My, but I'm chatty tonight.

[the_deep_magic]

Last portrait (for now); kinda sad.



This is the same model from my final Drawing 101 class... though you'd never know it from the pics.  You can see I've improved... but neither one quite looks like her.  She's much younger than she appears in either drawing, though she does have those sad eyes.  Still, it was a good one to go out on.

I walked into class just in time to hear the teacher talking about how he couldn't turn on the TV anymore without seeing two men kissing, and that was just the most disturbing thing to him, he's sorry, that's just how he was raised.  I have to wonder a) what channel he's watching; and b) he makes his living as an artist.  Has he really never had the opportunity to befriend a homosexual man?  Luckily, two of the women in the class were already giving him what-for, though the whole thing stayed civil and I didn't have to whack anybody with my drawing board.  Still, it made me initially disinclined to listen to any of his instruction.  Kinda wish I'd walked in 5 minutes later, especially since it was the last class -- I would have left with a lot more respect for the guy.

As for the art, I haven't signed up for any summer classes because I may or may not be around to take them, but I need to find a way to keep up with this, even if it's not portraits.  The problem is that this method is very messy and requires special paper and no dogs trampling around.  I can work around that, but it requires effort -- something I've not got in spades.

Ok, time for some books!

Day 8: Most overrated book – The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen

I think this won a bunch of awards, but I quit reading this one halfway through, and I NEVER quit reading anything halfway through.  I found the prose to be a chore to plow through, every single character is unlikeable, and I finally realized that I just didn’t give a shit what happened to any of them.  Somebody let me know if it suddenly gets exciting in the second half and there are, like, explosions and shit.

Day 9: A book you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving – The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

A friend of mine said this: “I love The Great Gatsby because the first time you read it, you want to throw it through a window.  The second time, you think it's brilliant.”  I had the same experience.  What pretentious crap, I thought.  Why even bother to name your narrator when he’s about as necessary as a smudge on a camera lens?  And then I talked about it with people and read it again and adored it.  Also at the time I was madly in love with someone who was dating someone else – pretty standard for a high schooler, but is there a better metaphor for unrequited love than the green light at the end of the dock?

Day 10: Favorite classic book – Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley was 18 when she wrote this.  Eighteen.  And don’t give me shit about her husband writing it for her, because I will bitchslap you through the computer.  I wrote four papers about this book when I was in 11th grade.  They weren’t long papers, and they may not have been particularly good, but I knew immediately how brilliant and multilayered this book was.  Fuck Dracula and Jekyll & Hyde, this shit is where it’s at.  Also, it inspired a great many adaptations that eventually led to Young Frankenstein – what’s not to love?

And now for something completely different: I had a weird experience the other day.  I had Netflix'd A Dangerous Method, even though Keira Knightly annoys the crap out of me, and the whole time I was watching, I had the unshakeable conviction that I've seen this before, and Ralph Fiennes is supposed to be playing Jung.  Credits say it was based on a play called The Talking Cure.  I went through some old travel journals, and sure enough, I saw The Talking Cure at the National Theatre in London on January 2, 2003.  Google confirmed it starred Ralph Fiennes.  Then I remembered -- the terrible seats, because the thing had been sold out before it even opened; the three-story set that took up the entire proscenium, floor to ceiling; being really uncomfortable during the rough sex scenes because I'd gone to see it with a slightly older male friend. 

What disturbs me about it is that I didn't remember the play for certain until I found the ticket.  I thought maybe I'd imagined the whole thing.  And if I hadn't seen the movie the other day, I couldn't have told you anything about the plot.  I was excited that I managed to see the play, and according to the journal, I really enjoyed it.  I don't know; I suppose the nine-year time lapse makes it forgiveable, but I've always had a really good memory, and it freaks me out when I can't remember things I think I should.  I mean, I'm not 100%, but I'm pretty sure I saw Ralph Fiennes' naked ass (or, as we were in London, arse) that day, and that is not something that should be forgotten.  I'm too young to worry about my mind going, but I do, even if it's probably not warranted.

Incidentally, that's the same London trip in which I met Gillian Anderson as well as Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith.  The latter called me "daft."  In an affectionate way, of course (long story involving a friend bribing me to ambush her at the stage door).  Whatever, Professor McGonagall called me daft!  I'm practically a Gryffindor!  ::throws confetti::