Terra's Tales: Greetings From Beyond the Embrace of Catatonic Nightmares

Thursday 20 August 2009

Greetings From Beyond the Embrace of Catatonic Nightmares

The gates to the palace of Versailles

Dear Internets,

So, as you can probably guess from the mere existence of this blog post, I have returned from France! It was really hot and sunny - not that I have anything to show for it, of course my tan has disappeared in the two days I've been home (typical!), although my feet are still a curious shade of purple after being slightly roasted. I visited several interesting places including the Zoo de la Palmyre where I got to feed giraffes, the town of La Rochelle, Disneyland, where I was accosted by thousands of wasps and walked too many miles and, of course, the amazing palace of Versailles. Well, the gardens at least. Typically we chose to go on the one day of the week that the actual palace is closed. Just my luck.

I've now been back long enough to get my head back together again (a messy process) after a couple of weeks when I was actually able to relax for a while (haven't done that in ages, it's not a word that normally features in my vocabulary at all!) and get over the drama of results - which, fortunately, were fine. But what with all the excitement and dangerously-rare relaxing I haven't really had time to write any more articles for a while. What I have been reading is mostly British women's history and feminist theory for my history coursework - and hopefully something will come out of that for here at a later date (I'm currently reading Germaine Greer's 'The Female Eunuch' which is very interesting, so expect something on that at some point), but nothing really suitable to write a short article on.

Hopefully I'll soon get back in the swing of writing, though, and I'll be able to update properly again. I've got several ideas for articles to write, including posts on Emilie Autumn lyrics and J.D. Salinger shorts stories (yay!), but until then, you may have to be patient between posts, I'm afraid!

Yours truly, Terra x

2 comments:

J21 August 2009 at 00:01
Yay, it's good to have you back, Jen, I've missed you.

And hurry up with the post on Emilie Autumn lyrics, I'm dying to read it! xxx
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Terradoll21 August 2009 at 14:03
Of course you have - I mean, thank you! :D

I haven't written it yet though! At the moment it's little more than an abstract concept. I've got a couple of pre-written posts from before my holiday that I'll post up first, but I'll get on with that one asap!
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Terra's Bookshelf

Fred d'Aguiar: 'The Longest Memory' - a short novella about the life of slaves on Southern America plantations at the turn of the 19th century. It's on my Cultural Criticism reading list as part of our course on identity and body politics, and as a cultural text it makes a lot of interesting and poignant points. Simple yet resonating.
Daphne du Maurier: 'Rebecca' - a classic gothic tale of doubles and 'the other woman'. So just my sort of thing, really...
'Beowulf' - more medieval literature for my course. To be honest, I was expecting something more from this. Just more general epicness. I was waiting for something to happen, and it never did. Maybe it's because I remembered Grendel being scarier when I first read the story in primary school.

Terra's Playlist

The Dresden Dolls: 'The Dresden Dolls' - emotive and darkly humorous dark cabaret music from the creative and original duo. Amanda Fucking Palmer is a genius, end of.
Otep: 'Smash the Control Machine' - poetic, dark and lyrical, this is female fronted nu-metal with a twist. There's a nice mix of tracks, from heavy stompers like 'Run for Cover', slower weepy songs like 'Ur A Wmn Now' (featuring Emilie Autumn on the violin - that's definitely what sold me), and spoken word tracks like 'I Remember'. This album is well composed and executed throughout.
Plasmatics: 'Coup d'Etat' - Wendy O Williams isn't noted as being a forerunner of the riot grrrl movement, but she could be. An iconic figure of the 1980s alternative music scene, Williams' growl and lyrical swagger characterise this blend of punk, metal and hard rock. 'Stop' is one of my favourite songs of all time.