Sunday, June 26, 2005

The Lion King

One of my belifes about beauty has certainly been confirmed. There is beauty in movement. It is not just the forms and colors which make a thing beautifull, it’s motion itself can be beautifull, and that is a great deal of what makes the theatrical version of The Lion King beautifull. I went to see a production of this with some friends tonight (actually this was several months ago now). The style of costuming and sets which they used, that is the not realistic style, is usually not much to my taste and simply does not engage me. I tend not to follow a play as well and feel bored more often in such minimalist or abstract/impressionist productions, but this one, although it could not in fact be realistic, as people cannot take the shape or true movements of animals, it was definately very engaging and even beautifull in my estimation. I realised upon reflection that much of the beautty actually comes from the movement of the characters and dancers. When watching them one gets the impression that to move like that would feel beautifull. There was such grace as well as strength in the danceing, and the simple acting itself. I particularly loved watching the leaping gazells, though the lions’ movements ran a close seccond. Even the way the simple kite-like birds glided about was beautifull. The sunrise was perhaps the most glorious part aside from the motion, although the night sky filled with stars was also keenly beautifull, and I might add looked quite reaslistic. The more extensive use of singing in an african language - I don’t know which - was also one of the beauties of this production. Although in general I enjoy the soundtrack from the movie more for the grand orchestral sections, the african singing is moving in a way that cannot be captured by any instrument.
I found this verse very appropriate tonight :
The Heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.
Day unto day utters speach,
And night unto night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech nor language
Where their voice is not heard.
Their line has gone out through all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Lint

There is a multicolored longhaird lint monster that lives in our hall closet. Whenever we aren’t looking he runs about the house waving his hairy arms and dropping an even coating of lint on all tiled surfaces. He came with the house. We didn’t have one at our old house because we had a deepthroated dust monster that made regular rounds of the neighborhood bellowing and growling on saterday mornings, blowing all the dust and leaf particles from outside under everyones doors with his powerfull gusty breath. Lint monsters are afraid of deepthroated dust monsters of course, being very quiet creatures themselves, who like to take long naps snuggled among the warm winter coats in hall closets. That is, of course, why I have to sweep every day.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Clover


N clovers-1dk
Originally uploaded by aelthwyn.
I like clovers. They are green. That is enough to make me like them, but not only are they green -naturally green not painted or dyed- but they are also cute -their little rounded almost heartshaped leaves, and they are delicate, and have fun little pompom flowers (at least one variety) which make nice easy flower chains, and I hear they make good honey too. They are also, of course, associated with Ireland which adds a great deal of charm.
For my birthday my mother bought me a lovely little white teacup with dark green clovers painted on it and gold trim. I am looking at it now - so pretty and delicate and peacefull. Green things always have a soothing effect on me, as does tea - so it’s a perfect combination =)
I should add that I have in fact found several four leaf clovers in my life time. I saved one of them for quite a long time, but I fear it got lost or crushed the last time we moved. Perhaps they are not lucky, but one still feels special havnig found one just because they are so rare.
There was once, well I’m sure it’s still there, a lovely little spot at a camp I went to, under a picturesquly gnarled old tree by a pond where there was a little bench and all about on the ground were clovers. It was a special place to go and sit and reflect. Some friends and I also found a cute little frog there once, I think we named him Bud. ahh....fond memories.  

Clover


N clovers-1dk
Originally uploaded by aelthwyn.
I like clovers. They are green. That is enough to make me like them, but not only are they green -naturally green not painted or dyed- but they are also cute -their little rounded almost heartshaped leaves, and they are delicate, and have fun little pompom flowers (at least one variety) which make nice easy flower chains, and I hear they make good honey too. They are also, of course, associated with Ireland which adds a great deal of charm.
For my birthday my mother bought me a lovely little white teacup with dark green clovers painted on it and gold trim. I am looking at it now - so pretty and delicate and peacefull. Green things always have a soothing effect on me, as does tea - so it’s a perfect combination =)
I should add that I have in fact found several four leaf clovers in my life time. I saved one of them for quite a long time, but I fear it got lost or crushed the last time we moved. Perhaps they are not lucky, but one still feels special havnig found one just because they are so rare.
There was once, well I’m sure it’s still there, a lovely little spot at a camp I went to, under a picturesquly gnarled old tree by a pond where there was a little bench and all about on the ground were clovers. It was a special place to go and sit and reflect. Some friends and I also found a cute little frog there once, I think we named him Bud. ahh....fond memories.  

