http://rusty-halo.com/wordpress/?p=2866

I watched two more Bowie DVDs: Black Tie White Noise (1993) and VH1 Storytellers (1999).

The thing is, Bowie as an older man is wise, funny, cultured, entertaining, charismatic, and… just not 1/10 as interesting as crazy fucked up genius 70s Bowie. You get the sense that he uses his charm and sense of humor to deflect his interviewers and avoid revealing anything particularly personal, whereas in the early years of his fame he was often quite passionate and sincere about whatever disturbing, odd, interesting things happened to be going on in his head.

(Or maybe he just grew up and mellowed out. *shrug*)

( Black Tie White Noise )

( VH1 Storytellers )

And in other news, Sean Bean has been cast as Ned Stark in HBO's adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire.

I'm... confused.

On the one hand, I love A Song of Ice and Fire and I love Sean Bean, so... yay!

But... but... Ned Stark? Does he have to be Ned Stark? Can he shave his head and be Tywin Lannister instead? Can we get him a TARDIS and have 30-year-old Sean Bean play Jaime Lannister? Ned Stark is a boring goody-two-shoes loser! Sean Bean is better than Ned Stark. Bean's whole schtick is being able to play dark, disturbing, complicated characters, the opposite of humorless honor-bound Ned. Does this mean they're going to change Ned? Because I don't want to have to like Ned Stark!

( spoilers for ASOIAF )

And then there's the fact that I've always pictured Jaime Lannister as very similar to young Sean Bean (thanks to queenofthorns who helped get me into the series in the first place). Ned and Jaime are opposites and enemies, but if Sean Bean is Ned, then am I going to side with him or with Jaime? And how can I picture Jaime like Sean Bean if Ned is Sean Bean? And that's not even getting into the fact that Sean Bean is way too old to play Ned Stark!

And... and...

*does not compute*

*brain explodes*

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. Please click here to comment.
(Anyone can comment on public entries.)

http://rusty-halo.com/wordpress/?p=2850

I made some revisions and updates to my Ziggy Stardust essay. If anyone out there reads it, I would love to get feedback.

I checked in at the Song of Ice and Fire forum yesterday and was excited to see that casting sides and a pilot script for the HBO series have already leaked. And apparently they’re … decent. I am cautiously optimistic. I know a lot will have to be cut in order to turn such epic novels into a television series, but I’m pleased that they seem to be remaining faithful to the spirit of the text. (Of course anything could happen between now and the final airing, if it even airs…!) *crosses fingers*

Last weekend was busy. Friday night I went to the Feministing fifth anniversary party with my friend Anne. It was cool to be in a room full of feminists, but the location was so disappointing. It was the middle of nowhere (46th between 11th and 12th, surrounded by warehouses and cheesy clubs with lines to get in), the drinks were obscenely expensive, and the sound was atrocious. I can’t imagine why they didn’t have it in the LES or the Village.

Saturday I dragged myself out of bed with enough time to go to the Guggenheim, basically because 1) I’ve lived in NYC for nine years and have never been there and 2) if I can’t afford to travel, the least I can do is take advantage of the fact that I live in New York City. The building is gorgeous, of course, and the main exhibition on Frank Lloyd Wright was interesting. Some of his buildings are amazing, but I’m annoyed that he didn’t like cities and thought everyone should have cars. My favorite thing was the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings in the Thannhauser Collection. The museum is small enough that you can listen to every segment on the audio guide with time to spare, so I took full advantage of that.

Then I met up with jaydk and we headed back to my place (after a nightmare on the subway thanks to the stupid L shutdown on weekends) where I made her finish The Man Who Fell to Earth (she hated it, *sigh*) and she made me watch part of an anime series and then um a fan-subbed video of a live-action musical based on an anime about middle schoolers playing tennis. And she thinks I have weird taste? ;) Of course there was a lot of alcohol and food and it was fun even if our fannish interests are not quite converging at the moment. Oh! And we had a lot of fun watching Robin Hood episode nine hit cliche after cliche. It’s like that show is built for MST3K. And Richard Armitage is always there to look hot and provide a bit of actual entertainment value.

