enough to be pro, never invisible enough to be no one, and no longer active enough to make an impression on the new crowd. Everyone I used to talk to in length is gone now. One or two of them pop up to post in threads like the "vets, why did you retire?" - lurkers, the lot of them. And I'm blissfully unaware of it all, still waltzing in and out like I never expect one day they'll change the locks on me. God, I feel old. Makes me wonder if there are lurkers out there who aren't former pros, and who don't show up to post in those vets threads. I'll be one of those by next year, just another silent reader the org's forgotten or never knew to begin with. Forget getting a girlfriend (haa!) - some of us need to find a new hobby. ;p 
  • subpar vids, re: dj_ultima 2006-12-04 11:53:27 It's funny. Those "this video sucks, download at your own risk" warnings. I like them. When I was stupider, I used to do the opposite - go on about how much I loved the video, as a way to get more people to download. These days I'd love to get away with either. Half the time I want to have a "this video sucks" warning, with a disclaimer of "if you like the anime and song and want to download it anyway, be my guest". The problem is, those warnings don't scare away the people I'm trying to dissuade from downloading my vids. And it *does* scare away some of the undecided people who'd probably like the vid if they gave it a download. Can't win.

    I like the idea of giving "simple" warnings. That's pretty much what I was doing when I started putting:

    Editing: Windows Movie Maker, VirtualDub, PhotoImp, etc

    - in the vid description. I realized it was better to warn ahead of time, because those in the 'know' were less likely to download the vids and then complain about the lack of Premiere-packaged effects. I just warned what program I was using. Those familiar with programs would then know the limitations/capabilities, and be able to predict whether or not they'll like the vid. There are people, after all, who only like complicated videos with effects they instantly recognize from their favorite editing programs. People who like any vid, or who prefer simple vids, probably aren't looking to see what program was used - they're downloading for the anime/song/editor/concept.

    What's really funny is that I'm using Premiere now, so I actually have to warn that a video is "simple/basic/subpar/etc". Just putting down the name of the editing program doesn't tell whether it's a simple editor using it, or someone who prefers and is capable of doing really complicated things. But with programs naturally basic like WMM, the name alone tells alot. Kinda makes me want to lie and say I used WMM2.0 for my new vids - since honestly I could have done the same work in wmm. I doubt anyone would notice. Even when I sometimes use an effect that can't be done in wmm, I still get people assuming I made it with wmm.

    That's funny, too. I may have done a lot with PhotoImp in the past, but none of the motion ever came out as smoothly as it does with Premiere's transform filter. Seems really obvious to me, but I still get comments like "can't believe you did that with wmm, how did you do it". ^^; Then I have to fess up and admit I'm using Premiere now. I'm such a traitor. At least I can honestly say my editing is still as simple as it ever was with wmm. I just use a few little tricks here and there. ;p 
  • movies, reviewers, romero 2006-12-01 05:18:36 I've been reading movie reviews by Roger Ebert and I just realized that George Romero made Creepshow. I knew King was the writer, durh, because he gave himself the dumbest role available (classic King move in his own screenplays). But I had no idea it was a Romero+King combo effort. That's just cool. With my recent zombie interest I've finally watched his 'living dead' quartet, and just realized my sister has a two-tape "25th Anniversary Collector's Set" box of his original Night of the Living Dead - which is now mine since she would never watch things like that, especially black-and-white things like that. My brother bought the movie and since he abandoned all his tapes when he moved out and upgraded to the dvd era, all his discards were left to the house. I grabbed all his horror movie tapes, but somehow I missed that one. Lucky. Anyway, all that recent Romero movie-watching and I just now realize that one of my old cult favorites was Romero, too. That's really funny. And Creepshow remains one of those funny little collections that makes me feel like a kid again - a kid with a major cult appreciation of anything and everything Stephen King. Meteor shit. Yeah, that's classic. ;p

