2003-02-28 11:26![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
digitaldiscipline
digitaldisciplineI called out of the office. I am unrepentant about this - however, I may need to swing by late to see if K's b-day present (she turns [deleted] 3/2) showed up. muah. aha. hah. hah.
1. What is your favorite type of literature to read (magazine, newspaper, novels, nonfiction, poetry, etc.)?
Novels. I find nonfiction tedious and annoying, and magazines are pretty much "back of the toilet" material. I ignore newspapers on the whole.
2. What is your favorite novel?
"The Stand" by Stephen King. Close runners up are "Rage." "The Long Walk," and the whole Dark Tower series by King, as well as "Neuromancer," "Count Zero," & "Idoru" by William Gibson, and "Snow Crash" & "Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson.
3. Do you have a favorite poem? (Share it!)
A handful stand out - "Path Less Taken" & "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost, "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" & "Waste Lands" by T.S. Eliot, and the only two "classical" poems I've currently got memorized, for your dining and dancing pleasure. . . [you may notice a trend, not to mention numerous references in my own work]:
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said: "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter-bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."
- Stephen Crane
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of i{Spiritus Mundi}
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
- W. B. Yeats
4. What is one thing you've always wanted to read, or wish you had more time to read?
Honestly, I can't think of anything. I can say that there are a lot of books that I'd like to have -enjoyed- reading (but hated), a list that includes Tolkien, Gibson & Serling's collaboration "The Difference Engine," and Billy Wigglestick (you're a bright lot, you'll figure that one out *G*).
5. What are you currently reading?
"Black House," by King & Straub, and it's annoying. I just finished tearing through the Dark Tower Series. My mid-reading copy of Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" is currently soaking wet in the back of my car, and I have "The Door Into Summer" and Steven Brust's "Issola" queued up.
1. What is your favorite type of literature to read (magazine, newspaper, novels, nonfiction, poetry, etc.)?
Novels. I find nonfiction tedious and annoying, and magazines are pretty much "back of the toilet" material. I ignore newspapers on the whole.
2. What is your favorite novel?
"The Stand" by Stephen King. Close runners up are "Rage." "The Long Walk," and the whole Dark Tower series by King, as well as "Neuromancer," "Count Zero," & "Idoru" by William Gibson, and "Snow Crash" & "Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson.
3. Do you have a favorite poem? (Share it!)
A handful stand out - "Path Less Taken" & "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost, "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" & "Waste Lands" by T.S. Eliot, and the only two "classical" poems I've currently got memorized, for your dining and dancing pleasure. . . [you may notice a trend, not to mention numerous references in my own work]:
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said: "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter-bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."
- Stephen Crane
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of i{Spiritus Mundi}
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
- W. B. Yeats
4. What is one thing you've always wanted to read, or wish you had more time to read?
Honestly, I can't think of anything. I can say that there are a lot of books that I'd like to have -enjoyed- reading (but hated), a list that includes Tolkien, Gibson & Serling's collaboration "The Difference Engine," and Billy Wigglestick (you're a bright lot, you'll figure that one out *G*).
5. What are you currently reading?
"Black House," by King & Straub, and it's annoying. I just finished tearing through the Dark Tower Series. My mid-reading copy of Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" is currently soaking wet in the back of my car, and I have "The Door Into Summer" and Steven Brust's "Issola" queued up.
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My Man Willie
That was the single poem I almost posted as my favorite this morning, before I decided to go with a short list of poets instead. I don't have much use for a lot of poetry, but, ahh, Yeats.
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i love yeats. sounds like my week though - chaotic. (but it managed to end on a triumphant note. weehah.) :D