ne(one)piphany

Kyle tagged me on this meme ages ago, but I never noticed because he sneakily named me after the fact. Which should teach me about leaving snarky comments. Or something.

Four jobs I’ve had:

1. Graphic designer
2. Computer helpdesk
3. Library assistant
4. Cram school tutor

Four movies I can watch over and over:

1. Next Stop Wonderland
2. Shall We Dance?
3. Whisper of the Heart
4. Koyaanisqatsi

Four places I’ve lived:

1. Cambridge, Massachusetts
2. Aurora, Illinois
3. Lisle, Illinois
4. Seattle, Washington

Four TV shows I love:

1. Battlestar Galactica
2. Sports Night
3. His & Her Circumstances
4. Arrested Development

Four places I’ve vacationed:

1. Cairo, Egypt
2. Maui, Hawai’i
3. Edinburgh, Scotland
4. Seoul, South Korea

Four of my favorite dishes:

1. Tojo’s smoked sablefish soup
2. Ikuradon, mmm!
3. Sticky toffee pudding
4. Spaghetti alla carbonara

Four sites I visit daily:

1. Bloglines
…and If it isn’t something I can read in Bloglines, I always forget to keep up.

Four places I would rather be right now:

1-4. With you, you, you and you.

Four bloggers I am tagging:

Everyone and her mother has already done this meme, so if you haven’t and are reading this… tag!

I still have these things on the back burner, you see — our night of oysters and ahi* and gravlax, recent restaurant expeditions for Twenty-Five for $25, a story or two… but I’ve been finding myself immersed in Kameo, of all things**. That and fixing up house, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and Whisper of the Heart, and Neko Case’s latest lovely, and… well, you get the idea.

Apparently, I am a

according to this. In case you’ve never noticed, I’m totally, irrationally in love with online personality tests. After all, if the internet didn’t tell me who I am, how would I know? And where would I be without all these labels?

You can take the quiz for yourself, or psych me (I have no idea what that means, but apparently you’ll need this receipt: e859946eaaed). Or, you can avoid the madness altogether. I won’t blame you!

Also, if you’re still here, thanks for sticking around. I mean it.

Resolution #1: I’m going to try a lot harder to respond to your comments on neon epiphany, so please hold me to that.

Miranda tagged me with the book meme. I guess turnabout is fair play, but I am super-lame about books so this will probably not be my most interesting entry ever.

Total number of books I’ve owned: v. hard to tell, because I’ve had many collections and they very rarely accompany me when I move. And likewise the set of books I’ve owned and those I’ve read only partially overlap. I’ve always been good at reading books I borrow while neglecting those already on my shelf.

That’s not really an answer, is it? So: I suppose I’ve got four bookshelves right now, in varying stages of fullness.

Last book I bought: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, used and tattered. I’m not sure where it goes on my to-read list. But soon.

Last book I read: Mostly snippets, lately, concentrating on Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase, while flitting between Robert Bringhust’s The Elements of Typographic Style (been reading this in inches for years now) and a couple books on gender studies: The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls and Sexual Metamorphosis.

Last book I finished: A. S. Byatt’s Little Black Book of Stories. I’ve already talked about it here, so I won’t bore you again.

Five books that mean a lot to me:

Sei Shōnagon, The Pillow Book (abridged & translated by Ivan Morris, though the Amazon listing seems to be for a different edition — complete, perhaps?): when I was thirteen I was in a summer program at the University of Chicago, my first major experience spending time away from home, and I absolutely fell in love with the Seminary Co-op Bookstore there. I’d never seen so many wonderful books in one place — not gaudy bestsellers but serious literature and non-fiction, both classic and obscure. I gravitated especially towards the east asian historical section, and swallowed them up — Sarashina Nikki, The Tale of Genji*, Romance of the Three Kingdoms — and Shōnagon was my favorite of all, a collection of moments of perfect beauty, many unburdened by narrative.

I always wanted neon epiphany to be my own pillow book. I’m still trying.

A. S. Byatt, Possession: A Romance: this was the first adult fiction novel I ever read, and the first trade paperback I ever bought, also at the Seminary Co-op. Though I’ll admit I bought it for the beautiful Rosetti used on its cover (having not yet encountered pre-Raphaelite art), Byatt managed to bring that same feeling to life in words and verse, and brought to life a kind of nineteenth-century mythology. I don’t know if it would still affect me so much today, and I haven’t dared re-read it for fear that it wouldn’t.

John Varley, The Persistence of Vision: John Varley’s been on a novel-writing kick lately, but none of them shine as brightly as the jewels of short fiction he wrote during the ’70s & ’80s, most set in his “Eight Worlds” future history. I was still in my early teens when I found his “The Phantom of Kansas” in a paperback SF anthology, wonderfully readable and touching on themes of identity and gender, human cloning, environmental disaster, and the idea of art in the future. So I picked up Persistence, as well as The Barbie Murders and Blue Champagne, and read and re-read them. They’re all out of print now, but a good selection can be found in the just-published The John Varley Reader.

Frank Miller, et al., The Dark Knight Returns: showed me that comics could be serious, dark and adult in every sense of the word. Can I tell you how much I loved Sin City? I won’t, though — movies are a different topic completely, and I’d talk your ear off. Had a hard time deciding between this and Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind, which I came to almost simultaneously and had no less effect on me.

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale: I had the best high school junior english class, ever — we read LeGuin, Mary Shelley, Joseph Conrad, Thomas Harris, and even watched Koyaanisqatsi. It’s been so long that I don’t remember the details of the story, only the lingering feeling of terror and helplessness at a society so totally out of balance. My only comfort was that I could think of it as caricature, but should re-read it, now, when our own world seems to be spinning uncomfortably off-kilter.

Honorable mention: Tanith Lee’s The Book of the Damned. That’s what I really want to write.

Five people I want to see do this: Wow, almost everyone’s already done this one. Hmm. How about janjan, Alice, fer, pixel and George?

It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?

I’m the timid type, so when the server started getting hammered by outside linkage to the Fat Kreme Photo Essay, I figured it was best to lay low for a bit. Besides, you never can tell where the hackers are hiding.

Here we go, rapid-fire:

Movies: Le Pacte des Loups was fun. You can totally tell that Christophe Gans is a fan of Hong Kong wuxia films, and there’s a real look to this film that evokes the pre-Raphaelite movement. X2 had a lot for a fan of the 80’s books to bite into, and set up even more for the next go-round. Also, eye candy. Seriously. Identity was creepy and played with enough intriguing concepts to distinguish itself from the pack, despite uneven direction. Better Luck Tomorrow was much, much better than I was expecting.

Upcoming travel plans: Off to Chicago this weekend for some family catch-up time and other hijinx. The end of the month will see me in New York City, but probably not at Nobu. In between, the docket includes a puzzle hunt, freesia’s show, a dinner expedition or two and hopefully some quality time with friends.

Meme watch:

• Would you touch this keyboard?
• via secretkings, How male or female is your brain?
• via Anita, Sold in Oregon: Historical Oregan Trademarks

Apropos of nothing, but something pretty I came upon while web-surfing:

 
Wall-Painting of Ladies and Papyri (det.) | 17th-c. BC
(from the Museum of Prehistoric Thera, Santorini, Greece)

Finally, word is that Ginger Altoids are starting to hit the shelves again, at least in Seattle. Perhaps it’ll be a seasonal thing. At any rate, keep your eyes peeled!