how interesting

[ambientlight]

another lj interests meme: comment on this post. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. optional: post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.

egelantier asked regarding --

(things half-said in parentheses) -- i think i meant this in relation to fic, initially, but it can apply to regular typed conversation as well. i like the convenience of parentheses, how it can soften comments by turning them into asides. in fic-writing i've tried to wean myself off them, but i still (over)use them in conversation. i also have the bad habit of putting extra spaces in the brackets ( like so ) despite knowing that it is Not The Done Thing.

3-segment structuring -- in relation to fic structures: short bit, long bit, closing. i like the balance that comes from having an odd number of segments, i guess. i don't adhere much to this anymore, but i still think three's a good number. it's listed as an interest just so i'd have one that starts with the numeral 3, really.

exist not exit signs -- okay, long story time. for a few years i was interested in attending art exhibitions, and one of my favourite galleries was Sculpture Square, this tiny place in some old colonial buildings on Middle Road. in one exhibition, there was a room with a door at the end and the usual green-and-white EXIT sign above it -- except that the sign had been changed to read EXIST, instead. i'm pretty sure -- though my memory is not trustworthy -- that there was no curatorial sign anywhere nearby, so whether that was intended as an exhibit or just a little touch to the overall gallery, i don't know. but that image has stayed with me, though my interest in tiny art galleries has waned.

good days (w/pretentious capitalisation) -- some years back i got into the habit of referring to any particularly good day as having been a Good Day, on my real-life blog. sort of an official "this day was really good, not just okay" designator. good days are important to me, and don't necessarily have to be days on which exceptionally good things happen: just days which make one feel like singing, which are blue-skied and sunny even if only metaphorically.

nooooo not hachimaki! -- eheh, this is the requisite jiraishin-referencing interest, because i feel the need to have at least one interest for any series i'm fannish about. i shan't bother with spoiler space since no one cares about jiraishin: hachimaki is the nickname that tokyo cop kyouya gave to his good-natured family-man partner, yamaki. ( 八巻, see? ) considering that those headband things are also called hachimaki, it's a particularly apt nickname for the earnest yamaki. in the tradition of earnest sidekicks in a bleak series, hachimaki died.

tatami and sunlight -- specifically, the smell of sun-warmed tatami. or just the smell of tatami at all. during the 2005 trip to japan i slept in the tatami room of the japanese host family i was staying with, and i fell in love with that green, green scent. sunlight on tatami itself is very pleasant and calming, aesthetically speaking.

lights never going out -- ahahaha, this is the requisite Smiths ref, i'm afraid. the song there is a light that never goes out was, iirc, my introduction to the band.

Comments

[egelantier.livejournal.com]

thank you, that's so lovely. I love how you describe tatami's scent with 'green' (it reminds me of mushishi in a way ^^'), and the 'exist' story is wonderful, and I've remembered how some time ago I had a friend whom I visited every sunday - we called these days 'Blessed Sundays', all sunny and green and languid.

and parentheses is such an addictive thing - it helps to weave the sentence like a web instead of building it straight: to wander here and there, to soften the impact or make it more strong, to provide lever against general meaning.

also, jiraishin! I have the disk with manga somewhere, from my friend - I've read first couple of chapters and liked them enough, but dropped out them. maybe I should read it through the end )

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

thanks for giving me an excuse to talk about myself, eheh. i love scents that i think of as green -- tatami, cut grass, just-laundered clothes, after-rain. fresh and clean.

the thing about jiraishin is that i wouldn't recommend it to anyone ( unlike, say, monster -- have you watched that? i'm forgetful, sorry. the protagonist is a doctor, which should suit your tastes. :D ) since it's so bleak and almost pointlessly graphic. it's not the sort of series that one can enjoy, really; but as always, i'm in it for the characters, and the main few were enough to keep me reading.

[egelantier.livejournal.com]

so much anime to watch, never enough time. *adding monster to 'need to see' pile*. I start being nostalgic the start of Russian anime fandom, when there were eight-ten video tapes passed around reverently and 'must see' list consisted of three-four titles =)

okay, I really don't ,) and I think I should sneak jiraishin to work and read it at last. I don't mind bleakness as long as there're good characters, and if you promise...

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

monster was originally a manga, so maybe it's faster to read it? the anime is a very faithful adaptation, so you won't be missing much either way. the anime has an amazing OP and some lovely BGMs, mind.

good luck with jiraishin, then! the art gets somewhat better after the first volume or so.

[xsmoonshine.livejournal.com]

You have interesting interests. ^^ (Can't play, have no interests.)

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

ahaha, thanks. i try. ( you have four! that is enough. :p )

[bangendedscoot.livejournal.com]

Hiiiiiiiiii how are you :D

Can I do this (: though I should be studying eep.

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

hello! i am fine, though a bit chilly at times. i mailed your postcard the other day! it is not very exciting though.

and yay, i like your interests. :D here's the seven:
a minor bird
baekkus
bisexual guitars
gary-oldman-and-several-other-old-men (mainly i am wondering who the other old men would be!)
jam-in-the-office
mediocrity mediocrity alacrity
o tchad mon pays

but yes, you really should be studying. >_. all the best! it's the Big Push, although hopefully it won't be another WWI.

say hello to some spires from me!

[bangendedscoot.livejournal.com]

Oh that's good! I hope you get used to the cold soon. Here is a sunshiney icon for you.

Thank you, heh. For both the postcard and re. the interests. I will be looking forward to that :D I like your interests, especially the exist not exit signs. My memory is being hazy here, but I have either seen that for myself or heard about it from somewhere else. Sculpture Square is really nice! My dance class is just across (at Stamford Arts Centre) so I've been there a couple of times. I have Hopes of going museum-exploring and maybe art gallery-exploring, too, after the exams :P

I will update soon when I am taking breaks, etc. Because I am usually unproductive right after lunch, anyway.