Friday, June 17, 2005

Exercises in Anger Management

I must have logged on to AOL at least 20 times during a 2 hour period because my ‘session ended because the AOL host is not responding’. Sometimes it would disconnect me even before the AOL welcome page had finished loading. I really wanted to upload a couple of pictures to the flinter’s website at last but it seemed like the little button ‘upload now’ had been reprogrammed to ‘disconnect now’. Of course it didn’t tell me right away that I wasn’t connected, so I got to sit there for a good long time watching it process, thinking it was uploading pictures only to dicover that I had just wasted 10 minutes watching little arrows go across the screen between 2 little pictures of computers. And I tried it over and over again, so it was really a waste of two or more hours. When it wasn’t pretending to upload my pictures and then giving me the ‘session ended’ alert box, then it was telling me that it couldn’t find or couldn’t communicate with my modem, even though it is internal and could not be disconnected from the computer. Now at the same time I was also handsewing some very sheer, slippery, stretchy fabric which didn’t want to do what it was supposed to. I am typing this the next day which is why this is not a string of colorful names for AOL in all caps. Yeah, that wouldn’t really be like me, but I have to admit to having been feeling like it at the time. Instead I sat there in all the appearance of calmness slowly pinning the sheer fabric. I think I handled it quite well, although I think one should be aiming for the inner peace in the heat of the moment rather than just a show if it. Perhaps it really is too petty a thing to actually get angry over, simply getting your plan foiled, over and over and over, but it is annoying.

Sunday, June 12, 2005

‘O the Cleverness of Me!’

I am feeling quite proud of myself for figuring out how to change something on my computer which I had at first thought impossible and was vexed about. My roomate had looked into it and said that it was impossible to change it, they hadn’t made this new system with the same options as before, but I figured it out! =) The sound it plays when you change the volume was limited to only the the ‘pop’ sound effect, although you could choose other effects for alerts and such. Well I didn’t like the poping sound, but I did like having the feedback on the sound keys, so I discovered where the sound file was that it played upon changing volume and then opened it up in a sound editing program and erased it and copied one of the other sound effects I liked and put it in there. It wasn’t actulaly that easy, because it wouldn’t let me save the change. So then I did ‘get info’ on it and changed the ‘owner’ information and all that, and made it so I was allowed to edit it, and then I redid my change and that time it saved! Yay! I am very happy now, I like the submarine sound infinately better than the popping noise. You know, the popping noise is a rather dry and flat noise, while the submarine sound does actually sound more wet, and more full too. Hmm.... I wonder if I could change my alert sound to be something from an actual song, rather than one of their sound effects.....

