Not being upside down in a snowdrift, among other things

[raven]

This week, I have finished applying to law school, put up a fake Christmas tree without lasting damage to either myself or the tree, flown four thousand miles and spent several hours in sub-zero temperatures canvassing for Hillary Clinton. In approximately that order. Oh, and I saw The Golden Compass too. I feel like I have achieved... well, something.

I'm in New Hampshire with narahttbbs and her lovely family, who remind me in strange incongruous ways of my own family, and to all intents and purposes am in another world. The part of the States I know the best is, to my sorrow, Indiana - land of cornfields and ever-more-frightening relatives - followed by New York, and NH is very unlike both. To start with, I'm in a real small town, of the type beloved of Bill Bryson, with wide streets and family businesses and impressive federal buildings, with a perfect icing-sugar coat of snow all over everything. And it is of course very cold. Funnily enough I'm on about the same latitude of Formby Point, which offers up the frightening prospect of what would happen if the Gulf Stream gave out, because there is a lot of ice here, people use words like "bracing" to describe the air, and somehow everything has a sort of cold, metallic tint to it, something I'm told is the smell of snow. It reminds me in small ways of a thousand other places - notably Himachal, for some reason; it has that same woodsmoke edge to it, and I keep expecting to stumble over someone selling cherries - but is mostly an entirely different kind of place. And that's nice.

And I picked Hillary. (It bugs me slightly that the media, and even her own campaign, refer to her as "Hillary" rather than "Senator Clinton", because surely no one really thinks it's Bill running again, but that's how people seem to be doing it, so watch me conform.) I have some reasons, but they aren't very profound; I had to pick someone, and she seems a good bet. I went canvassing today to this effect. It was really cold. I am not profound. I shall say this a lot. It was cold, it was icy, I am a natural-born introvert and I'm British (no, the British reserve is not a myth, and the cultural divide is quite the chasm in terms of politics) and thus wasn't entirely prepared to go up to doors and start talking to people about their views. But I'm glad I did it, regardless. I was doing it with narahttbbs (who is great, by the way; without her I would probably be upside down in a snowdrift somewhere) and our favourite registered Democrat was undoubtedly the guy who came running to the door in below-freezing temperatures not wearing a shirt, holding back a dog with one hand, smiling happily and telling us that he'd love to talk, sorry, no time, his daughter was in labour.

Well. There's a time and place for politics.

My other great achievement for the day was about 600 words of my yuletide story, written longhand on a legal pad but written. I think I'm pleased with it. We'll see. This is an odd sort of working holiday - campaign work, which I'm planning to do a lot more of, and copious geekery - but a good one. Because I'm jet-lagged, I'm even keeping normal-person hours. This can only be a good thing.

Oh, yes, The Golden Compass. Well... I liked it well enough. It was a fun two hours, but, well, huh. It lacks the depth of the book by a long way, it's going to suffer from losing the religious angle quite considerably, I think. The Oxford scenes are delightful - there's a bit where Lord Asriel and Lyra are walking through Trinity's gardens, and all I could think about was how the great big orb they show them walking past was stolen last year by someone from Balliol. Cue angry emails from the Chaplain, followed by increasingly desperate ones talking about how they could just leave it anonymously in the lodge, begging the question of how exactly one leaves a two-metre-in-diameter metal globe anonymously anywhere. But I digress. The rest is, yes, fun, and my favourite thing in it Lee Scoresby's hare daemon. But not a classic by any means, and I don't hold high hopes for the remaining two.

(Obviously don't get me started on the stupid, stupid name change.)

Enough babble for one night. Back to that keeping normal-person hours thing.

Comments

[rosariotijeras.livejournal.com]

Are the books really that dark/religious? I've never read them, but enjoyed the movie quite well and thought it was dark enough/setting up for some pretty dark stuff as is.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Yes, they really are. They deal with gloriously serious themes, in a very clever, clear-eyed way. I can spoil you for what exactly Pullman does, but you should read them! They're marvellous.

[casirafics.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed the movie considerably, but I could feel myself mentally filling in the scenes we weren't getting. ;) It's all right by me, though... this gives me the visuals (which are very, very well done indeed), and if I want the acted-out version of everything, there's always the audio books. Ordinarily I don't go for those -- mostly because I read so much faster than the inevitable running time of the tapes -- but they're so well done... Philip Pullman stands as narrator, and they have actors filling out the dialogue for the main roles. It's very well done. It is unabridged, too (with the exception of some of the "he said", "she said" tags that aren't necessary in this format), so you do get the full experience.

