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Interview meme time! With questions from mecteol .

1) Since I don't know much about you yet: what's a typical day in the life for you? Get up, take a bath, maybe start some bread or something, go do internet things for a while, do homeschool stuff, walk around outside if it's a nice day, go to class, make dinner, practice my violin. I'm leading a very boring life at the moment. ^ ^


2) What are some of your favorite books (or, alternatively, those that are most important to you)? The Discworld books, Night Watch in particular. Orhan Pamuk's Other Colours, even though I still haven't finished it. Lord Dunsany's A Dreamer's Tales, which I found a library-bound first edition of at a book sale and fell in love with. Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things and Smoke and Mirrors. The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, because a blog about a court full of people with lots of time on their hands is naturally full of hilarity. Hexwood by Diana Wynne Jones. Herman Hesse's Demian and Steppenwolf are very important to me, although I'm not sure I can say I actually like them.

If comics count, then I must add Sho Fumimura's Sanctuary, Naoki Urasawa's Monster, Pluto (I have never before read a manga that made me cry more than once every volume), and 20th Century Boys, Inio Asano's What a Wonderful World!, Ohba Tsugumi & Obata Takeshi's Bakuman, Yasuo Aoike's From Eroica With Love (parody homoerotic Cold War espionage, what's not to like?), and CLAMP's xxxHoLic.

. . . I'm kinda surprised my list is so short. I guess I should go read more. :)


3) What is one thing you're most proud of? I'm not really proud of anything in particular . . . but I'm very impressed with myself whenever I actually manage to finish something that requires work and dedication, since I have the attention span and work ethic of a half-brained gnat. I should be really proud that I'm still playing the violin after all this time.


4) What made you interested in anime/manga in the first place? When I was eleven or so and first discovering the internet, I came across an AMV of D.N.Angel. I watched the show on YouTube, where someone mentioned it was based off a comic. After that, I don't remember, except it ended up with me actually watching television (even if it was on the internet and not precisely legal), enjoying comics, and developing something resembling taste.


5) Where are some places you'd like to visit? In the short term, Chicago, St. Louis, and maybe New York. I've lived in and visited small-ish towns all my life, so I'd really like to spend some time in a city now that I'm old enough to enjoy myself there. In the long term, Japan, Korea, Italy, Denmark (in the summer), Ireland . . . I've never been out of the country (being fifteen will do that to you) and I want to travel. (Especially to somewhere with a nice landscape -- my favourite thing to do is to wander around listening to music and enjoying the sights and weather, which is kind of boring in central Illinois.) Specific places . . . I don't know. I'd like to go back to the St Louis botanical gardens on a day when I have more time and better shoes.

If you're bored enough to tolerate me asking you some questions, comment and tell me so. :D

Comments

[quadruplify.livejournal.com]

I didn't know you were doing homeschooling, even if you still go to school part-time; I think that sounds awesome! How is it working out for you?

And now more books I need to put on my currently hypothetical to-read list. ^_^; I have Gaiman's Neverwhere but haven't gotten around to reading it yet, and Sanctuary, From Eroica With Love, and anything by Naoki Urasawa all look fascinating. And yes, I need to read more too. XD BTW, have you read The Tale of Genji by any chance?

I'm very impressed with myself whenever I actually manage to finish something that requires work and dedication, since I have the attention span and work ethic of a half-brained gnat.

OH GOD I AM THE EXACT SAME WAY O_O; I didn't used to be like that, actually, and I don't know why I changed (though I do have some good guesses). I'm always glad I finish anything school-related, and I certainly didn't expect to do my radio show for this long, though then again I'm ending it fairly soon. ^_^; How long have you been playing the violin?

How you discovered anime sort of mirrors my experience, only with me it was coming across Paranoia Agent on TV late at night. :3

I hear you on wanting to leave the country; the only time I've ever done that was going to Italy with my mom for a week in 2006 (trust me, it's totally worth it, and I for one want to go back again :D). And all those places sound very interesting too.

I certainly don't mind getting some more questions. ;-)

Because I can't edit comments....

[quadruplify.livejournal.com]

I forgot to mention that I sort of feel the same way with Hesse. I tried reading Siddhartha in AP Literature class, but I couldn't get through it at all (then again, I did have senioritis, so that definitely contributed). Novels of Ideas never flew well with me; I remembering reading Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee, and while he's usually an amazing writer, I didn't enjoy reading that one at all, and I don't recommend it (if you're interested, I'd rec Waiting For the Barbarians or Disgrace myself). Whenever he tries to experiment like he did there, the results don't always turn out well. :/

Re: Because I can't edit comments....

