Random ponderings which equate to: I am odd.
Posted March 21, 2012
on:
Why don’t I watch more tv? Television is easy, available, and often populated by handsome people. Sometimes I wonder if I haven’t got a smidge of ye olde attention deficit disorder. I can curl up on the sofa reading and not move for three hours, but pay attention to a one hour tv show? Yikes. Or maybe it’s all the insultingly stupid commercials. there are some great TV shows out there, many available sans adverts on Netflix and other streaming services. So what the hell is my problem? stay tuned for a drunken essay* on this.
If what we read has some connection to escapism and wish fulfillment, what the fuck is wrong with me? I crave ultra dark fiction, the darker, the stranger, and the more dangerous, the better. I’m not talking blood and guts or serial killers, I’m talking the dark, tragic and painful kind, full of betrayal and heartbreak. If like me, you’ve been outed as someone who likes that type of thing, you know exactly what I’m talking about. What the fuck is wrong with me? I certainly don’t want to live rough, bathe only when it rains, steal stuff, starve, live in a cemetery, climb drainpipes in the rain, sleep under bridges, fall off horses, have a price put on my head, get betrayed, get chased by unnatural creatures, chill out with hookers, get tortured, get papercuts, get paid to hurt someone else, get blackmailed by sorcerers, or run through the woods while barefoot. I’m as far as a person can get from being an antihero haunted by violence or regret. I’m a slightly odd but very nice person with a cushy life, a steady job, and the best husband on the planet. I’m a total wuss who won’t even walk to the mailbox barefoot. So again, WTF? or maybe what we read has nothing at all to do with wish fulfillment?
oh wait, I do have a regret: not taking more literature classes in high school and college. Also, I played some really crappy cards the other nigh tin Ticket to Ride: India. ok, two teensy silly regrets easily fixed by next semester’s community college course catalog and a board game rematch.
My overly cluttered apartment is driving me crazy. Time for some spring cleaning, which means some of these books have got to go. It looks like a library sorting room exploded in here. Me thinks there may be some give aways of gently read books happening here soon. stay tuned.
With the spiffy blog, i’m always feeling pressured to read new things, which means my favorite rarely get reread. Other blogger buddies, how do you solve this? Do you reread at your whim?
Speaking of wish fulfillment, if you attended a scifi-fantasy convention, how likely would you be to attend a panel about blogging?
*you’ve been drinking, so it seems like the most amazing piece of writing in the world. And then you wake up and read it sober, and wonder what the fuck were you thinking? Those aren’t even sentences! Is that even English?
27 Responses to "Random ponderings which equate to: I am odd."
I reread quite a bit, though I always leave around a year between each reading. I also rereview, if I still reallyreallyreally want to talk about the book I’ve just reread. The reviews appear far enough apart that I hope this isn’t tiresome for my readers.
As far as blogging panels go, I did attend a reviewing panel at a convention. It was quite interesting, though there was a bit too much in the vein of, “Blogs are such uncritical upstarts” for my liking. I’d definitely attend a blogging-friendly panel, if the opportunity arose.
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Ooh, ponderings! I’m always up for those – and you’re not the only one with regard to TV. I can snuggle down with a good book; watch a film, but television – nope. Meybe it’s just the episodic nature (or the fact I could be reading a fair less simplified book.)
As for rereads, I do a mix. I’ll often review or do some new thoughts on reread favourites alongside newer releases so I’ve got a good variety out there. But yep, I pretty much reread when I feel like it. Nodody’s going to keep me from my beloved Kay collection and live to tell the tale! 😛
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Yeah, you really gotta watch out for papercuts when you’re living the rough-n-tumble life… Don’t forget about the cathartic effect of reading about any of those dark topics. That’s important too, even if you wouldn’t ever actually live that way, and it doesn’t really have to be a wish.
As a part of HEP, I’ve already had to read one book that I’ve read before and I was actually able to turn it into a fun review (for me). It had been so long since I had read it, my perspective had changed quite a lot and I kinda wrote about that. I’d be totally okay with reading someone else’s reread too.
The blogging panel sounds cool, but why do you ask??
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I am jealous of you being able to sit down a read for 3 hours straight…DAMN..;)
We(my wife and I) do not really watch live TV either. We watch whatever we have DVR’d. We at least watch Jeopardy everyday, but that is about 10PM.
About the Sci-Fi Convention, I have never had the pleasure of experiencing on, so I am not that sure about answering that question.
Have a great day.
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1 | poegeek
March 21, 2012 at 8:06 am
Ha! If you are odd then you are in good odd company.
As for the television I don’t watch hardly any “live” television. Even shows I like, like Castle, end up getting watched much later when the whole season is out on DVD or Netflix. If my wife and I sit down in front of the tv we are generally watching some new to us British mystery (Rosemary and Thyme is our current love) or are rewatching our favorite period films, mostly Jane Austen adaptations. I don’t feel I’m missing out on anything.
As for books, I read what I want. I occasionally am guided in my reading by a group read someone is hosting and I do tend to focus on certain genres during certain times of the year. I built my challenges around those moods, as a matter of fact. But I don’t feel pressured to read the latest in any kind of fiction and if I want to re-read, I do so. Sometimes I blog about the book again, changing my focus from the last time I read it. Other times I just enjoy the book and leave it go only acknowledging it by including it in my “Books Read” tab. Life is too short to read what someone else wants me to read vs. my own whims.
As for the dark stuff, I would assume it is because the idea of that lifestyle is romanticized in fiction. It is adventurous and thrilling and interesting. It is the same phenomenon when a person watches or reads period fiction and has some small desire to live back in that time. None of us would really like it–no air conditioning, fewer book choices, no internet–and yet it is very romantic to imagine living then and so we do that vicariously through fiction. You sound pretty normal to me. 🙂
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Redhead
March 21, 2012 at 10:57 pm
I don’t feel pressured to only read new books, it’s that the new stuff is so damn tempting, constantly yelling “look at me! I am new and shiny! and I have a trailer!”
I did romanticize living in the middle ages until I read Connie Willis’s The Doomsday Book. a village ravaged by the plague? yup, that cured me of my time travel dreams! I want to read about my romanticized awful lifestyles. . . in the comfort of air conditioning, antibiotics, and twitter.
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Carl V.
March 21, 2012 at 10:58 pm
You should check out the Dark Ages documentary from the History Channel. That too will rid you of a lot of romanticism for earlier times. 🙂
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