If only there were a way to splice this and the movie experience together, we'd be golden....

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heh! I've heard Phillip Pullman reading aloud from his books, and he is very good, you're right. I hear the National Theatre version was good, too, so it can be done well!

[casirafics.livejournal.com]

I still wish I could have seen the play. That would have been fascinating.

I heard Philip Pullman in person once, too, when he was touring for The Amber Spyglass -- and it was in a church, of all places. The University Bookstore sometimes holds events there when the crowd would be too big for the store, and when they can't or simply don't get Kane Hall on campus. (Come to think of it, it's the same church where I once heard Neil Gaiman read from Anansi Boys, which is almost as good on the irony scale....)

[macadamanaity.livejournal.com]

You also got recced on crack_van. That's something else you can check off for the week.

I hear you on the conflicted 'Hillary' issues. My sister wrote an article summing up (http://media.www.mcgilltribune.com/media/storage/paper234/news/2007/10/30/Opinion/Off-The.Board.Hillary.Hillary.BoBillary-3063442.shtml) a lot of the ways I think the media undercuts her with language like that, even if she does co-opt it to some extent. My personal belief is that she's encouraging it partially because it would be happening anyway and partially to counter-act the myth that she's unfeminine (and that that's a bad thing to be). The only thing that drives me MORE batty is when the NYTimes refers to her consistently as Mrs. Clinton. I know, I know they've stated that it's an editorial policy and that they refer to the other Candidates as Mr. So and So. But still, it's like nails to chalkboard for me.

(In case you can't tell, I'm a massive Clinton supporter, and I think it's incredibly cool what you did.)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, wonderful, thanks for the heads-up! And thanks for the link, too, that's a smart piece of writing. I hate "Mrs Clinton" - but it was "Mrs Thatcher" too, I guess. Still not a fan of the convention.

(I'm a little amazed myself about this whole thing. It's very different sort of work, that's for sure.)

[rillarilla.livejournal.com]

It bugs me slightly that the media, and even her own campaign, refer to her as "Hillary" rather than "Senator Clinton."

Oh my God yes. I hate it even more when they call her "Mrs. Clinton." Hi, New York Times, you never call anyone "Mrs." ever -- why start with a presidential candidate?

Hope you enjoy Indiana. This time of year the corn plants look like vegetable skeletons in a pretty awesome way.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm sure I will - much as I carp about the place, I do keep on going back. :)

[the-acrobat.livejournal.com]

The fact that you're in New Hampshire. I mean... *flail*. I could drive there from my house. The weather. You're in MY WEATHER.

I'm really nervous to see the movie. I'm putting it off until I'm home, with other people who have read the books, so we can cry together if it lives up to the trailers.

Why are you campaigning for Senator Clinton? I mean, I can understand the choice, but you, personally, British, reserved, in New Hampshire for the first time?

Also, YAAAYY to finishing your law school applications!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heeee! I'm in your weather! What a lovely thought. And yeah, take moral support when you see that movie!

Why am I campaigning for Senator Clinton? Reaaaally good question. Basically, I had the opportunity to visit a good friend in just the right place at the right time - and I jumped at it. I figured I'd never get the chance to do this again, so I should come, pick a candidate, help campaign, do the whole thing, for the sake of the experience. And at the same time I'm visiting a fannish friend and geeking out a lot. It's the perfect trip, basically. :)

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

our favourite registered Democrat was undoubtedly the guy who came running to the door in below-freezing temperatures not wearing a shirt, holding back a dog with one hand, smiling happily and telling us that he'd love to talk, sorry, no time, his daughter was in labour.

Somehow that's very NH. I sometimes think that Americans know that self-reliance doesn't mean selfishness, which is something post-Thatcher Britain doesn't seem to grasp.

narahttbbs is great, of course. This is the woman who came back to push me up a steep cliff path this summer when my stamina levels were shown wanting while walking in the company of others over ten years younger than myself, so I can imagine her rescuing anyone from snowdrifts.

(edited again to remove the Davison 'broken clock' icon, in case you thought it was directed at you.)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*laughs* So far I have not fallen in a snowdrift. But I fear it is simply a matter of time.

[sir-rosealot.livejournal.com]

Good, I'm glad someone else didn't like The Golden Compass that much. Lee Scoresby and his daemon were about the only things I actually liked in it. Then again, I was watching it from the position of not liking the book, but then maybe I should've liked it more as I had no emotional investment... but it just wasn't a very good film. And dreadfully edited.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*nods* I absolutely concur - I think Lee's daemon was definitely the best thing in it.