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| Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 | | 6:05 pm |
happ birthday, contriarety! | | Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 | | 12:47 pm |
happy birthday, aquafolius! | | Friday, February 1st, 2008 | | 8:24 am |
happy birthday, gee_tar! | | Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 | | 1:21 pm |
happy birthday, cerebralpaladin! | | 9:31 am |
more B5 musing The best part of watching B5 straight through for the third time was watching Richard experience it for the first time - noting our very different reactions as he tried to figure stuff out and I tried not to betray that I knew what was being foreshadowed. It's a different experience, when you know what's coming - not better or worse, just very different. Different lines give you chills, and you can look forward to the really freakin' good episode you know is coming. I was looking forward to In The Beginning that way - I insisted that we re-watch a snippet of "War Without End", to properly enjoy - but I've only seen it once and years ago, so it took me by surprise too. I had forgotten just how good it was. It's always dialogue that gets me, and, yes, wow, you bet. ( Quoting some dialogue that carries some faint spoilers ) | | Sunday, January 20th, 2008 | | 6:57 pm |
if you are a fan of Babylon 5
... and you have not yet seen the "Lost Tales", you should. Two little vignettes, plots that start and sort of resolve but clearly have more story to them. I'd have liked a more resolved story, but they're nice. Gorgeous special effects.
And two throwaway conversations that broke my heart -
"Is Citizen G'Kar going to be there?"
"No, G'Kar's out there somewhere. Exploring beyond the rim."
"Garibaldi said he'd try to make it, but he's tied up with something on Mars."
"What about Stephen?"
"Oh, I thought you heard - Dr. Franklin went exploring with G'Kar. Out beyond the rim. You know Stephen - always has to be the first to explore any new territory..."
"I'll miss him."
Yes, so will we. I started to write "rest in peace", but screw that - Happy exploring, the two of you. | | Friday, January 18th, 2008 | | 11:18 pm |
Adaptors and adaptations I said that the Sherlock Holmes classic radio that was making my ears bleed was also making me think about what makes an adaptation good. I'm not done thinking about this, by any means, but here is the first of a few half-formed thoughts. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Nicholas Meyer. At the age of twenty-four, not that I hate his guts or anything, Mr. Meyer vaulted onto the New York Times bestseller list (I am too lazy to check this, but I'm 90% sure) with the publication of what I am also 90% sure was his first novel: The Seven-Percent Solution. Far and away the best non-authentic Sherlock Holmes adaptation I have ever been exposed to, in any medium. Firstly, the tone is dead-on accurate, which is impressive because that's hard to do. And secondly, the concept and its execution are solid-gold gorgeousness. It's Sherlock Holmes meets Sigmund Freud, which sounds like it's going to be hideously painful - except when you realize that Freud was among the first to treat cocaine addiction, back in the 1890s when it was only just becoming understood that the (completely legal) substance had some negative properties and some addictive ones. And then you realize that this is not an everyday pastiche. ( Mostly extraneous chatter about the book )So far, fine, right? But here's what's fascinating. Nicholas Meyer is the same Nicholas Meyer who directed Star Treks 2, 4, and 6 - aka, the ones that didn't suck. ( Much shorter chatter about the movie )So ladies and gentlemen, I give you Nick Meyer - a man with an intuitive understanding of how to adapt a beloved story into another medium without turning the fan base into a raving lynch mob out for his blood. I wonder if it is not an art, rather than a science. I don't know if I could teach not-a-fan to adapt anything. I think the people who can pull off an adaptation are the ones who get it, on the deep-fan level, and have the ability to express what they "get" in a different medium, implying communication skills specific to the medium. And what constitutes "getting" it? On some level - speaking as a fan - it means interpreting it the same way I did. :P Yes, I know, I know. Maybe I should say, interpreting the same way most of us did? And then being able to manage the execution - resulting in things like LoTR and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which, agree with the interpretation or not, you must admit are things of beauty that do justice to the source material. Compared, say, to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie, piece of crap that it was. A pretty piece of crap, granted, but put together by those who Did Not Get why the graphic novel was cool. And thus felt it necessary to do things like take a hatchet to the plot and introduce Special Agent Tom Sawyer, a character who, to quote a reviewer, has no business being in this movie or any other. Which brings me to the depressing thing - ladies and gentlemen, I once again give you Nicholas Meyer. Who wrote two more Sherlock Holmes novels, based on the success of his first. The West End Horror is a romp through the big names of the theater district (Gilbert, Sullivan, Ellen Terry, Bram Stoker, etc), but it's not a particularly adept capture of tone, and the plot is both unbelievable and forgettable. And The Canary Trainer is Sherlock Holmes meets the Phantom of the Opera - which, other than a brief, welcome, and well-executed appearance by Irene Adler, is even more painful than it sounds. Which seems to prove that even Nicholas Meyer doesn't really know how to do it, because he didn't know how he did it. | | Thursday, January 17th, 2008 | | 9:11 pm |
JMS, you bastard
... damn, you're good, you did it to me again.
