And thank you so much to Annamita Virosa (annamitavirosa.wordpress.com) for nominating me a fifth time for this award! Check our Annamita’s awesome doodles and dream memories.
To view the post from my first and second nominations, click here, here, and here.
I’d like to apologize in advanced for my answers to David and Annamita’s questions — I found a number of these queries a bit confusing. But I tried to answer to the best of my ability!
As I mentioned previously, I continue to accept these awards because I love being able to share/promote other talented WordPress bloggers by nominating them. So please take a look at the list of nominations below!!
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Rules
Post eleven facts about yourself.
Answer the questions the tagger has set for you and create eleven questions for people you’ve nominated.
Choose eleven people to give this award to and link them in your post.
I met my Barcelonian friend Elena in Tokyo of all places. We were both studying at Sophia University for a year.
We met through a mutual acquaintance and the three of us ended up on a three day trip to Okinawa. Both Elena and I share an enthusiasm for Okinawan culture and were so excited to go. We managed to see everything on our checklist and had an overall wonderful time there.
As it turned out, a few weeks later, Elena ended up moving into the same dorm as me. We ended up spending memorable times together, staying up to the wee hours of the morning chatting and eating candy.
Now, having only recently moved to San Francisco, we live on practically opposite sides of the globe. But we still Facebook and tweet at each other. And, most excitingly, we send packages through snail mail to each other, back and forth from Spain to the States.
While we were friends in Tokyo, Elena had no idea I drew at all. This was during my college phase of not having time to draw. Boy, was she surprised when she learned I was working on my graphic novel The Poet and the Flea. And, quickly, she became my #1 fan!
Elena became smitten by the rose from page 27 of The Flea (as seen on Part 4 of Behind the Scenes). So, for the winter holiday, I sent her the following ink and watercolor rose.
In return, at the end of January, I received a wonderful little New Year’s present from Elena (see photos below)! She sent me a delightfully long handwritten letter, a bag of candy, and a flyer of a favorite Japanese band called exist†trace (which I believe Elena was handed by the lead singer named Jyou after a The GazettE concert).
I would love for Elena to come visit San Francisco one day, or for me to visit her in Barcelona (when I’m not an unpaid intern making absolutely no money). Elena is really the only person I keep in touch with from my year abroad and I’m proud to have such an awesome friend! Maybe someday we’ll even return to Japan and even Okinawa together.
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For more updates, don’t forget to follow me on tumblr and/or twitter.
My head is spinning from all these award nominations!
Thank you so much to Eszter (felteddreams.wordpress.com) for nominating me a second time for the Liebster Award! Don’t forget to check out Eszter’s amazing felt/embroidery/quilting creations.
To view the post from my first nomination, click here.
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Rules
Post eleven facts about yourself.
Answer the questions the tagger has set for you and create eleven questions for people you’ve nominated.
Choose eleven people to give this award to and link them in your post.
Go to their page and tell them.
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Eszter’s Quetions
1. What inspired you to start blogging?
Well, I started this particular blog to keep track of my various creative projects and to organize my thoughts a bit.
2. Is there one thing you wish you could change about yourself, what would it be?
I’m never good at answering this sort of question. Even if I could magically change something about myself, I don’t think I would.
3. If you could meet someone famous who is still living who would it be?
This is a really tough question because I don’t want to jinx my chances at Cannes.
4. What was the most interesting class you ever took in school?
Another tough question since I went to New York University: Gallatin School of Individualized Study and took a number of amazing courses including “Dante’s World,” “Virtue and Villainy: Melodrama,” and “Globalization: Promises and Discontents.” The most life-changing class I ever took was “Yellow Peril: Documenting & Understanding Xenophobia” taught by the amazing Jack Tchen. For this class, I wrote a painstakingly researched 25-page paper (plus 5 pages of works cited) about Gwen Stefani’s Harajuku Girls. Jack’s new book Yellow Peril: Understanding Fears of “the East” and What We Can Do About It is coming out at the end of February, so check it out if you’re interested!
5. What did you want to be when you were little?
I think I always wanted to be a comic book artist/graphic novelist/mangaka since I was in elementary school up through high school graduation. I drifted away from comics/graphic novels/manga in college, but as you can tell from The Poet and the Flea have regained my passion.
6. If you could decorate your work-space however you wanted, what would be your feature color?
Well, when I moved to San Francisco, I really got to decorate my workspace and I wouldn’t really change a thing (other than that it sometimes gets way too hot and there’s no air-conditioning). My room is mostly made of various shades of blue with splashes of yellow, tan, and salmon. It’s pretty funky!
7. If your life were a book, what would be the title?
Radiant Pessimist™ (this will also be the name of my future production company — I have Laurence Harvey to thank for that one).
8. What one happy memory do you have always coming to mind?
I don’t really have one memory that always comes to mind. But I recently thought of a childhood memory (when I was maybe six or seven years old) that I really hadn’t thought of for a long time — me and my dad bobbing in the ocean off of Kiawah Island. I remember that my nose was really runny, ha ha ha.
9. Do you prefer to read actual books or use an E-reader?
Actual books, hands down! It’s just not the same experience with an e-reader. The tactile feeling of a book, the smell of it, the typography and placement on the page, the action of turning from page to page… I really have a hard time reading on my iPad.
10. If you could keep only one item from your wardrobe, what would it be?
I’ve only worn it once, but the skirt of the prom outfit my grandmother made me. She died September 2011, so I’m extremely reluctant to let it go.
11. If you win some millions in lottery, what would be the first thing you buy?
I wouldn’t “buy” anything per se. I’d rather fund a full-length film of either my own script or that of a close friend.
