What Kind of Intelligence Do I Have? (assuming I have any after this week)

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well. An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly. You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view. A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Music Nirvana (well, actually, no Nirvana this time)

At left: It all starts with this guy.

Some days my ipod just loves me. I turned on my shuffle song function this morning at the bus stop and by the time I got to work I didn’t want to take off my earphones – I was on a musical role. This play list might not excite everyone, but for me it’s just about perfect.

Have I Told You Lately That I Love You – Van Morrison
Gone Daddy Gone – Gnarls Barkley
The Big Sky – Kate Bush
Yes, Yes, Y’All – Sergio Mendes
Border Song – Elton John
God – Tori Amos
Until the End of the World – U2
Ladies Choice – Hairspray soundtrack
Jackie Wilson Said – Van Morrison
Colorful – Rocca Deluca and the Burden
One Week – Barenaked Ladies
Scenes from an Italian Restaurant – Billy Joel
Politik – Coldplay

I have no idea how to find copies of these songs to link to, plus I'm afraid of the record industry. But I highly recommend them all!

At left: Well he is a snazzy dresser, but I'd have expected a better haircut.

So, gay Dumbledore.

(note: there’s at least one serious Book 7 spoiler below – do I still have to warn about that several months on?)

On the one hand, I’m glad to hear it. I think Jo Rowling has written the books from a moral viewpoint which is pretty similar to mine, so I’m not particularly surprised. And I do remember thinking while reading Book 7 that some slashers were really gonna go to town with Dumbledore/Grindelwald.

I do wish Jo could have made it just a little more apparent in the books. I see that it wasn’t a central point and plenty of details of how she envisioned the world of Harry Potter didn’t get included in the books. Also, given that most of all the books were from Harry’s pov, it might not have been too easy to fit in information about Dumbledore’s sexuality.

But we do know a bit about Lupin’s romantic life with Tonks, and Bill with Fleur, (or for an example that didn’t end in marriage, the torch that Snape carried for Lily) so it’s not impossible to include glimpses into moments of these straight relationships among the adults. And all the stuff about the kids starting to date was a missed opportunity. I would have loved for one of Harry’s Griffindor roommates to be gay and have that not be a big deal – Seamus or Dean, I think, since there was already so much going on with Ron and Neville. Neville in particular could have ended up very cliché, and would have defeated the purpose; all of his fumbling would have been re-envisioned as fey or something I expect.

Declaring that Dumbledore is gay is a small step in the right direction, I guess. Making a beloved authority figure gay can only be good, especially a beloved educator who clearly cared a great deal for his students. That might be the most important effect, in my opinion, and might really help cut off at the knees for a generation of kids the myth that all gay men are a threat to molest young boys.

I just wish it could really qualify as cannon. Is it still slash fanfic if it comes from the original author?

Now I'm off to see if I can find some slashy quotes from the last book. :)

Cindy got a Pig! Cindy got a Pig!

My friend Cindy has been obsessed with Seattle's Pigs on Parade since they had the first set in 2001.

In honor of the Pike Place Market's Centennial, they made another series of Pigs on Parade as a fundraiser this year.

Last time, Cindy didn't buy a pig (she tried taking part in the eBay portion of the auction, but got outbid). So last night we went to the live auction (loads of fun, but I didn't expect a cash bar so we didn't get nearly as liquored-up as I would have liked). Cindy won the first pig in the auction!

The pig above has already been renamed "Pigmen Miranda" and will live in the breezeway that leads to her backyard!

Yay, Cindy!

A fun book-themed meme from 50 Books.

Memes are a step up from quizzes, right? I know I had to do more work to finish. One of these days I'll be doing real posts on a regular basis. This is like training wheels. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

1.Hardcover or paperback, and why?
Paperback, so I can carry them around. Plus with hardbacks I always worry about what to do with the dustjacket and if I should re-sell it because I spent so much money on it. If you wait too long to sell a hardback and the paperback is out, the resell is for shit. Probably 95% of the hardbacks I own are parts of a series because I got too impatient to wait for the paperback.

2. If I were to own a book shop I would call it…
Lots of Plots? Ehh, I don’t know. Lane’s Books? My Inevitable Bankruptcy?

3. My favorite quote from a book (mention the title) is…
Oh, this is tough. Usually if I quote it’s from poetry or a movie (I don’t have the memory to quote from novels). Maybe this, from Dorothy Sayer’s Gaudy Night.
“She went to bed thinking more about another person than about herself. This goes to prove that even minor poetry may have its practical uses.”

Or maybe the first line of May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude “Begin here. It is raining.” It's immediate and does exactly what she intends for the whole book.

4. The author (alive or deceased) I would love to have lunch with would be…
Neal Stephenson. I love both his scifi and history of science novels, but I wouldn’t be so intimidated that we couldn’t have a good time.

(note: the original meme wrote (mis-wrote?) the options as “alive or diseased.” bwah)

5. If I was going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except from the SAS survival guide, it would be…
The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Lots of different pieces and styles to enjoy, plus little bios of the poets.

6. I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that…
Temporarily takes away just enough memory so I could experience each of my favorite books like it’s the first reading.

7. The smell of an old book reminds me of…
My grandma’s house, especially the shelf in her living room that held a set of 1950’s era World Book Encyclopedias that I read to learn all about Greek mythology.
Or, you know, dust that makes me sneeze.

8. If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title), it would be…
Now that I’m thinking about Gaudy Night, I’d have to say Harriet Vane.


9. The most overestimated book of all times is…
Hmmm, maybe Finnegan’s Wake? I like James Joyce’s other novels and I don’t mind working hard to understand a great piece of literature (I once took a class on Ulysses where we covered one chapter a week, and it was really fun!) But the Wake is so dense it’s really like mental masturbation.

Look, there are worse books, clearly. But the Wake is like the emperor's clothes. Everyone's afraid to admit that it fails because they assume the fault is their inability to understand, not the fault of the book.

10. I hate it when a book…
Tries to change or be too much at the end. With this same meme, Jag Soker Job sites Middlesex for this (an otherwise almost flawless book). I think the problem goes back at least as far as Robinson Crusoe. I never knew until I actually read the thing that he leaves the island about ¾ of the way through. Nobody ever mentions it because that part of the book is stupid.