If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you / If all men count with you, but none too much

[theladyrose]

It's quite possible I'm one of the few people who *isn't* picking up the last Harry Potter book. Ah, the joys of catching a morning flight to New York tomorrow! Family, friends and museums - what more could one ask for? It's a pity I won't be joining my "other" family with the ever amazing eyepiece_simile in Cape Cod this year, but we can always see about next year.

So, in the mail yesterday I picked up the most peculiar postcard, which featured San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts (which is roughly an hour's drive away).

"I want to buy your house. I am not an agent. Call me."

Well, you have to give this mysterious sender named Jason props for being to the point.

Today's equally unexpected postcard was of the Kremlin, straight from Moscow. Martina, a high school friend who's also at USC, sent it to me. It's been nice reconnecting with old friends lately - within the past week, Sophia and I checked out the Qwik-E-Mart recreation and walked around Shoreline, and I had lunch with PP (she who teaches choir and intro) yesterday when we ran into the class valedictorian and her mother. This afternoon I met up with Alison, whom I haven't seen since 5th grade though we don't live that far from each other. I hate borrowing clichés, but the two and a half hours we talked made up for those nine years apart. And as weird as it sounds, I actually like the meetings over at my boss's house - there's something surprisingly cozy about the start up environment when you've got three people jammed in a home office trying to figure out what went wrong again when rerecording the newest "how to" site voiceover.

But not all of these encounters have been that pleasant, although the one I'm thinking of is actually imaginary. I had a philosophical sort of nightmare straight out of Sartre's Huis Clos (No Exit) or the Prisoner episode "A, B and C" that involved me at a party in someone's rather bourgeois living room where I was trapped presumably for all eternity as my ex kept hounding me about why we broke up. I've been receiving some awkward messages lately from him; he really is a great guy, but all I want is for him to find someone else who'll really make him happy and appreciate him for who he is. The way things are now, the current extremes of awkwardness makes the prospect of being locked up with Inès or Number 2 an absolute picnic by comparison.

On a not-so-related note, I've been reading this fascinating and equally humorous book by Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness, which focuses on the sources of our regular dissatisfactions than the title would suggest. His commentary about how insistent we are about how unique our perspectives and feelings are, leading us to mistakenly disregard the feelings of others when put in a particular situation as a poor predictor of our own when placed in the same scenario, really struck me. A wise and generous man once told me that I'd come to enjoy John Barry's chamber orchestra album the Beyondness of Things over Eternal Echoes. I found this remark rather strange at the time - considering we came from such different backgrounds, it seemed rather unlikely that we'd eventually come to have the same view. And yet as I've been reorganizing my soundtrack collection to accomodate some newer material and listening to works I haven't heard for some time, I realize how right he was. If the Beyondness of Things is a nostalgic view of life as we'd like to remember it, highlights of breahtaking and sometimes heart-wrenching majesty, Eternal Echoes recognizes the quiet beauty in our everyday lives. It takes a certain degree of maturity to appreciate the more ponderous tonal colors of Eternal Echoes, a deceptively sedate musical retelling of the moments that show us for what we are when we're in our element.

I don't remember what the point of that story was, but I do remember thinking that my own memory problems seemed to corroborate with the points Gilbert was making, which might explain why I'm willing to trust his argument so much.

Your Score: Longcat

70% Affectionate, 33% Excitable, 48% Hungry

Protector of truth.


Slayer of darkness.


Loooooong.


Longcat may seem like just a regular lengthy cat, but he is, in fact, looong. For proof, observe the longpic.



It is prophesized that Longcat and his archnemesis Tacgnol will battle for supremacy on Caturday. The outcome will change the face of the world, and indeed the very fabric of lolcatdom, forever.



Be grateful that the test has chosen you, and only you, to have this title.



To see all possible results, checka dis.

Link: The Which Lolcat Are You? Test written by GumOtaku on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Comments

[dfordoom.livejournal.com]

It's quite possible I'm one of the few people who *isn't* picking up the last Harry Potter book.

I read the first one and have never felt any overwhelming desire to read the others.

[theladyrose.livejournal.com]

I enjoy Harry Potter and can see why so many are so hooked into the series, but I'm not really sucked into it. I think I've been permanently corrupted by my fixation with the spy (and to a secondary degree, the mystery) genre - I'm trying to read my way through all of le Caré's espionage novels at the moment.

[dfordoom.livejournal.com]

I read all of le Carre's early books. I don't think he, or anyone else, could ever top The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Not many spy stories can make you cry, but that one can.

[theladyrose.livejournal.com]

I just finished reading A Perfect Spy and have previously read the Smiley trilogy (I find that each book was progressively more accessible, though not to say that Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy wasn't a masterpiece). I'd have to say, though, that The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is my favorite novel of his overall - it seems too easy to talk of redemption. It's hard to stomach that ambivalence and that quiet but no less heartbreaking sense of loss, all of those shades of gray that color his work, because there is rarely a sense of triumphant resolution to most of our problems.

I've been wanting to read Len Deighton for ages (the Ipcress File is one of my favorite spy movies), but it's a bit difficult tracking down his work. Do you have any particular recommendations?

[dfordoom.livejournal.com]

I've been wanting to read Len Deighton for ages (the Ipcress File is one of my favorite spy movies), but it's a bit difficult tracking down his work. Do you have any particular recommendations?

Start with the early Harry Palmer novels, like The Ipcress File, Horse Under Water, and Funeral in Berlin. If you like the movies you'll like the books. His stuff should be reasonably easy to find second-hand - I'd have a look on Advanced Book Exchange.

[dfordoom.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to read my way through all of le Caré's espionage novels at the moment.

Have you tried Len Deighton as well?