Hopefully not WWI! Or WWIII! D:

i'll have a pint in the Eagle and Child too, how about that? :)

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

hee, thankyou! on the bright (haha) side, the cold cloudy days make the sunny ones far more joy-inducing.

ah! it's nice to know that i'm the only one who knows of that sign. :) and cool, i didn't know that. i really love the whole arts belt. hurrah for after-exam plans.

[anappletree.livejournal.com]

Can I do this? ^^;; just an excuse to get away from my textbooks actually haha :) although my interests aren't very.. interesting lol.

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

sure! and eheh, i know the feeling -- this is my first real week of school, but by yesterday i was already watching anime in an attempt to avoid reading.

aiba masaki
gundams <-- because i'm curious if you're really into mecha :O
hiraoka yuuta
koike teppei
raphael
sakurai sho
yamashita tomohisa

haha they're mostly names, sorry.

[wao.livejournal.com]

Cool! I've always been terribly curious about your interests because they're so offbeat and unusual so this was terribly interesting. EXIT -> EXIST is particularly compelling. I think you have tons more interest and willingness to go for art exhibitions than I ever had, despite myself being an art student D: I'm just so damn lazy.

My interests are quite bog-standard and boring but if you want to ask them go ahead (I should be saying I should be studying, but well. :< )
...actually wth, they're nearly entirely self-explanatory .-.

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

i have an unhealthy fondness for talking about what i like, so i enjoyed this meme. :D;; ( this also means that i'm wiling to explain my interests at any time, so this meme was just an excuse, ahaha. ) and eh, i used to like wandering the streets in the whole selegie/middle road area, so. quite often it was only partly for the art, and partly for the tiny galleries themselves. >_>;;

cryptic interests aren't a requirement! half the meme is the "why you are interested in them" bit, anyway...

60s/70s music
alternative anime
environmentalism
karisuma
katsu kaishu
mind game
ぬこで萌え死ぬ

[wao.livejournal.com]

I see! I guess if I didn't have the computer I'd be walking around interesting places more and sitting on my bum a little less. I'm too lazy to go post this in my journal so I'll just go on about it here :0

-60s/70s music
I think this was one of the first LJ interests I put here but I don't think it's that serious - I just happen to really like what I hear of it but I don't actively seek it out. I just like the more melodious sound of them, and the worn-out feeling you get off old vinyl/tape recordings.

-alternative anime
I like watching anime that hasn't been widely recognized yet, and especially those which don't necessarily fit into the regular conventions of anime. I guess this would mean anything that hardly seems to get publicised and yet continues doing a good job in the shadows. Studio 4C shows would be an example! But again I don't necessarily actively look out for these...

-environmentalism
I like to think of myself as at least somewhat concerned about the environment I guess. I'm always in favour of keeping natural environments rather than further economic expansion and although I use the computer quite a bit other than that I don't use much electricity when I can help it (almost never use the air-con at home), reuse a fair amount of stuff at home and recycle whatever can be recycled... though I don't think I'm really a Good Environmentalist yet. >_> I think having visited Sri Lanka many times has made me much more accepting of and used to the idea of living simply. (random)If I ever make my own animation/film, I hope to release it primarily through the internet and not physical media sales :0 less plastic, perhaps.(/random)

-karisuma
That's the nickname people give Toshiyuki Inoue, who's one of the key animators in Dennou Coil and an amazing animator himself (really a legend). I do really like people who maintain charisma at work and can inspire others without having to be super vocal, too.

-katsu kaishu
I kind of read up about him last year and think the way he handled the whole Boshin War thing was really amazing. *_* I really respect how he was able to communicate so well between the two factions... I think he let what he really thought guide him instead of what he was expected to think as a member of a particular faction. That's a very important thing.
Someday I'd really like to be as good as him (lolol) although definitely not with his job.

-mind game
It's an anime directed by Masaaki Yuasa, a crazy film which kind of breaks a number of rules you find in anime and goes all-out on everything. Really good stuff, although I won't say it's exactly my favourite but I guess it's nice to let anyone interested in knowing who I am that I watch that sort of stuff. I like the aesthetics of it though.

-ぬこで萌え死ぬ
Cats killed me ded ;_;
I really have too much of a huge weakness for cats... I mean sometimes I just spontaneously think of cats and have to try hard to stop convulsing. >_> This interest is really very true and I don't think it's ever going to change.
I just don't know why I love them so much, there's this universal spread of cat-loving people who can't resist the aesthetics and tendencies of cats. I don't find that in any other animal.

OK that was really weird.

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

thanks for the explanations!

the worn-out feeling you get off old vinyl/tape recordings.
this is very wao-rashii, somehow!

ah, okay, studio 4C. was wondering what exactly would count as alternative anime to you. i've only seen some of studio 4C's shorts. *ignorance* i'll have to check out mind game sometime, too... and i thought your interest in katsu kaishu was particularly, er, interesting, since not many people seem to care about the diplomatic side of military affairs.

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

The idea of exist not exit signs is fetching, in a way.

(so there are corresponding Bad Days as well? or are these, like post-traumatic stress disorders, best forgotten or rendered parenthetical?)

tatami, ah ^_^

I'd bite, but my interests are too broad and too boring, for the most part

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

everyone seems to be fond of that one! so am i, though.

( no, bad days don't deserve recognition, let alone capitalisation. and there's no defining Bad Day feeling, either, whereas there tends to be a very clear This Is A Good Day sense. )