Then Sunday I went to see Moon followed by the Q&A by director Duncan Jones. I want to see it again before it goes out of theaters; it’s really such a good film.

Now I have to answer emails. I know, I’m horribly slow. Working on it now.

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. Please click here to comment.
(Anyone can comment on public entries.)

http://rusty-halo.com/wordpress/?p=2772

These responses are totally dripping with SPOILERS so please click carefully!

( Highlander )

( Doctor Who )

( Buffy the Vampire Slayer )

( The Lymond Chronicles )

( A Song of Ice and Fire )

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. Please click here to comment.
(Anyone can comment on public entries.)

In case my "A Song of Ice and Fire" fan friends haven't seen it, there's ASOIAF wank over at Fandom Wank. Amidst the reams of wankery, it's got some pretty interesting discussion about the politics of ASOIAF, plus the OP is fun to point and laugh at.

http://rusty-halo.com/wordpress/?p=2032

Jeordie White is a total Star Wars nerd. This amuses me immensely.

Also amusing is the latest Meathead Perspective. I think most of the reason I keep up with NIN these days is to make sure I won’t miss any of Meathead’s jokes.

Veronica Mars last night was stunningly bad. ( not really spoilery, but just in case )

I want the organizers of New York Comic Con to die slow, painful deaths. Preferably after taking off work, waiting outside in freezing windy cold for two hours, being treated rudely at every turn, and not being able to get the autograph of the person they wasted a vacation day to meet.

Seriously, I’ve been to plenty of conventions, and I certainly never had to wait in line for hours to get in at DragonCon or San Diego ComiCon, especially in freezing weather. And I never had to arrive hours early to wait in line and get some kind of special ticket to get into an event at a convention I’d already paid for. The whole thing is a fucking mess.

I skipped Saturday and Sunday, regardless of George R.R. Martin and Stephen King. I don’t care who their guests are in the future; I am never going back.

Huh. I haven’t ranted about anything in a while. That felt good.

Back to happier things…

I watched the last half of the Oscars on Sunday night, because I was channel surfing and came across Robert Downey, Jr. I always thought of him as a really good actor who was also cute, but somehow he’s turned into a really good actor who is drop dead gorgeous. I also realized that he has a movie opening on Friday that is directed by David Fincher (Fight Club!) and is getting great reviews. I’m very excited.

It was also cool to see Ennio Morricone get an award, since those Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood Westerns are among my all-time favorite movies, in large part because of Morricone’s scores. Although, yeah, his acceptance speech was a little tedious. Whatever, he deserved the recognition.

And it was cool to see Lucas, Spielberg, and Coppola together. The Oscars are pretty interesting from the perspective of someone who is kind of fascinated by the film industry, although the movies it tends to honor are almost always the boring ones that I haven’t seen. I like fantasy and action, and “Lord of the Rings” was too pretentious for me, so, yeah. My favorite movies last year were “Pirates 2″ and “Pan’s Labyrinth,” which only got technical awards. I’m not really an Oscar person, but the ceremony itself was more interesting than I expected.

I’m re-reading A Game of Thrones. I really need to re-read the whole series and take detailed notes (there’s so many lovely bits of foreshadowing and characterization that I note in my head and then promptly forget!), but some of the thoughts that particularly stood out:

( thoughts on the Song of Ice and Fire series )

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. Please click here to comment.

Jeordie White is a total Star Wars nerd. This amuses me immensely.

Also amusing is the latest Meathead Perspective. I think most of the reason I keep up with NIN these days is to make sure I won't miss any of Meathead's jokes.

Veronica Mars last night was stunningly bad. ( not really spoilery, but just in case )

I want the organizers of New York Comic Con to die slow, painful deaths. Preferably after taking off work, waiting outside in freezing windy cold for two hours, being treated rudely at every turn, and not being able to get the autograph of the person they wasted a vacation day to meet.

Seriously, I've been to plenty of conventions, and I certainly never had to wait in line for hours to get in at DragonCon or San Diego ComiCon, especially in freezing weather. And I never had to arrive hours early to wait in line and get some kind of special ticket to get into an event at a convention I'd already paid for. The whole thing is a fucking mess.