Saturday, June 11, 2005

Screenshots--Camera happy

My roomate Tracy introduced me to taking screen-shots of movies, and after she found a program that allowed one to do so, both of us spent hours slowly watching movies and taking pictures of all our favorite parts. I believe I have always had an artistic eye, and enjoyed taking pictures in real life as often as I had a chance, though that was seldom. This oppened a whole new field of photography so to speak, for one could take pictures of things which did not even really exist, and of people who were not standing squint-eyed and cheesy-smiled in front of half of the sign for the monument behind them. It got to be a rather adicting hobby. It was not as though there was anything we could actually do with all those pictures, even looking through them ourselves was not really going to happen often, but it was fun none the less to be able to stop and enjoy a specific moment of lighting or expression or scenery or composition, and perhaps sort through them all later to pick out a desk top picture. I think it makes one more aware of the artistic aspect of films, for whether or not the story was enjoyable or the acting good, a film may simply be beautifull or striking. After a while both of us said that we found ourselves wishing we could take ‘screenshots’ of life as it happened. I think I had always had this desire, though not quite so frequently.
Then my grandpa gave me a digital camera for graduation, making it possible - to some degree - to take ‘screenshots’ of life around me. I have indeed had a lot of fun taking pictures and would perhaps like to be a ‘Photographer’ in a more official sence than simply one who takes pictures. I would of course like to have a big fancy manual camera with cool lenses and all that sort of thing and be able to develop them myself, but those kinds of cameras are rather heavy to cary about and far more conspicuous when one is attempting to catch candid shots of people who are of the cheesy-smile shcool of thought, and it is far less expensive and much quicker to take a lot of photos on a digital camera and just download them and then sort out the not so good ones, than to buy film and pay for developing it or for the chemicals, photo paper, and equipment for doing so, and then actually take the time to develop the negatives and then make the pictures. I do really like being able to focus the camera myself. It’s nice to be able to make just one part very sharp and the rest more blured which automatic cameras don’t really let you do. Some people may think I’m crazy but I can easily take 200 pictures of a rosebush on a whim which would be absurd and impossible for someone of my funds to do with actual film. And anyway, I’m more interested in making desktop pictures for my computer with my photos than making scrapbooks, so I don’t exactly need to have them all actually printed out.
I am always on the lookout for beauty. My eyes home in on it everywhere I go. That is what makes life livable, being able to appreciate beauty. Now beauty is not limited to sight, there is beauty in movement and sound and touch and taste and smell and in the meanings of words (poetry, stories, philosophic ideas) and in the goodness of other people. There is beauty everywhere if you will look for it, though certainly there is a great deal of ugliness in the world which one must look past to find the beauty hidden amongst it. So all this will tell you my philosophy of photography which is that my aim is to capture images of beauty, images of things one can enjoy now in real life, but which being unable to truely repeat, would nevetheless wish to be able to enjoy again - which a picture allows you to do to some extent.
I have always found it most ridiculous that people should take most of their pictures of other people more as documentation than in captureing their beauty. In particular vacation pictures usually strike me as exceedingly stupid the way that most people seem to take them. Usually they are composed thus : someone is standing in the forground often squinting because at least they know it is better not to be backlit, and holding a cheesy, fixed sort of smile on their face which usually has a good deal of ‘I’m tierd, will you hurry up and take this picture’ in it, and behind them is some monument, place of natural beauty, hotel where they slept, restaraunt where they ate, or museum they went in being partially covered by the person who stands so dutifully in front of it to prove they were there, or for no other reason but that that is what one does for vacation pictures. What comes of it is that usually you have a good picture of neither the perseon nor the place they are at. It is trying to have two focal points really, and ends up as often as not as having none. These are usually terribly composed being either too ridgidly centered or too haphazard with no attention payed to what is really going on visually, just simply making sure that the two items are both inside the little rectangle. Often the person does not appear to be interacting with or connected to the place in the background, and they almost never appear to fit in with their surroundings as though they belong there, rather clashing in their appearance.
All my life whenever I have been on vacation I have been somewhat at odds with my mother, or other people, because I am always wanting them to get out of the way so I can take a picture. I pretty much take only pictures of scenery. When I do take pictures of people I want to take a picture of them specifically and do not want them to ‘go stand over there in front of that place so I can take a picture of it.’ I want it close up enough to be able to really see the person’s features, either that or I want to catch them in an action or position which captures their character or which looks particularly nice or interesting. However, it is usual for people to be too selfconcious of how they will look in pictures and either refuse to have their picture taken at all, espeically close up, or to suddenly feel so awkward that they loose whatever personality there was in their expression or pose and adopt a stiff, unnatural look and stance (or make some kind of a wierd face) and in so doing present their worst angle to the camera.
In general I don’t mind having my picture taken (unlike many people I know who like to take pictures partly because that means they are behind the camera). I really don’t like having to do the cheesy smile pictures though, they hardly turn out flattering. I’m no good at ‘silly’ shots either, I just don’t makes faces; well, I make plenty of faces for different occasions, like smelling burnt tuna, trying to figure out something that my mind doesn’t want to wrap itself around, being vexed at something that is not cooperating (sewing machines, school registrars' assistants, people that insist you have to wear shoes, items that like to hide themselves at the moment they are needed...) I think I can be quite expressive, but when you ask me to make some kind of face at the camera I just go blank, I can’t think of a face to make, and it’s just not me to make a faces. Often if I ask someone to take a picture of me somewhere they end up standing there waiting for some time, I guess thinking I’m distracted or composing myself or something just because I’m not looking at them, or not smiling. Somehow most people just don’t even think about taking a piture of someone who is not facing them with a smile.
Well I guess I have rambled about taking pitures long enough. I think some of this is a bit repetative, but oh well.

