The Interests of Others (meme)

[ltmurnau]

Gotted from papajoemambo, who obliged.

The Rules:

Comment on this post. I'll choose seven interests from your profile and you'll explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.

Go!

Comments

[emperorkefka.livejournal.com]

}(O.O){

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

The Monkey chimes in!

Okay, I choose:

berlin
dark city
localization
meat distributors
philip k. dick
romania
world war i

[ilna.livejournal.com]

I don't have any time to post or anything (so please don't.)

But i had read : Choose seven interests from your profile and I'll explain what they mean and why you are interested in them.

*Now* that would be an interesting one..

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Ha ha!
That would be interesting.
I'm glad you had a nice trip out to the Pacific.

[emperorkefka.livejournal.com]

Berlin - Probably one of the cities that I find the most interesting, even though I only spent three days there. I really like the mix of east vs west (and how it is not always easy to differentiate the two).

Dark City - Probably my second favourite moving, following Blade Runner. I really like the film noir mixed with sci-fi. I seem to have lost my DVD unfortunately, although I think I may have lent it to Christine.

Localization - The act of making software support multiple locales, including languages. I find this challenging and fun.

Meat Distributors - An almost completely unknown industrial rock group from Seattle that released four songs to mp3.com and then vanished completely. I still have those four songs and I love them all!

Philip K. Dick - I first heard of him through my watching of Blade Runner, and I picked up a couple books of his on a whim (and I have lent them to Christine also). They were Ubik, The Penultimate Truth, and Lies, Inc. I really liked them all, and I have trouble reading Gibson since getting into Dick.

Romania - I spent two weeks there in the summer of 2003. One week in Bucureşti and one week in Braşov. I loved it there! I think the language sounds really neat too. It was also where I found the only Fanta I really like: Fanta Shokata. It is made from elderberries.

World War I - I find myself interested in the Austro-Hungarian empire, and WWI marks the end of it. I also find the method of warfare interesting, and the culture that came out of it. Also the circumstances that led up to it.

[scuttle.livejournal.com]

Me!

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, OK...

I choose:

abrahamic religions
angela grossman
christa wolf
jeeves and wooster
sturm und drang
urga
victoriana

[scuttle.livejournal.com]

I'm going to reply here too, being too lazy (or short of study time) to make a full post.

Abraham religions: I got really into studying Christianity near the beginning of my undergraduate degree, because I think it is vital to understanding our history, literature and culture. From there I became interested in Judaism mostly for historical purposes, and in Islam because I wanted to understand what motivates Muslims. I think I could have just summed all of that up in history and motivation.

Angela Grossman: I researched her work when I worked at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. One of her pieces was used in the "Gallery in the Schools" program. She studies in Vancouver, and made her debut there as a group of Emily Carr students inspired by New Romanticism. She does 3D collage paintings with found objects, and a common theme is displacement and what is discarded from society. One series I really liked were painting on the inside of suitcases she found in the rubbish of a Parisian orphanage, and another one of paintings build around mugshots of prision inmates from the 1940's.

Christa Wolf is probably the most famous female author from the GDR. Her work often deal with her conflict between being a marxist who did not support either capitalism, or the government of the GDR, which is reflected in her book "Divided Heaven." I first learned about the forced migration of ethnic Germans from territory given to Poland after World War II through reading her semi-autobiographical novel "The Quest for Christa T."

Jeeves and Wooster: This one is pretty simple. I enjoy PG. Woodhouse's novels, and Fry and Laurie's adaptation. Really light and funny, and I've been interested in the 1920's since I was little. It is interesting to see where the Jeeves butler/valet character comes from.

Sturm und Drang (storm and stress): Basically German Counter-Enlightenment or Romanticism literature and music. I went through a period of being into Romanticism. I still am to an extent, but I find it pretty heavy-handed now. I still enjoy many aspects of Romanticism, such as subjectivity, historical and mythological allusions, and the anti-hero archetype.

Urga (aka Close to Eden): This is a Mongolian-Russian film, which I first saw in a Soviet film class. It is about a nomad, Mongolian-Chinese family trying to live under Chinese law and how their culture is disappearing. They meet a Russian truck driver who crashes near their camp, and are able to become friends. One aspect of the plot is that the main character wants more children, but is not allowed to under the One Child Act, even though he lives in the empty steppe.

Victoriana is not the most accurate word for me, since it refers to Victorian artifacts. I should say "the Victorian era," or to be really accurate, "the Wilhelminian era." This is my favourite historical period to study. Specifically urbanization, and nation building. I also find our current nostalgia for this time as being more "genteel" very interesting.

That was very disjointed, but I wrote it in the form of study breaks.