    Another reason this little discovery is ironic - I just finished watching the first tape of The Stand yesterday. All that zombie 'end of the world' stuff made me want to rewatch my favorite bits of what remains th best plague 'end of the world' scenario I've seen on film. I don't really like that move very much, despite my love of the book, because they gave Nick a functional voice-box when he was supposed to be a mute - totally screw up my favorite character, why don't you. But the aspects of the plague are pretty true to the novel. And the approach itself is so...different from what I see around. The plague spreads fast, people die by the houseload, and the government pretends nothing is going on right to very end when 99.9% of the population is gone. You just don't see things like that. It's hardly realistic considering they would have had a better chance containing the plague if they'd told people it was out there and to stay in their homes and maybe not die with everyone else. But that's the originality of it - the unrealistic handling of it is original, and that makes the aftermath all the more interesting to look at. Sure, there was mass hysteria in places, but just a few states away there were people going about their normal lives right to the very end and never figuring out where all their neighbors had gone. Laughable. Welcome to bizarro world. ^^

    While on the subject of the made-for-tv version of The Stand, I wonder about the casting. I remember when that movie came out. That means I was at least a teenager at the time. So why do I always think of all his earlier movies as being really old? It's the casting that proves they couldn't be as old as I assume they are. King has this habbit of using particular unknown actors and using them multiple times in different movies. If you're a King fan, you recognize them instantly, but they're unknown outside of King's movies. Where does he find these easily recognizable faces, and why doesn't anyone else use those actors? The Stand is peppered with actors like that. Stu and Larry are the most obvious, but I remember when I first watched the movie that I recognized about half the named characters. That's a lot of familiar faces.

    Makes me miss the days when I actually memorized actor names to play the "Kevin Bacon" game with my siblings and friends. Of course, my version was the "Jeff Goldblum" game, which was considerably harder up until the 'Independence Day'+'Jurassic Park'+'Powder' years. Back then the best connection was through Gina Davis and Wayans in 'Earth Girls are Easy'. I liked that game, but it got annoying once Jeff starred with a bunch of famous guys in the latter movies. Because someone always brought up Kevin Costner and I would be forced to use that ugly ugly woman in Dances With Wolves as the wife of president Witmore in Independence Day - and I absolutely refused to memorize that ugly woman's name. Ah, fond memories. I forget that I used to be a movie buff. It's kinda funny in retrospect. ^^ 
  • Wheet 2006-11-29 10:43:13 Two unsolicited ops in the same day! ;p

    Considering I haven't made a vid in months, and didn't make anything special/major(aka effects) at all this year, that's pretty nice. Makes me want to either get off my ass and finish that Hikaru no Go vid I've had sitting in Premiere for the last month, or officially scrap it and move on.

    I got a great idea for another KuroFay vid last night. I was thinking about how abysmally depressing the manga has become. Where before Sakura was a smiling zombie with no personality, now she's a blankfaced sober zombie with no soul and no personality. I swear, now I'm starting to miss the pointless fluff of the first part of the series. They destroyed Fay, Syaoran's a joke, and Sakura did a 180 without improving in the "I have a personality behind this mask" department. The only one who's remained steady while also growing as a character is Kurogane, and that's just sad. Plus the random time jumps are annoying. This quest has officially lasted forever, particularly for Kuro and Fay, after that 6month separation/stay in Shura.

    One good thing (SPOILER FOR CHAPTER 136) is that they're finally using some new characters. There are so many popular Clamp series, it took them way too long to get to Rayearth. And, no, that little round-faced boy and the red wolf in that one world don't count. Just seeing Eagle with both Geo and Lantis flanking him made up for the inexplicable 3month jump. Poor Eagle gets the shaft in the anime and ova of MKR, so it's nice to know in this crossover series he gets both his boys with him. Ha! And I actually forgot how short Lantis' hair was - I almost didn't recognize him. I thought it was only wishful thinking making me guess the other guy was him.

    Anyway. Vid idea. The manga is all angst now. And I'm sick of it. So I have a vid idea that will let me capitalize on the angst factor while also using nostalgic flashbacks to keep it from being intolerable. The song is one of my all-time favorites, too. I've been waiting to find a pairing that fit it since my very first amv - it just didn't work with YYH, so it's been sitting aside for years. I don't know when or if I'll actually make the vid, but the idea is getting stronger the more I try not to think about it. I like ideas like that. ;p 
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