Thursday, June 09, 2005

brown paper packages

I saw a little padded envalope in the mail today. ‘Oo! it must be for me' I thought. I've ordred several things on line, a couple of days ago, and have been thinking wistfully of the time it will take for them to arrive. It looks like a CD sized pakage...which one will it be? Yes! it does have my name on it. My fingers itch to open it... rustle, fwipp fwip, crackle... ooo! (whispered squeal). It is the one I was hoping for : the Legend of Zelda soundtrack! I’ve watched my cousins play that so many times, I’m not good enough to merit getting a chance at it myself very often, sigh, and I remember liking the music. So now I have some new music to listen to. yay! I’ve been wanting some for a while.

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

shh...

I seem to have lost my voice. If you happen to hear it anywhere do let me know. It’s rather odd whispering all the time, it makes me feel like it must be really late at night. I think my mother probably appreciated it last night though when Marcy spent the night - usually our talking keeps her up, but I couldn’t actually forget not to whisper, and as it feels odd to talk normal to someone who whispers at you it kept Marcy from forgetting too. It is rather frustrating not to be able to sing right now, but since my throat isn’t actually hurting anymore I can’t complain. It does makes answering the phone rather difficult.
I’d really like to know exactly how ones voice becomes ‘deactivated’. It doesn’t exactly make sense. What makes the sound of yoru voice is two flaps of skin in your throat that vibrate when you blow air through - well, it’s a lot more complicated than that of course, or else we’d be sighing every time we breathed in and out. It seems like it’s not that these flaps of skin just get swollen shut or anything, because you can still breath. It feels more like the ‘wires’ that connect the muscles to your brain are snipped or something, but germs can’t do that. Anyway, it seems to me a very inexplicable phenomenon.

inexplicable is a fun word to say, ‘inexplicable, inexplicable, inexplicable!’ only, well, I can’t exactly say it now. typing it is not so much fun.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

the early bird gets the....

...present? Apparently it rained the morning of my birthdy, so my mother says, and I missed it! A perfect birthday gift from heaven and I had to sleep through it. And to think if I had only stayed up a few more hours and finnished sewing my gift to myself (a beautifull silky robe, reversable with dark green on one side and gold enbroidered with chinese style 'celtic knot' emblems on the other) which I stopped working on at 4am, I could have had two lovely gifts to start the day, sigh...

Peeps

It simply cannot be easter without eating some peeps - those little marshmellow bunnies and chicks covered in coloured sugar -yum! The pink bunnies are my favorites. Personally I think they are at their best after a couple of days of sitting in their opened package, for then they are not quite so soft and mushy. For some reason I perfer them to be somewhat chewey, though I doubt many people share that sentiment. It is a good thing that I like them this way because it always takes me a long time to finnish up sweets. I enjoy them as much as anyone, but I can’t deal with very many at a time, and perfer to save them for the perfect moments at which they would be most fully appreciated. I am sure it is a good thing I never had any siblings to share my candy with because I would either have never gotten any or would have learned to scarf it down all at once like most children I know, a practice which I cannot immagine being better than my method.

Time Travel

I decided to post some things I wrote a while back, but I do not feel like going through them and changing all the time references like 'last night' and such, which really don't matter anyway because anyone who reads this probably won't be reding it directly after I post anyway. I'm not going to put them all up here at once, but I thought I ought to say that I am aware that Christmas wasn't a few weeks ago in May, and easter doesn't come in June. So you can just immagine you are reading some of these things several months ago.

