Tuesday, February 21, 2006

I See a Red Door and I Want it Painted Black

I just changed the ring tone on my phone to the opening strains of “Paint it Black”, and now I laugh every time every time someone calls. The melodrama! I have always taken issue with Trent Reznor and his brand of manufactured teen angst, resenting him for what always seemed to me to be little more than coldly capitalizing on the misery of adolescence, but I never saw “Paint it Black” that way. In fact, I wonder if this song wasn’t a joke. Were Mick and Keith making fun?

Anyway.

Hello, by the way. I’ve missed you. Pledge is finally over, and may I say this has been the roughest stint I’ve ever had. Why? Because I’ve been sort of promoted, and can now beg for money with the best of them, on any program, at any time. And I even had to pinch hit as a producer for a while, which means that I have truly arrived. Pleased with myself? Why, yes! Pitching is a lot of fun sometimes, and a big change from sitting in front of a computer. The downside, though, is that it SUCKS THE LIFE OUT OF YOU. I know it’s small potatoes to the world at large, but pitching really is performing. Live. And there’s no real script. And the people you work with change with every show. It’s exhausting.

Add that to the pledge work I normally do, which often involves being at the station at 5am, and put that on top of my normal work, and you can see why I’ve been absent from Behind the Stove for a while. I’ve been absent from pretty much everything else, too.

I’m back now, though, after a peaceful Sunday filled with naps on various couches and chairs, and a day off yesterday that allowed me to tackle the mountain of laundry piled in my basement and catch up on some neglected school work.

And reading! I finished Mapping the world of Harry Potter, which is a collection of essays (mostly by other fantasy writers) about the six existing books. If you like Harry Potter at all, this book is worth a look, if for nothing more than the Joyce Millman essay about Snape. Did you know the Internet is rife with “adult-oriented” fan-fiction starring none other than Severus Snape? Naughty!

I read a lot of comics through the drive, and I finished with a re-reading of Marvel 1602 and then bought its sequel. I only mention this because the sequel, written by different authors (Neil Gaiman wrote 1602) was the first comic I chose on my own—everything else I’ve read has come through friends who are huge comics geeks, or Bookslut’s Jessa Crispin), and it’s total crap. Not only is it hard to follow, but it’s not at all compelling. I’m sure under Gaiman’s hands it would be just as interesting and exciting as the first, which goes to show that good writing is good writing, whether the novels in question are graphic or not.

Speaking of writing, I’m still working on Middlemarch. Does anyone else think Eliot hated Dorothea Brooke?

Teddy is really enjoying The Voyages of Dr. Doolittle. We took our books with us when we went for a snack at Ryan’s Pub the other day, and my boy sat in a bar with his book, reading and laughing aloud. Am I growing a proper little nerdling, or what? Add to that the fact that we’re reading Harry Potter books aloud to each other—complete with accents!—and the boy has no hope for ever being cool. He could shave a Mohawk into his blue hair, slap on a leather jacket, buy a motorcycle, smoke unfiltered Camels, pierce himself until he's sieve-like, and do time in the stony lonesome, and STILL not be cool.

That’s about it for me. I roasted a lovely rosemary-lemon chicken yesterday, and made soup, and baked cookies . . . comfort food, comfort reading. Regular working hours. Clean laundry. My happy, dorky kid. And lunch with Val. All is right with the world.

13 comments:

BabelBabe said...

I LOVE the phrase, "A proper little nerdling" and am going to look for every opportunity to use it.

we must have been posting at exactly the same time.

Caro said...

Recipe for chicken, please?

My kids will never be cool either.

Where are those Snape fantasy stories?

Don't tease us and then not give us the link!

Gina said...

Then again, can he be considered a proper nerdling if he doesn't have glasses? Hmmm . . .

The chicken is easy--just take a lemon and poke it with a fork until it gets all mushy, and then shove it and a bunch of dried rosemary into the . . . um . . . cavity and then do everything else just like you normally do.

As for Snape, I don't have the book with me, but typing "snape fan fiction" into Google serves up what looks like HOURS of good time-wasting. :-)

You know what, Andrea? You're right--maybe Ted will be the coolest one of all. :-)

Have you ever tried reading aloud with the accents? We keep crazily careening from upper-class English to Cockney to Scottish to all kinds of terrible mis-hmashes . . . it's really, really fun.

BabelBabe said...

In our house, we spend a lot of time doing Liverpudlian accents. i do a mean George Harrison, esp. when I have a sinus infection.

I used to read HP fan fiction, and there was some really well-written stuff that I was addicted to - and then it turns out my friend Ben had written a ton of it! That was cool.

See, Gina, I *knew* I should have tried to run away to Bangkok with him...

Jess said...

Ooh, I want to roast a chicken, that sounds delicious.

I haven't read Middlemarch - tell me if I should. I loved Silas Marner and enjoyed the BBC version of Middlemarch, but I'm not sure if I could handle the whole thing.

Joke said...

1- Eeeeeet eeeeees aliiiiiiiiiive!

2- So what'd ya REALLY think of that HP essay book?

-J., who gets unsightly rashes just thinking of fan fiction.

Gina said...

I think Middlemarch is worth reading. Yes. And it's not *difficult* reading . . . it's just, I don't know . . . curious. I'd like to know what was going on in Eliot's life when she wrote it. I don't find Dorothea very sympathetic, and I can't tell whether I'm supposed to. Help me out here, Val--we were just talking about this.

Joke: I think the Harry Potter essays are a decent read. It's nice to have a chance to, in essence, get to hear people talking about the books, because I love talking about them.

Then again, it's a sort of pseudo-intellectual navel gazing which you either like or you don't, you know? I loved reading about fitting Harry into the traditional hero role, and about how Hermione is indeed a feminist character in a series that isn't at all sexist. It's filled with that kind of thing, which I think is fun.

That Millman essay, though, is lots of fun--really. Snape as a well-endowed S&M guy? Hubba hubba! :-)

I read some of that same fan fiction stuff Val did, (thank God she DIDN'T go to Bangkok, by the way!), and I thought it was very well done. Lots of fun to see other peoples' ideas and takes on things. Some of it is creepy, of course, because some people are creepy, but I'm glad it's there.

Peg said...

Gina I was so excited last week because I thought I heard you on the air. As I have no idea what you really sound like I don't know for sure, but still I was very pleased.

The Voyages of Dr. Doolittle? I knew I loved your kid. :) Does his copy have those woodcut-like illustrations? I could go on and on about it, but I'll allow myself just this one comment: Jip was my favorite because I didn't have a dog.

Welcome back!

Suse said...

I am so internet-dyslexic, I had no idea there was Harry Potter fan fiction out there! And about Snape too! Holy snapping duckshit I am soooo excited.

Gina said...

"Holy snapping duckshit"?? Did Robin say that to Batman? :-)

Teddy really is digging the Doolittle--and was THRILLED to be reading a quiz in Mental_Floss over my shoulder to find a question about a literary character with a dog named Jip.

Were you listening on-line, Peg? We get pledges from other states and even other countries every once in a while, which is so cool.

Peg said...

I'd guess I listen maybe twice a week via livestream. Our local station, WJFF, does their pledge week about a week ahead of DUQ... one of these days I'll take the JFF money and send it to DUQ instead. Pay my radio bill, as it were.

Gina said...

Ooh! You could get an out-of-town coffee mug--THAT's public radio HARD CORE. :-)

Kathy said...

Gina: I never found Dorothea very sympathetic either.