I just watched the Babylon 5 finale for the third time (ever, I mean, not recently). And choked up. Three for three, that is. I had forgotten a few of the lines.
And now we can watch the movies and "lost tales" - which I bought some time ago, and have been holding off on until Richard saw the whole series! Finally! | | Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 | | 5:10 pm |
burns, precious, it burns My brain hurts. I am done. Very very busy day. Going out to dinner. Can't possibly think any more, for the fifteen-ish minutes I have left, so I'll do this. Context and disclaimer: humanbeatbox, who is made of awesome, hunted out and burned to CD a whole bunch of classic Sherlock Holmes radio for me. Great gift. I'm enjoying myself. What I'm about to do here is a form of enjoying myself that doesn't mean I don't deeply appreciate the gift. That said: Dear Lord, the pain. The pain. I'm on track 14 of (what, 40?) The first three, which were honest-to-God adaptations of actual stuff written by Arthur Conan Doyle, were just fine. Interesting to dissect the adaptation to radio. No quarrel with it. Ever since, the scripts have been invented by two writers who, um, yes, well. The "melodrama against time" ratio is whiplash-inducing. The "unbelievable plots over time" measurement is also worth mentioning, because that would be true even if these stories featured original characters. For instance, Professor Moriarty (who shows up in two Conan Doyle stories! two! is onscreen for zero seconds during one, and six lines during the other! shadowy figure with a respectable day job! organized crime sorta thing!) has now officially morphed into the Comic Book Bad Guy - "curses, he has escaped again, but one day I shall bring him down..." da DA DUM. Favorite bits in increasing order of "are you joking?" - so far - ( Read more... )When I say I'm a big Sherlock Holmes fan, and I get that condescending little half-smile in return, it is obviously because this is the reference point people have. The stories are really quite good, for what they are and when they were written. And there are adaptations that don't suck. Really. It's like saying you really dig Battlestar Galactica and Dr. Who - no, no, not the old stuff, the new stuff is awesome, really! Somewhere, wherever it is that fictitious characters go to drink, Moriarty and Watson both are depressed as holy hell at how they've been mangled... ... an idea which spawned a bit of fiction in my head... ... and also gets me thinking about how to do adaptations well, which is another post. | | Monday, January 14th, 2008 | | 10:31 am |
Things That Make Me Happy Right Now
This is a good meme. I'll play this one.
10 Things that Make Me Happy Right Now:
1. Fluffy, sticky, several-inch-deep snow, blanketing house and yard.
2. Working from home, all cozy. Working from home guilt-free, even. I logged in to say, "uh, working from home at least until this afternoon" and found that so is most of the department. Even the macho ones who usually try to drive in this nonsense.
3. A cuddly Mycroft.
4. We have a slow-cooker, a slow-cooker recipe book, and the makings of beef stew. We are going to embark into the land of slow-cook dinner today.
5. I'm bonding with this Jake Armerding CD, and one of the things I love about folky music (so he's more bluegrassy/bluesy, but same sort of thing) are the poetic lyrics. Lyrics-chick that I am. So, something that is making me happy right now - in a song about falling in love - "I was sold / when I saw you pull your ponytail through your hat" - odd little line, but it seems to perfectly capture those sudden moments that mean nothing in particular, except you realize, hey, this is a really cool person. (Second or third date, watching Richard flying a kite on a beach, in case you were wondering.)
6. Different song, about traveling on the cheap all over the world - actually the whole song is gorgeous, but in the chorus - "I will spend my time / walking on the world." And a third song - also the whole song, but this chorus is also particularly noteworthy - "I am flirting with disaster and disaster is flirting with me."