I skipped Saturday and Sunday, regardless of George R.R. Martin and Stephen King. I don't care who their guests are in the future; I am never going back.

Huh. I haven't ranted about anything in a while. That felt good.

Back to happier things...

I watched the last half of the Oscars on Sunday night, because I was channel surfing and came across Robert Downey, Jr. I always thought of him as a really good actor who was also cute, but somehow he's turned into a really good actor who is drop dead gorgeous. I also realized that he has a movie opening on Friday that is directed by David Fincher (Fight Club!) and is getting great reviews. I'm very excited.

It was also cool to see Ennio Morricone get an award, since those Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood Westerns are among my all-time favorite movies, in large part because of Morricone's scores. Although, yeah, his acceptance speech was a little tedious. Whatever, he deserved the recognition.

And it was cool to see Lucas, Spielberg, and Coppola together. The Oscars are pretty interesting from the perspective of someone who is kind of fascinated by the film industry, although the movies it tends to honor are almost always the boring ones that I haven't seen. I like fantasy and action, and "Lord of the Rings" was too pretentious for me, so, yeah. My favorite movies last year were "Pirates 2" and "Pan's Labyrinth," which only got technical awards. I'm not really an Oscar person, but the ceremony itself was more interesting than I expected.

I'm re-reading A Game of Thrones. I really need to re-read the whole series and take detailed notes (there's so many lovely bits of foreshadowing and characterization that I note in my head and then promptly forget!), but some of the thoughts that particularly stood out:

( thoughts on the Song of Ice and Fire series )

( A Song of Ice and Fire spoilers )

( politics, sorry )

* South Park is awesome.

* Veronica Mars is boring.

* queenofthorns was right; young Sean Bean would make the perfect Jaime Lannister.

I say this because I just watched the latest from Netflix, Inspector Morse 24: Absolute Conviction. This is an episode of an English detective series from 1992, guest-starring Sean Bean.

He's only in it for about 10 minutes, but between this and Sharpe, I'm thoroughly convinced that he's the ideal Jaime Lannister. His character in this is a semi-bad guy: cold, arrogant, and mocking, but with a simmering anger underneath, and apparently some genuine love for his wife. You could *so* totally see him as Jaime in all those classic moments: coldly ordering Ned's men killed, flashing his cruel smirk, while underneath he is terribly worried about Tyrion and bitter towards Ned; telling Cat that he tossed her kid off a tower, indifference and mockery masking his self-loathing; threatening to send Edmure's newborn baby back to him with a trebuchet.

And, of course, with Sharpe we see Sean Bean playing a character who is a warrior, whose first reaction to any problem is to solve it with violence, and who has an idealistic/romantic core. So he could also play the impetuous warrior side of Jaime and the decent side of Jaime, disillusioned idealist that he is.

Oh yeah, and he's stunningly beautiful, with golden hair, green eyes, and high cheekbones.

See, it didn't quite work for me before, probably because I was thinking of older Sean Bean, who is too rugged to fit that "mirror image of his twin, the beautiful queen," thing that Jaime has going. But younger Sean Bean? Perfect.

Speaking of Jaime, there's a nice discussion of his character development here on the ASOIAF forum.

* I also watched Lady Chatterly (thanks to Sean Bean I've watched more British television in the past two months than I've ever seen in my life). It reminded me that I despise love stories. On the plus side, Sean Bean is very beautiful and occasionally naked in it. And I did like the end; the characters actually had the guts to do what I would've done, which was to say "fuck you" to society and to run away (to Canada!) together. On a metaphorical level, it was more about the irrelevance of the class system, so that was cool.

I just finished watching the Sharpe series. (Sorry, queenofthorns! I certainly wouldn't mind watching some of it again if you're still up for another Sharpe night.) What particularly struck me was the seemingly unrealistic buffoonery of so many of the officers that Sharpe is constantly clashing with. How could these people possibly stay alive--let alone maintain power--while being so utterly stupid?

And then I'd turn off the DVD player and watch The Daily Show, and realize that the world really hasn't changed very much.