Now, speaking of time travel... People have often told me I was born in the wrong century, and I think I would have to agree. I don't share most of the more current tastes and oppinions, although I'm sure I'm more a product of modern culture than I would like to believe. There are a few things I appreciate about living nowadays, some of which I could give up, and some of which perhaps I couldn't. I really do enjoy the variety of things available, we can benifit from the fashion, art, literature, and science from so many different times. I do like the relative freedom to be different in today's society, the more open-mindedness toward all the variety available to us. Of course there are many ways in which I can't be myself so much in this cultural setting which perhaps I could in another place and time. I think if time travel was a possibility I would definately want to visit medieval or renaissance Brittain, and I wouldn't put it past myself to choose to stay, but who knows. I really do enjoy email, and typing makes writing stories so much easier than dealing with thousands of scribbly hand-written papers. I could probably give up modern toilets and air-conditioning, sewing machines (though they do help satisfy my impatience with costume projects), light bulbs, ball point pens, TV, and gass stoves. But I think the thing I would miss the most in the past is the ability to just put in a CD and listen to whatever I want when I feel like it; to have music right in my own home, without having to hier a group of musicians to come sit in my livingroom.

Monday, June 06, 2005

Custard

Custard is a wonderfull thing, one of the best foods there is in my oppinion. There are many different kinds of custard, some better than others, but all pretty good. Custard can be light and creamy, or somewhat closer to the consistancey of jello - only much much better. Creme Brulee - I have no idea how it’s really spelled- is creamy and has a lovely crunch crust of carmelized sugar on top. Regular custard is a little stiffer - though not hard- and has nutmeg sprinkled over it (I love nutmeg!) There is also the instant jello brand kind, which is more like pudding; it tastes good, but is really not much like the real thing. The custard style yogurt which Yoplait makes is pretty good too, it doesn’t taste like custard, but has the same consistancy. Flan is also a kind of custard with sweet sauce poured over it. The cafeteria at school pretends to make flan, but it is really just stiff pudding with sweet sauce - it tastes good too, but is not the same as real custard at all!
When you make custard you have to have little custard bowls to bake it in, and you have to set these little bowls in a pan of hot water and then stick the whole thing into the oven. That is not very difficult. However, when it comes time to take the custard out.... well just hope that your oven rack slides smoothly. If it catches and jerks the very hot water will slosh and slpash. You may have clouds of steam cloming up from the bottom of the oven, and you may have water in your custard now, but you most certainly will have burned your hands because hot pads are not water proof. Unfortuneatley all this means that making custard is not something one does on a whim when he feel slike a snack at 3 am.
Three days ago was my birthday and I was really hoping to have some custard rather than cake. Two days before that I tried going to a certain restaraunt that serves it in Downtown Disney with my friend Marcy after we left Disneyland, but they were closed. My hopes were dashed! But then my mother was actually kind enough to make custard for me - I thought the first time she made it would be her last. This time went considerably better though. Then last night (that is the night of the 4th) my Dad and Gandpa took me to my favorite restaraunt: The Cat & the Custard Cup, and of course I got to have some custard again. This time it had raspberries in it. It was heavenly.
The Cat & the Custard Cup is a lovely little place in Whitter that is rather like an English pub, but rather expensive. It makes me think of eating at Sherlock Holmes’ house. It is cozy and has excellent food! My personal favorite is the red deer with their maple whipped yams -which are as good as ice cream in my oppinion. And another thing I appreciate about it is that I can order hot tea and not be served nasty lipton! They actually have good quallity tea, a thing far too rare in california.

Saturday, June 04, 2005

4

4 is the best number. It is cute, I don't know why, it just is.

sunshower

Wouldn’t it be wonderfull if it could rain without the sky being covered so the sun would sparkle in every drop, and all the wet earth would glisten, and you could enjoy both the sunlight and the feeling of rain all at once!
Have you ever just stood still and let rain pour down on you so you could experience the beautifull feeling of it? It’s rather like the touch equivelent of seeing something glimmering. Each cool drop is like a little sparkle against your skin. I love rain. It makes me smile, makes me want to go outside and enjoy it. Rain makes me cheerfull, not depressed and morbid. Why is it that people associate the sun with happiness and rain with sadness? Hot sunny days without a cloud in the sky make me want to hide inside away from the cruel rays that make me squint, give me headaches, burn my skin, and zap all my energy. (Don't ge me wrong here, I'm not a seccond Gollum shaking my fist at the sun; light is good, after all, green things have to have both sun and rain to grow) But when the day is dim and cloudy, cool and moist I can't resist going out to enjoy the refreshing air or revel in the rain!