7. humanbeatbox gave me a CD of classic Sherlock Holmes radio adventures - Basil Rathbone and (twitch) Nigel (twitch) Bruce (twitch). I'm touched by the gesture, and I'm enjoying playing them in my car - in part because the meta-level analysis is fun. How does the story have to be structured for radio? How is a classic radio program put together in the first place? Very different from modern anything. How is that Rathbone nails it with just his voice - what is he doing? And there's an arc of development of Watson-as-idiot - earlier episodes seem to be straight-up adaptations of real stories, and it's hard to make him that much of an idiot in those, because he's not in the source material.* The later stories that are nominally "based upon an incident in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's whatever", but are really created out of wholecloth, are the ones that cement him as a buffoon. Why - what on earth is going on there? I maintain that Mr. Bruce and his writer and director have a lot to answer to the fandom for**, but that doesn't prevent me from enjoying dissecting it as it happens. (Like Guinevere in Victorian versions of Arthur, versus earlier courtly-love perspectives...) This will keep me and my English major brain busy for a while - thanks, Chuck. :)
8. I was asked to be someone's bridesmaid; I'm pretty happy about that. Flattered. And it will be fun.
9. I was sick last week - all of last week. Not feeling like ass, that makes me happy.
10. Shiny white dining room, stripped and sanded free of the awful pink. Next step: wash. Step after that: paint. Step after that: wallpaper.
** fajitas, wasn't it you who told me about an RPG (?) that featured those characters who were demeaned in adaptations banding together and - I forget what, doing something awful to those responsible for the adaptations? Including Mary Poppins and led by Professor Moriarty? It crossed my mind as I was wincing at something particularly awful in one of the episodes yesterday. The original Dr. Watson, wherever he may be (wherever old characters go when they die) must be itching to kick Nigel Bruce's ass. He could take him, too. | | Monday, January 7th, 2008 | | 10:15 am |
| | Tuesday, January 1st, 2008 | | 9:41 pm |
The tally for shutdown
Accomplished during my, well, it’s effectively my winter break.
Written: 1,664 words on the trilogy, a tableful of back-history that Word won't let me word-count, one submission letter, and the first draft of my half of the plot of a tavern night. I’m also caught up on wedding gift thank-you notes - last one will go in the mail tomorrow.
Watched: The Last Temptation of Christ, Sneakers, (weirdest double-feature ever, that), It’s a Wonderful Life (Richard hadn’t seen it), A Christmas Carol (it’s a tradition), Anne of Green Gables (quite as sweet as I remembered it being), Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel (meh), Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story (put together by someone who’d obviously never read the books. And was smoking crack), The Hollow (a Hercule Poirot murder mystery) and lots of Babylon 5
Read: When Jesus Became God (about the council of Nicea), the first couple chapters of The Opium Season, a disgusting amount of Yuletide Treasure
Did: Scrubbed out refrigerator. Cleaned out some cabinets. Purchased curtains for many different windows. (If you gave us cash for our wedding, you may consider that you sponsored a curtain.) Got through four of the eight steps necessary to wallpaper the dining room (the eighth being “put the wallpaper on the wall.”) And slept a lot.
Do I want to go back to work tomorrow? Nah, not really. But it was a good vacation, and if going back to work is what needs to happen next, well, fine. | | Saturday, December 29th, 2007 | | 3:14 pm |
today, what is today? for the day is half gone
The fifth day of Christmas, or the fourth day from Christmas - the feast of St. Thomas the martyr.
On this day in 1170, Thomas Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral, on the orders of (or, at least, by men who thought it was the desire of) King Henry II. The last act of the extraordinary drama of the friendship and emnity of two proud men.
That is, it should have been the last act, but it turned out to be one of those dramas that capture the cultural imagination and do not let go. For centuries after, pilgrims streamed to Becket's shrine, there to pray for healing and miracles. Geoffrey Chaucer's famed Canterbury Tales is about fictitious pilgrims headed for that shrine. And long after the pilgrimages stopped, the story of Becket and Henry keeps being told, from different perspectives and with different morals. (Becket, for instance, was re-released to the big screen briefly last year. And if you haven't read T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, you should.)
Why is this story one that keeps being told and re-told? I mean, surely there are other similar stories - why this one? That, I couldn't tell you, but I'd be fascinated to hear opinions... | | Thursday, December 27th, 2007 | | 10:52 pm |
squeezing in under the wire
Happy birthday, karakara98! | | Wednesday, December 26th, 2007 | | 10:43 pm |
the 10%
Okay, found a good one. I liked most of the Narnia, but this is the first one I've found that I actively want to recommend.