(Speaking of The Daily Show, if Jon and Stephen don't stop this crossover stuff soon, I'm going to be forced to start reading Stewart/Colbert slash....)

My other thoughts on Sharpe: ( spoilers )


Also, thank you grrm for saying some stuff that really needed to be said. Now go write your book!

So after months of reminding her of the title and author, my mom actually read A Game of Thrones. To my surprise, she liked it a lot. But this killed me. We were talking on the phone last night:
( ASOIAF very minor spoilers )

Dude! George RR Martin rocks!

From his latest not-a-blog entry, about the Hugo awards:

No doubt the Best Dramatic Presentation/ Short Form category will be dominated by episodes of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, STARGATE, and the other ongoing SF dramas. That's cool, but sometimes SF shows up in places where you don't expect it. On SOUTH PARK, for example. I am going to nominate the hilarious episode called TRAPPED IN THE CLOSET, all about the evil alien overlord Xamu and L. Ron Hubbard. Join me. If we get SOUTH PARK on the ballot, maybe Matt and Trey will show up at the con...

He's a South Park fan!

I suppose I should post about last weekend's convention. I'm still sort of in recovery (lack of sleep, plane delays), but here goes.

( Vericon report, with only the minorest of ASOIAF spoilers )

And in other news--WriterCon scholarship applications are open! You can apply from now until Feb 14, so if you planning to apply please do so soon. You can also help support the scholarship program by donating here.

Oh yeah... Veronica Mars. ( not very nice VM thoughts )

NY Times article on George RR Martin. Neat!

10zlaine and I are going to see him at a convention at Harvard in January. Vericon.

It's freezing outside. My hair froze on the way to work this morning. Ugh. Coldest day so far. (And my apartment is also freezing. Poor kitties.)

I saw Depeche Mode again on Thursday night. I bought the ticket the day before--they must've released some reserved seats at the last minute--because I had an amazing view. Second row, elevated, to the left, right in front of the stage. Totally awesome--I'm so happy with it. And the show was really wonderful--they are such talented and charismatic performers. I think the only difference between shows was that Martin Gore sang "A Question of Lust" this time. Anyway--wonderful show, totally recommend seeing them.

I was sick all weekend, and alternated between working on various projects and huddling in front of the TV drinking hot tea and re-watching S1 of Veronica Mars.

Stuff I noticed in VM:

- Logan is SO COMPLETELY WONDERFUL. (Sorry. Had to say it.)

- "An Echolls Family Christmas" is my favorite episode. Every time the Echolls family comes onscreen, the show gets ten times better. And Logan/Weevil slashiness! Seriously, those two have awesome chemistry.

- Duncan had more facial expressions last year, didn't he? WTF is up with that? He really is a robot in S2.

- I really liked S1 Veronica. I totally, totally get the high school trauma thing, and the "covering your pain by being a badass" thing, and the rejection of a social group that you've realized is corrupt. I (*gasp*) identified with her, and liked her. I loved her anger, and the fact that she'd choose vengeance--she wasn't perfect, but was real.

But what's horrible is to realize that she didn't reject the '09ers because she realized that they are corrupt and not worth her time--she just rejected them because they rejected her first. Really, she was just pining to get back in with them. And now that she has the opportunity to do so, she's immediately given up all that "independent," "interesting" stuff and turned into just another '09er clone. Look at her HAIR for God's sake--last year it was all funky and neat, this year it's all pretty blonde princess. She's tolerating DICK and putting up with 100 times more bullshit from Duncan than she'd ever have tolerated from Logan. It's like she started out as Chloe, but she's turned into Buffy. (*shudders*)

And I've lost all respect for the character. And that SUCKS. I want to see her reject the '09ers, not because they were mean to her but because she realizes that she really isn't one of them and doesn't want to belong to their lame-ass social group anyway. Even if she could.

-Okay, another S1 thing--the MotW episodes kind of sucked then, too. I didn't realize it because I was watching so fast and most paying attention to the arc stuff, but if I'd been watching week by week I'd have been pretty frustrated. Seriously, plenty of those mysteries are predictable and lame.

