Seven Things Reverse Tag

[gothwalk]

dorianegray was doing this, so in the manner of this reverse tag thing ("Pick me! Pick me!"), I'm doing it now with her choices from my list of interests. If you want, comment below and I'll pick seven of yours.


Antryg Windrose

Antryg is a character in Barbara Hambly's Dog Wizard trilogy. He is very possibly my favourite character in fiction anywhere. He's a slightly insane wizard, with a penchant for collecting odd things and knowing strange things, and correlating the two in ways that make no sense to anyone else. If I could meet anyone from anywhere in fiction, it'd be him.

Cities as Creatures

The notion of the city as an organism was introduced to me in college Geography, and hit me like few other ideas ever have. If you look at a city as something that's built, like a house, or designed, like a car (not that houses are not designed, but you get the drift), it's hard to understand. There are all these behaviours that make no sense in either context. But if you think of the city as a creature with a lifespan measured in centuries, and with people as part of its bloodflow, it starts to make sense again. You can't draw parallels with organs like the heart or the liver, because it's a different kind of creature, but you can see circulatory systems, blockages in them, build and decay cycles, and its own kind of organs in terms of inner city, downtown, suburbs, parks, and industrial estates, and a massive global ecosystem in which these city-creatures live.

Coffee

I love coffee. I can't yet distinguish between different kinds very well, but I'm starting to know what I like. I love the smell of it, and the terribly civilised history of coffee houses and cafés and so on. And getting through the working day without would be very, very difficult. Mmm, coffee.

Hibernia

The idea of Ireland as a "land of Winter" amuses me; in the current climate, it's a land of perpetual autumn. I like the way the concept of Ireland has changed since Roman times, and the way in which this word is recognised, but almost never used. I would far prefer to describe myself as Hibernian than Irish, but people give me funny looks when I try, and people from outside the North Atlantic Isles don't know the word at all.

Libraries

Who doesn't love libraries? Hundreds and thousands of books, all waiting to be read, and a system to tell you where they are. Although to some degree this is an abstract interest, or one in historical libraries rather than real ones, at least in Ireland. Ireland's library system is so miserably underfunded that it can't be much use to anyone; I lose interest when I'm told that regarding a book published two months before, it's on order and might take as much as two months to arrive. But historical libraries, like the one in Trinity, or the British Museum, or the ones in Boston and New York, or university libraries, those are magnificent.

Maps

Maps allow you to go places you can't otherwise go, and work out things that are otherwise impossible. Once you can read a map, you can understand places you've never been before you get there, or understand whole systems of other things that would otherwise be inconceivably difficult to explain. I like the look of maps too; I've spent hours looking at maps of cities and countries and worlds. And I love drawing them for my own worlds; I don't have the calligraphed skill that bluedevi has, but I have the patience to outline every single building in a city.

Stew

The dish I've been able to cook for the longest time, and one of my favourites. A good stew can change a bad day into a good one. It's getting to the time of year when I should make a few of them. I'll look into that next week, I think.


Also, I have finally re-found my India notebook, so expect transcriptions of that in the near future as well.

Comments

[slovobooks.livejournal.com]

Go on, so, pick away!

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Here we go:

aum
boneyard
collecting eggcups
gong
orientalia
sons of shiva
street lamp interference

[maida-mac.livejournal.com]

I'm outside of the North Atlantic Isles and I know what Hibernia is. Of course, we all know that I'm a bit of a history freak, too.

Hit me up with interests, eh?

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Here we go:

archetypes
consciousness
gnosticism
information addiction
mottephobia
spondyloarthropathy
yarn accumulation disorder

[maida-mac.livejournal.com]

Done!

[wyvernfriend.livejournal.com]

Pick away.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Here we go:

alfons mucha
gael baudino
kitaro
mead
paranormal
valdemar
witchcraft

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Here we go:

collective hysteria
idleness
marvel science
paradigm shifts
sacred texts
sexuality
socialism