"Small Things," part of Yuletide Treasure 2007 - Lord and Lady Peter Wimsey celebrating their son's first Christmas. Total fluff. G-rated fluff. Very sweet and warming fluff, though. And a good ear for style on the part of the author - I think she succeeds in authentic-sounding Peter-Harriet banter. Sorry - I meant piffle.
Favorite exchange -
Peter: I'd rather he not realize his father is a silly ass until he's at least three, if we can push off the revelation that long.
Harriet, to the baby, after Peter leaves the room: Your father only pretends to be a silly ass. I shall be very disappointed in you if you come to believe him.
Totally Peter. Totally Harriet. | | Tuesday, December 25th, 2007 | | 1:13 am |
Christmas Eve
Pizza, wings, beer, fire, Christmas tree, gift exchange with my husband. Another wicked cool accessory for the library. Midnight Mass - never done that before; I liked it. And now I am watching the last half hour of the 1984 made-for-TV version of The Christmas Carol, starring George C. Scott. It is a family tradition (well, me and my dad, mostly) to watch it on Christmas Eve. I saw it first when I was nine, and have seen it often enough since that I could probably quote the whole thing through with just a little help. I'm arrived at my favorite part of the movie - Christmas Yet To Come is effectively Mr. Scott doing a fifteen-minute monologue, and he's fantastic. There must be someone in this city who feels some emotion over - this man's - death! I demand to see that person! And then, Answer me just this. What man was that who we saw lying dead? And then the horror of the graveyard scene gives way to the upbeat wahoo! of Christmas morning, and Scott has a fantastic time with Scrooge's transformation. Like the Christmas cookies, it's a good once-a-year sort of thing. | | Sunday, December 23rd, 2007 | | 5:21 pm |
| | Thursday, December 20th, 2007 | | 10:32 am |
happy birthday Ori! | | Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 | | 11:23 pm |
Happiness, part the fourth
How could I have forgotten about the penguins? If happiness is a table, characters from my book, and Christmas cookies, happiness is also penguin slippers.
We went Christmas shopping last night, and saw a kiosk in the Natick mall selling slippers with totally over-the-top animal heads on them. Way, way past bunny slippers. I started teasing Richard that he needed elephant slippers! no, wait, monkey slippers! no, look, penguins! You need penguin slippers!
I was kidding, but the salesman heard me, and persuaded Richard to try them on.
And then persuaded me to try on a pair in my size.
Not only are they completely absurd, they are warm and really comfortable.
So we have matching penguins. To wear on our feet.
Mina is terrified.
I really love being married. | | 10:40 pm |
Happiness, in three parts
Part the first: For my library, I have a new piece of furniture. (Perhaps the most pretentious sentence I have ever uttered.) A wonderful and useless half-circular side table thing. I'm going to put the weapons rack on it. I'm really enjoying being able to construct sentences like, "I'm going to put the swords on the new table in my library."
Part the second: Also for my library, I have a picture in a frame. A couple of years back, the thoughtful and talented apintrix surprised me with a sketch of the characters from Candlelight - which is way high up on the list of best gifts ever, the more so because it looks like them. I must have done something right, you see, because she saw them too, and there they are. I've been meaning to get a frame for it for a while, and have been intending that it shall go in the library when the library achieved completeness, and since diving back into the universe this summer, the desire to get the thing framed before I accidently destroyed it has grown more urgent. It has a frame now. I know where I'm going to put it. As soon as I get curtains. (And it still looks like them. Which is so very cool.)
Part the third: Okay, smaller and more transitory, but. "Christmas cookies", in my family, are purchased from a specific Italian bakery in New Haven. Not that they are Christmas cookies from the point of view of the bakery - they're just Italian cookies - you can get them in July, if you want to. But we don't. For us, they are a one-time-a-year thing. I asked my father to get a box for me, when he went to do the pilgramage, and so I have a box of delicious and amazingly bad-for-you fatty sugary jammy goodness. They'll last me a couple of weeks. Such a good thing. (And Richard doesn't like them much, so, hey, more for me. On the other hand, he's drinking all the eggnog, so maybe we're even. :) ) |
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