In fact, I totally separate the arc stuff from the MotW stuff, and it's kind of startling to realize that those awesome scenes where Logan and Aaron are attending Lynn's funeral are actually spaced between some ridiculously dull plot of the week thing about a rap mogul's daughter. Who knew? "An Echolls Family Christmas" rocks because both the A and B plot are Echolls related. (Seriously, they should just make it "The Fucked-Up Echolls Family Show"--now that I'd love. Every time Logan or Aaron are onscreen, the show is ten times better.)

Anyway. Just some random thoughts.

As far as season two... last week's episode was ( VM 2xWhatever spoilers )

Oh yeah, and on Sunday I went with jaydk to this play reading thing, because it featured her latest fictional obsession, Tom Pelphrey, who plays Jonathan on Guiding Light. (I've never actually seen Guiding Light, but from having Jane as a friend, I know allll about Jonathan.) So the play was decent (a bit Breakfast-Club-esque) and the acting was quite good. So that was neat.

And other than that, I've just been madly busy. Website stuff, holiday stuff, eBay, etc.

( ebay worries )

Femslash wank. *OMG dies laughing*

Yeah. Not touching that debate with a ten foot pole.

So I went to see George R. R. Martin yesterday. (I think you disgruntled femslashers ought to read his books, actually. More on that later.) It was at the Astor Place Barnes & Noble, which is tiny, so naturally it was packed with hundreds of people, lined up through all three levels of the store. Luckily, I got there massively early and saved two seats in the second row for drujan and queenofthorns, who just barely got there in time to claim their seats before the ravening crowds snatched the seats away.

You can see my (red) hair in this photo, front left.

Martin gave a prepared talk, explained the five year gap for the billionth time, and answered a few questions. The only new one was "Is Syrio Forel really dead?" Martin told us to figure it out for ourselves (I'd always assumed he was dead, and I took from his answer that I was correct). Someone asked about errors, and Martin pointed out that he and his editor both missed the fact that his horses keep changing genders (that was pretty funny, the gender-bendng horses).

Someone also asked if he'd change his story if the audience figured out an important plot point (such as Rheager + Lyanna = Jon), and Martin said no, he wouldn't change his story, and he specifically avoids the discussion boards for that reason. Notably, he didn't repeat the Rheager/Lyanna bit when he repeated the question, which I took as a pretty good indication that the theory is correct. He also asked the audience to raise hands if they'd ever participated in the message board--there were quite a few, but certainly not the majority. Oh, and someone wasted a question asking if we'd ever have a Hodor point of view (Martin joked about a chapter that would be 27 pages of "Hodor, hodor, hodor, hodor").

Then we had to line up for the signing, and here's where we were *really* lucky to be up front, because we were the first ones to get our books signed. This thing must've gone for *hours* after we were done.

So I was all nervous, and I only had one question, but I wasn't planning to actually ask it. However, when I got up there and couldn't think of anything else to say, I suddenly went for it anyway. So I basically asked (but less coherently, because I was nervous): "You've had two lesbian sex scenes, so would you please balance it out by having a boy on boy sex scene?" And when he looked at me like "What?" I added "A Loras/Renly flashback would be really nice." (Those are his two hot gay male characters.) To which he responded "Loras/Renly, I'll keep that in mind" and laughed.

Erm, yeah. I don't know if it's *that* inappropriate a question, because he does have gay male characters, and he has written two explicit lesbian sex scenes but no explicit gay male sex scenes, so really, he's playing into the whole male gaze thing by showing us the girls hooking up but not the boys. Y'know? I love that he has gay characters and I always rec the series to people by pointing out how politically progressive it is, but you can definitely read it as playing into society's male biases by showing girlsex but not boysex.

Anyway, he seemed to think the question was amusing rather than offensive, so that was good.

By the way, here's a link to the Time Magazine article that calls Martin "The American Tolkien." If you haven't read the series yet, it's quite a good explanation of why you should.

I finished "A Feast for Crows"!

Be warned, massive spoilers follow.

( AFFC SPOILERS )

This book has a completely awesome cover: 17-year-old Jaime Lannister seated on the iron throne after killing King Aerys. Definitely the coolest ASOIAF art I've seen.

