2008-03-29 11:23![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
digitaldiscipline
digitaldisciplineYes, I'm at work. Yes, it's Saturday morning.
Yes. Yesterday was the epic suck at the office I'd had every expectation of it being (7.5 hrs, no lunch, and I'd taken the number of calls between 0730 and 1300 that used to be a full week's traffic a couple years ago).
Now, for a complete change of pace, I will talk about shit that has nothing to do with my day job. Or politics.
I will allow you a few moments to compose yourselves.
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Okay, get off the fucking floor already.
I finally finished reading Vellum, by Hal Duncan, which came highly recommended by folks who ought to know, like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jaylake. It is both brilliant and frustrating, in the manner of many virtuoso accomplishments. It never does what you'd expect, and often goes in directions that are simultaneously obvious, necessary, and completely bizarre. It's not the sort of book you'll ever see clucked over on Oprah, but would certainly be wielded by taut, cappucino-infused types at one-thirty in the morning.
It's a dissection of types, of tropes, of the world and its creation. Characters bob and weave through the narrative in peculiar threads (not all of which I personally found sensible or satisfying, to be sure, but my days of fierce literary pretention are past), taking on a constellation of similar roles, but evolving by fits and spurts with each incarnation (or not, in some cases).
Some parts, especially in the first two thirds, are of such surpassing genius that it felt like reading what Bach's mind might be capable of as he composed his fugues; the counterpoint to that, the various unsatisfying disappearances of narrative or thematic threads, left me baffled.
Vellum is one of those things that ought to be called a Great Book, and I definitely recommend it. But, like doing anything difficult, it's not without its challenges for the reader.
For you fitness freaks in the audience, I've been poring over the screeds by the fellows at Gym Jones, whom you may have heard of as the guys who whipped the actors & stunt people into shape for 300.ikilled007, in particular, I think you'll find yourself nodding along with what these guys have to say.
I'm not up to their standards by a long shot. Recognizing this is, hopefully, another step on the path towards where I'm trying to be.
Yes. Yesterday was the epic suck at the office I'd had every expectation of it being (7.5 hrs, no lunch, and I'd taken the number of calls between 0730 and 1300 that used to be a full week's traffic a couple years ago).
Now, for a complete change of pace, I will talk about shit that has nothing to do with my day job. Or politics.
I will allow you a few moments to compose yourselves.
=
=
=
Okay, get off the fucking floor already.
I finally finished reading Vellum, by Hal Duncan, which came highly recommended by folks who ought to know, like
jaylake. It is both brilliant and frustrating, in the manner of many virtuoso accomplishments. It never does what you'd expect, and often goes in directions that are simultaneously obvious, necessary, and completely bizarre. It's not the sort of book you'll ever see clucked over on Oprah, but would certainly be wielded by taut, cappucino-infused types at one-thirty in the morning.It's a dissection of types, of tropes, of the world and its creation. Characters bob and weave through the narrative in peculiar threads (not all of which I personally found sensible or satisfying, to be sure, but my days of fierce literary pretention are past), taking on a constellation of similar roles, but evolving by fits and spurts with each incarnation (or not, in some cases).
Some parts, especially in the first two thirds, are of such surpassing genius that it felt like reading what Bach's mind might be capable of as he composed his fugues; the counterpoint to that, the various unsatisfying disappearances of narrative or thematic threads, left me baffled.
Vellum is one of those things that ought to be called a Great Book, and I definitely recommend it. But, like doing anything difficult, it's not without its challenges for the reader.
For you fitness freaks in the audience, I've been poring over the screeds by the fellows at Gym Jones, whom you may have heard of as the guys who whipped the actors & stunt people into shape for 300.
ikilled007, in particular, I think you'll find yourself nodding along with what these guys have to say.I'm not up to their standards by a long shot. Recognizing this is, hopefully, another step on the path towards where I'm trying to be.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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He used to run Gym Jones as a Crossfit affiliate, but had a messy falling-out with the Crossfit founders (which frankly left both him and them looking like a bunch of spoilt brats, though obviously no-one not close to them is likely to ever know the whole story). So, he took down most of the Crossfit references on the site, and unaffiliated himself. Gym Jones is basically his spin on Crossfit, though -- supporting evidence below:
http://crossfitatlanta.typepad.com/the_movie_300/
In particular -- this is some pretty clear evidence that he tried to pass off Crossfit material as his own creation, & even tried to claim copyright on it:
http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/CrossFit_Mark-Twight.pdf
He's not responded to the accusations; the Crossfit guys aren't, AFAIK, taking legal action against him (they regard their work as largely open source anyway... but they still object to anyone passing it off as his own).
Still, like I say, Twight comes across as a punky, rebellious Rollins fan, whereas the Crossfit founders come across as hawkishly Republican and massive climate change sceptics (I believe that's the polite way to put it). You can guess where my sympathies lie.
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Yeah, agreed. The politics is largely irrelevant. I will happily learn from both of 'em. Twight's book is supposed to be very good.
The one time the politics bugged me was when the Crossfit Journal -- which I subscribed to for its fitness info -- ran a very thinly veiled attack on the "evil global warming conspiracy". I wrote them a stern letter, & unsubscribed. It wasn't so much the particular brand of politics I objected to (though I did), it was that politics wasn't what I was paying for.
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I'm halfway through "Ink," but I've misplaced the damn book and will probably have to start over, since it's even more fiendishly complicated.
The overarching idea is cool as hell, though, and I'm looking forward to finding out how it ends (not sure whether there's going to be a book after "Ink," since I haven't finished it yet.)
-- A <3