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Nominations
Can’t I just nominate all my followers? You’re all so awesome and talented!
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My Questions
I liked the questions I wrote last time, so I’ll use them again…
What is the strangest dream you’ve ever had?
What is/was your favorite subject in school?
When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Who is your role model?
What is your favorite holiday?
What is your least favorite vegetable?
What is your guilty pleasure?
Are you an optimist or pessimist?
What are your short-term goals/New Year’s resolutions?
What did you last eat?
Do you have any special and/or bizarre talents?
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For more updates, don’t forget to follow me on tumblr and/or twitter.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the following images or video!!
One of my favorite operas is Jacques Offenbach‘s The Tales of Hoffmann(Les contes d’Hoffmann). This opera is a fantastical retelling of the life of the German Romantic author E. T. A. Hoffmann, casting Hoffmann as the protagonist of his own stories.
Placido Domingo performing the “Chanson de Kleinzach” aria.
Désirée Rancatore performing ”Les oiseaux dans la charmille.”
Through The Tales of Hoffmann, I developed an interest in Hoffmann and his stories, quickly leading me to Sigmund Freud’s The Uncanny. In Freud’s essay, he uses many of the same Hoffmann stories as Offenbach, but in this case to prove a psychological point (not that Offenbach’s opera isn’t deeply psychological). If I remember correctly, Freud even mentions Offenbach’s opera.
Portrait of E. T. A. Hoffmann
I’m sure you are all wondering, “What does all this have to do with The Nutcracker?” Well, little do most people know, E. T. A. Hoffmann wrote in 1816 one of the earliest versions of The Nutcracker story, entitled The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (Nussknacker und Mausekönig).
Alexandre Dumas was also a fan of Hoffmann, employing allusions to Hoffmann’s stories in The Count of Monte Cristo. Dumas even went as far as creating a revision to Hoffmann’s Nutcracker in 1844 called History of The Nutcracker (Histoire d’un casse-noisette), or The Tale of the Nutcracker.
Towards the end of the 19th Century, Hoffmann’s Nutcracker was adapted to ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, perhaps the most famous incarnation of the tale. I write this post because my dad purchased tickets to the San Francisco Ballet to see The Nutcracker at the end of the month. Perhaps later I’ll add my thoughts on the production to this post.
Tchaikovsky’s music is always wonderful, if not a little too overplayed for the holidays. A lot of people tend to associate The March from The Nutcracker or The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy not with Tchaikovsky, but with the thousands of Christmas commercials that use these pieces. This also happens with The Chinese Tea Dance from The Nutcracker with Disney’s Fantasia and The Sleeping Beauty Waltz with Disney’s Sleeping Beauty.
I believe the most creative and exciting production of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker is Mark Morris’s The Hard Nut. The Hard Nut is set in 1950s America with a very retro feel inspired by the comic artist Charles Burns — a strange but brilliant compliment to the classical music. I hope to one day be able to attend a live performance.
Advertisement for The Hard Nut.
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For more updates, don’t forget to follow me on tumblr and/or twitter.
Answer the questions the tagger has set for you and create eleven questions for people you’ve nominated
Choose eleven people to give this award to and link them in your post
Go to their page and tell them
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Eleven Facts about G. E. Gallas
I’m going to cut corners a little bit since I already answered a ton of questions about myself for other awards. So check out more than eleven facts about me on my posts Reader Appreciation Award and Very Inspiring Blogger Award. (^-^;;)
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Denises’s Questions
1. What makes you laugh?
I laugh at any number of odd things, especially at awkward situations I may find myself in. Oh, I can keep myself endlessly amused.
2. How do you like to spend your spare time?
Spare time? What spare time?
3. What’s your favourite book?
This question is impossible to answer. Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Facesis practically my bible (I mentioned I’m a Jewish atheist, right?). I’m also quite fond of Robert Graves’s I, Claudius, Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo, Yukio Mishima’s Spring Snow (Haru no Yuki), E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime, etcetera, etcetera. My bookshelf looks frighteningly like a Penguin Classics library!
4. What inspires you most?
Artists who are extraordinarily dedicated to their work inspire me the most.
5. If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be?
Wouldn’t change a thing!
6. Has blogging an impact in your real life?
Hmm, let me think about that one — not sure yet.
7. Would you meet in your real life someone you’ve met on the internet?
I have already met in real life a number of people I’ve met on the internet.
8. What do you find annoying?
Hypocrites — they are the bane of my existence.
9. Do you blog often?
Yes, I suppose so.
10. Which place of the world would you like to visit?
I would love to visit all over Scandinavia!
11. If you win, how are you going to celebrate on the blog sphere?
Today, was hired for a 4-day cat sitting job by our sweet neighbors Paula and Gabie. They want me to be with the cats as much as possible, so I figure I can earn a little extra cash while having a window of opportunity to do some work. I’m hoping to use the time to make some major headway on The Flea script — like a little writing marathon. Wish me luck!
Tuesday, November 20th
Another wonderful meeting with Gabe! Showed him color samples for Elias and he seemed rather surprised at how colorful they are, but delighted! Now, I just have to finish up the second draft and then scan and send it all to Gabe so he can tinker around with the text some more.
Worked on some upcoming blog posts.
Wednesday, November 21st
Ran some last minute errands.
Worked on some special illustration birthday/holiday presents with watercolor and pen!
The Poet and the Flea: 52 pages of written script (1 page of script = 4-6 illustrated pages), and about 36 pages (1-24, 27-30 completed, and 25-26, 31-36 in progress) of illustrated work.
The First Reich: about 1-6 pages of illustrated work in progress.
To Do:
December 8: The East Bay Alternative Book and Zine Fest
Portrait of E. T. A. Hoffmann