I am so excited about the new book. Someone posted a list of chapters and, dude, look at all the Jaime! Plus the two new POVs are completely awesome. (Don't click that link if you're avoiding spoilers.)

( totally spoilery bit )

Martin is signing at the Astor Place B&N on November 15. I can't wait. :)


Oh yeah, the Raymond Watts thing. It's a remastered re-release of Pigmartyr with three new songs. Yay!!! New songs!!! And the album definitely needed to be remastered. And a proper U.S. release is a good thing, and Metropolis is supposed to be a decent label. So I'm happy. Now, who do I pray to for a Pig tour?


Tonight is the Neil Gaiman signing at the Union Square B&N. This will be my third day in a row seeing Neil Gaiman. Did I mention that I'm not actually a Neil Gaiman fan? He's interesting enough, though; I'm not bored. And it's kind of weird to watch the True Fans who care So Much about the experience. I've been there, so it's interesting to see that from the outside.

Last night I went with chenanceou, jaydk, and coraline to see Gaiman interview Susanna Clarke (who is apparently a famous author, but yeah, her book sounded pretty boring to me....) It was an interesting interview, though. And some semi-famous actress read part of the book aloud--an excellent reading, but the book seemed likely to bore me to tears. (I know, I have no taste, terribly proletariat, blah blah blah, I don't care. :P) Afterward we went to some dessert place that jaydk loves--the four of us plus this girl that we'd met the previous night. It was fun to hang out.

Apparently it's a thing now to get library books signed by the author, then to return the books to library circulation. Interesting.

Anyway. I'm going to get lunch now, and maybe to peek in over at the B&N to see if people are lining up already. (It's right by my office.)


Right now, there's people at the north side of Union Square waiting for Neil Gaiman, and people at the south waiting for Fiona Apple. This place is getting so trendy--I have to factor five extra minutes into my walk home to account for the Whole Foods block, between University and Broadway, which is now as congested as Times Square. Damn slow people, peering in shop windows or selling junk, never looking where they're going. One day I am going to snap and punch the guy who is always out there blowing bubbles into my face.

I've barely been reading LJ. I know, I suck. Sorry.

I was channel surfing the other day and came across Logan Echolls. I haven't watched, or really even thought about, VM for a couple of weeks. So the level of my emotional reaction was surprising; it was close to the kind of affectionate happiness you get when you see an old friend after a long time apart. I've not felt that level of emotional investment in a fictional character since, oh... Spike.

I guess we'll see what happens when the new season starts. Thus far I haven't felt any need to write essays or participate in the fandom or any of that. And I've (hopefully) learned my lesson from BtVS: don't get your hopes up and never allow some TV show to influence your own personal happiness. So, emotional investment heavily checked. And I'm sure it helps immensely that I'm not a shipper, though I continue to hate the way that these shows are framed so that any character who is not important to the main character is supposed to be considered unimportant by the audience, too.

Part of what I love about "A Song of Ice and Fire" (to switch topics here a bit) is its true ensemble nature. There is no one hero around whom everything else revolves, and no one "truth" against which all opinions are judged. You can have characters on completely different sides who are each understandable and sympathetic despite their differences (and it's also nice that the series has many different factions, not a "one side vs the other side" binary).

( A bunch of babbling, mostly about moral ambiguity in A Song of Ice and Fire and more comparing Jaime Lannister with Logan and Spike )

( Bad Christian Bale movies: Newsies and Equilibrium )

Guess who just met George R. R. Martin.

That would be... me!

(Squee!!)

I went to Book Expo America, which is this insanely HUGE book conference. (I got in free because I work at a publisher and we have a booth there.) This place is insane--there's books EVERYWHERE, and massive amounts of free stuff, and authors signing, and you can just walk up and they'll give you a book and sign it for you, totally free. It's AWESOME.

So I wandered around in a daze for a while (and got a couple of Harlequin romances signed, because I just couldn't get over how cool it was that you could do that). I also got lost like four times, as I had no clue where to go, but finally I found my way into the George R. R. Martin autograph line. I only had to wait about 20 minutes, then I was up front, meeting him!

