life and times

I figured that after the recent deluge of music-related posts (which I have, incidentally, decided to expunge from this blog, because there was always the temptation to dash one off when I found myself unable to write anything worthwhile) my ghostly readers would appreciate something different - something that used to be commonplace back when I had something of a social life to write about. Now my days are spent in class, meeting up with various project groups (it's getting difficult to keep track of all of them at this point), and reflecting on musical matters, the last of which would explain the abovementioned deluge of music-related posts. I haven't been getting a whole lot of time to read anything, either, because the writing class I'm taking this semester (you need to take an advanced writing course to graduate) assigns so much reading on a weekly basis that I don't feel like picking up another book afterwards. It is, I'll admit, a fun class compared to the other classes I'm in, though the MLA format guidelines that are strictly enforced are maddening. Whoever designed them must have done so with the conscious goal that nothing of creative or æsthetic value should survive them. But I suppose these style gurus fall under the class of people to whom no statues have ever been erected, and they can be consigned to the trash heap of history along with their style guides without sending so much as ripple through the literary world.

I watched American Horror Story a week or two ago. The three seasons that are on Netflix, anyway. It was frankly a bit disappointing. The first season was all right, I suppose, if only because I was watching it with the expectation that it actually would be horrifying, though a large part of its success depended on falling back on old haunted house clichés (which are more reliable than they ought to be). (<-- That is a fine example of what the MLA Neurosis would not let you do. "Periods {which really ought to be called "full stops". Americans really should have no say at all in linguistic matters.} must always be put inside quotation marks/parantheses, even when it makes no sense at all to do so.") The first season bore a close resemblance in certain aspects to The Others. The second season was creepy as well, but it was more bitter than scary. The serial killer's bloody face mask seemed to have been borrowed from Silence of the Lambs, where H. L. dons a similar mask. The possession was similar to any other demonic possession, with the exception that the attempted exorcism didn't work, and the demon left just as suddenly as it had come without doing anything terribly interesting. That, I thought, was poor writing. Maybe they were under pressure to wrap up the season. The third season was altogether silly, rather like Wizards of Waverly Place, which is of course a children's show. I shall probably not watch the fourth season, if these trends continue. All I can say at the end is that the dagger † looks remarkably like Cain Nightroad's (Knightlord, if the wiki is to be trusted) lance in Times New Roman.