[ojuzu.livejournal.com]

It'd work out better if I could actually motivate myself. :{ I find history and science and everything else really interesting, but I always get absorbed in something else (read: fanfiction/the news/baking/general internet stuff) and totally forget that. That's always the problem with violin-playing too -- I love it to bits, but always think 'oh, I'll just do this a little bit longer' and then it's eight-thirty and I don't have enough time to get a good practice in before everyone else starts getting ready for bed. You'd think I'd know better after eight years. :\

From what I recall (it's been a while) Neverwhere is fantastic, although for some reason I tend to favour Gaiman's short stories over his novels. I got about halfway through volume one of the Tale of Genji before I had to return it. I recall there was a hilarious scene in which Genji and his father-in-law spend twenty minutes each privately fantasizing what sex with the other would be like if he was a woman. :D Now here is the bit where I persuade you to read stuff you have no time for:

Sanctuary is one of my favourite manga. I can go up to people I know and say "Here is the bit where Hojo stabs his hand. Here is the double-page spread of him and Tashiro sitting politely in someone's living room. Here is a regular meeting of the Asami Political Studies group," and depending on the person they will either fangirl discuss it with me or ask ". . . Can I borrow that?"

From Eroica With Love is just awesome and hilarious, starting as it does with three stereotypical psychic teenagers, whom all promptly disappear by volume two, replaced by their flamboyant gay antagonist (the titular Eroica) and Major Klaus von dem Eberbach, an angry chain-smoking German NATO agent. (You probably already know all this, but I can't resist mentioning the fact that the author throws her boring protagonists out the window as soon as she writes someone better.) Their relationship is typified by the time when they meet at the Iranian border; they have a long moment of oh-snap-it's-him before crying "Oh my god!" and hugging each other for several minutes, most of which is spent covertly pointing weapons at each others' throats and muttering variants on "Don't give me away." (The rest is spent by Dorian(Eroica) 'platonically' kissing the Major on the cheek and murmuring "Don't look so tense, they'll suspect something.") Now I have to go re-read it all. This always happens.

I highly, highly recommend anything by Urasawa, but if you're going to read Monster make sure you have all of it at your disposal. My library only had up to volume 13, and I was left hanging so long I almost didn't finish it when I had the opportunity -- but I'm very glad I did. I won't say any more than that. :D

As for novels of Ideas: I kind of enjoyed Steppenwolf, because it started out with a character who had all these Ideas about life and himself and the world, and then spent the rest of the book telling him no, you're wrong, you're not some kind of strange wolfish man who's unfit to live among people, society isn't collapsing, gramophones aren't the worst thing ever, now go out and have some fun. If it hadn't been mostly about that . . . well, I almost didn't make it through the part where it wasn't.

Aaand the questions!

1) What's your favourite thing to do with your free time, when you feel you have absolutely nothing you need to do?
2) What things would you mention to someone who wanted to get a good idea of your tastes in books, anime, film, etc.?
3) Or, to put it another way, what creative works do you think have affected you the most?
4) What's your favourite food (or type of food)?
5) Since I don't really know that much about you yet either, what five-or-so adjectives would you use to describe yourself?

Re: Because I can't edit comments....

[quadruplify.livejournal.com]

LOL, I do the exact same thing with any work I have to do. Then it becomes a game of what I absolutely need to do and what I don't, and I manage to do everything absolutely necessary in little time anyway. :3

OK, now I really need to pick up the Tale of Genji sometime too. XD And I don't know anything about Yasuko Aioke and her tendency to discard boring protagonists -- or any mangaka for that matter, save people like Tezuka, Shirow, Otomo, etc. That's how not knowledgeable I am on the subject. ^_^; But From Eroica With Love definitely sounds interesting, and I'll be sure to get all 18 volumes of Monster before reading it. :D (How's the anime version of Monster, BTW?)

Steppenwolf sounds like the kind of book I'd recommend to everyone who says anything about their "faith in humanity." (Seriously, that's a huge pet peeve of mine.) That'll be one I'll try to read, and I might give Siddhartha another try as well, who knows.

I'll answer the questions tomorrow when I have more time and (hopefully) brainpower. ;-)

Re: Because I can't edit comments....

[ojuzu.livejournal.com]

Eh, I haven't seen the Monster anime, but I hear it's very faithful to the manga. They just took the panels and used them as storyboards. But I've also heard the pacing isn't quite as good as the manga, which would be a pity, because the manga's pacing is absolutely fantastic. I really should get around to watching some of it to see if that's true . . .

Steppenwolf does have a lovely scene in which Mozart forces the main character to listen to classical music over a radio to illustrate the fact that life is awesome. No, really. :D