So, he signed the book for me (they gave you an excerpt of "A Feast for Crows," a Dany chapter, though I assume now it'll actually end up in "A Dance for Dragons," collectible, woo!). He personalized, even. "Laura, enjoy the feast! George R. R. Martin." Then gave it back to me, and being a dork I blurted, "I'm like the hugest Jaime Lannister fan ever." He and the two people with him both laughed at me, and he said "Don't worry, there's lots of Jaime in the new book." I said "Awesome" or something stupid like that, and he said "But there's lots of Cersei, too." To which I responded "That's okay, as long as there's Jaime" and he laughed at me again. Then I left. (He pronounces it "Sir-Say," btw, not "Sir-See.")

So, that was neat. :)

A FEAST FOR CROWS!!!

I'm incoherent with delight. It feels like I've been waiting forever for the announcement of this book's publication.

GRRM is going to split it into two novels by character and location. We'll end up with two complete stories, which I definitely prefer over him chopping it down the middle and giving us two halves of a story. Of course, my delight is probably mostly because Jaime will almost certainly be in the first one. More Jaime!! Squee!!

If you haven't read this series yet, seriously, catch up. Plenty of people are starting now; I just got drujan and 10zlaine to read them, too. :)

So yeah, aside from that, I had a pretty good weekend, actually. jaydk and I spent the day together on Sunday and did a double feature: Revenge of the Sith and Kingdom of Heaven. My obsession (Star Wars) and hers (Orlando!).

It was my third time seeing Revenge of the Sith--very cool to see it on the huge screen at Lincoln Square--and once again it made me cry. Luke and Leia's theme music, and Alderaan, and Luke's house, the twin suns, OMG.... *sob* And, also, it helped that I've been reading the novelization--it answers a lot of questions, so that you can more easily sink into the story. (Although the novel is terribly written and its intro to Padme is grotesquely offensive: being a senator doesn't matter at all, because she's all "completely defined by her husband," as if this is a GOOD, ROMANTIC thing, ugh, give up your identity for your husband, so obviously written by a man, and reason #54788514 why I will never get married, and seriously, let's get George Lucas some gender studies lessons, k?....)

Kingdom of Heaven was a lot better the second time. Plus, seeing it right after Revenge of the Sith definitely made me appreciate its sparseness and subtlety. It's beautifully filmed, and I love the minimalism of the dialogue. And I really thought Orlando Bloom did a good job portraying a character who is defined by his actions rather than by his words. (Although we had to run all over the city to see it, and ended up at a 10:20 showing, because the first one we tried was apparently the only sold out showing of that movie in the world.)

Um, and then on Monday I read Veronica Mars fanfic and played Dr. Mario on my NES Emulator. It was a holiday. :P

So tonight I'm going to try to see Chuck Palahniuk, because he's doing a talk at the Barnes & Noble at Union Square. And then on Friday I'm going to try to meet George R.R. Martin at Book Expo America. *crosses fingers*

Attn NYC Song of Ice and Fire fans:

George R.R. Martin, author of my current favorite book series A Song of Ice and Fire, is going to be at Book Expo America, a huge publishers conference in NYC on June 2-5.

I probably have to go to this for work anyway, seeing as I work at a publisher and all. So of course I will also try to see GRRM. Except I don't know what he's doing or when. So I wrote and asked him, and he wrote back:

I will definitely be signing, and may be doing talks and readings as well. However, I have not been sent a schedule yet, so I don't know times or details.

Common Rotation is playing the Bitter End on Friday night. You can get tickets from CommonRotation.com; the show is supposed to start at 8pm. Should be good; Common Rotation is smart, funny, talented, and always entertaining.

I am re-reading A Storm of Swords, the third book in the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin. I love this book. I adore Jaime Lannister. *sigh* ( asoiaf spoilers )

And I really like the series as a whole, too. I love the grey areas and moral ambiguity and complex characters. I like Tyrion nearly as much as Jaime; Sandor Clegane fascinates me; Arya and Brienne are pretty cool; and I'm dying to know whatever happened between Rheagar and Lyanna. I love that the world of the series is so intricately and interestingly constructed.

Anyway. So there's that.

I'm bored, can you tell?