Talking with Ira Glass about studying with Nadia Boulange and the relationship between technique and style:
In order to arrive at a personal style you have to have a technique to begin with. In other words, when I say that style is a special case of technique… you have to have the technique. You have to have the place to make the choices from. If you don’t have a basis on which to make the choice, you don’t have a style at all; you have a series of accidents.
I did get the 46 squares sewn together into two strips and attached, one to each end, of the seasonal palette thing and the whole re-pressed and back on the wall. Took much longer than it should have and for that I’m blaming the bug I’ve been kicking around with the past few days. I was cheered to find three great movies on yesterday. Yes three. That’s how long it took me to do that stupid little bit of work although it takes longer to do small amounts of piecing than bigger amounts.
Anyway. I think the additions are not noticeable which makes them successful. Odds are they’ll get lopped off but we’ll see at the end. So it’s time to think about thread colors and pull some yellows for the flowery bits and go from there. I hope to have a block of vacation time soon and that’s my plan for getting the next big push done.
On the writing front, I’m pushing on little by little in part 3. It started as a mushy place to look around and see what the protagonist was learning about his new life. I worried about the romantic possibilities and set that on a slower, long-term path. I mainly worried about this thing that had loomed up as a possible cause of the woes in part two and then vanished as other more readily captured villains were discovered.
Feels a lot like the mushy spot that happened before the plot pushed on last time. Needed some thought and a little pencil and paper work to determine the direction and motivations and then it fell into place. Hopefully that will happen soon. I’m waiting to see how it really ends.
In the meantime it’s got me doing some mighty arcane research about royal households and advisors and other whatnots.
Note to self:
In future, all transformer type power supplies will get labeled with the name of the device they go to before they get plugged in for the first time so it’s possible to easily get rid of the right supply for the now-non-working whatever. Your cooperation is appreciated.
Throwing away a pile of stuff I should have gotten rid of long ago. Stuff no one apparently wanted despite the memories or high price paid for them etc. Gone and gone and good riddance. Makes it easy to throw if no one wanted it enough to bother about, eh?
In the “too good to throw but up for grabs” department, anyone want a topo map of denali?
Working on “The Hobbit,” though, has radically changed how she readies herself for a role. “I can’t just be spontaneous, because there is nothing natural about being an elf,” Lilly said. “It’s not human, so I have to study to learn what it means to be this other creature.”
This means Lilly has had to train to walk, talk, and, of course, fight like an elf. She said, “So, on top of my stunt training — which I need to learn how to be proficient with the bow and arrow, and with daggers, and in fighting orcs that are, you know, ten feet tall — I also have to learn the language of Elvish, and I have to learn an RP [Received Pronunciation] neutral English accent for when I speak English.” When you add in learning to move and gesture like an elf, Lilly figures she has spent “four times as much time preparing as I do actually shooting.”
