Such Aussie YA fiction goodness is mine
I splurged on the weekend and bought myself two books, despite having a stack of stuff to do:
Superior Saturday, by Garth Nix – which I’ve only been anticipating for, oh, a year. And I read it in a day… and there will be a review at ASif! mighty soon. As soon as I can get all that other stuff done…
Lamplighter, by DM Cornish – the sequel to Monster Blood Tattoo, which I adored. I’m currently reading this one; I’m not yet sure whether I love it as much as I loved MBT, but I probably haven’t read enough to judge yet. I’ve also forgotten a bit of what happened in the first, so I’m remembering that slowly.
Glorious! Fabulous! Calloo and callay! I must get my work done so I can properly enjoy them.
Am I that strange?
So when we went to see Indy (which I should blog… sometime…), we went to a cinema with allocated seating. When we got to buy our tix, we were both – shall we say – a bit excited. My love asked if we could be in the middle, and I said “Up the front?” at the same time. The dude looked at his screen and said we could have off centre, near the back. My love frowned and said, “How about up the front?” The dude looked surprised and replied “I thought you were being sarcastic!” So we got row 5. No one in front of us.
Hello?! If I go to the cinema, I want to really be at the cinema: I would prefer not to have anything in my peripheral vision except more screen! How is this such a strange thing? Because there were very few people near us, for Indy.*
Then tonight, my love and I went to IMAX, to see U23D (which will also be blogged, and was awesome). It was IMAX, so we didn’t go too crazy: we sat in the third row, which was quite close enough. There was a couple sitting behind us (who insisted on talking… grrr…), but no one else in our row and no one in front.
Are we strange? Tell me there are other people who sit up the front!
*Except for a dad and three kids under eight. I looked at the kid who sat next to me and told him, gravely, that he hadn’t been born when I started looking forward to this movie. The dad laughed; the kid ended up moving… which maybe wasn’t a bad result  ;]
Making The Labyrinth
Further to my entire afternoon of cooking, I am now being entertained by the ‘Making of’ doco on my copy of The Labyrinth. It’s really long!! And it has interviews with Brian Froud, both Hensons, Jennifer Connelly (who is all of about 14 at the shooting of the film), and David Bowie… and a lot of the production people, too. It’s a real, proper, making-of: I reckon they don’t often get done like this these days. Insight into the production process, the recording process, and a huge amount about the making of the puppets – which was brilliant, because goodness they were amazing: pulleys and levers and remote controls… and there’s actually someone inside Hoggle!! And two people alternated inside Ludo.
Truly it’s an awesome movie. (Ah ha! I thought I caught sight of George Lucas on set – he wasn’t interviewed – and the opening credits say it’s Henson and Lucasfilm, so I must have been right.) I never knew Terry Jones was one of the writers! – but he was; he got quite a bit of time in the making-of (in fact, according to the credits just now, he is the screen writer. No wonder it’s so damn good). Impressively, I think I could re-watch the doco; I just like watching the behind-the-scenes stuff of the puppetry, I think.
So, in case you hadn’t guessed, I have started watching the movie proper… so back to Sarah and Jareth, and making curry, for me.
Proving George Clooney doesn’t suck
I never got in to ER; I didn’t like Clooney’s Batman in the slightest. I got very impatient with my friends who thought Clooney was sooo dreamy.
Pft.
Then I saw O Brother, Where art Thou?
I still don’t think he’s that dreamy (although Danny Ocean was more convincingly so), but this movie showed me that Clooney has real acting talent. I loved this movie – and I rewatched it today, for the first time I think since I saw it at the flicks – as I have been cooking all afternoon in preparation for my darling’s birthday party. Gosh it’s good! Firstly, the soundtrack – which I own – is one of the best soundtracks overall ever. Clooney and his two cronies are fantastic, convincing and sympathetic and inimitably entertaining. John Goodman is cool as Cyclops, I don’t know who it is plays Tommy, who sells his soul, but he’s great too… and Holly Hunter, not my favourite actress in general, is perfectly prim.
I love the cinematography, too: the juxtapositions, the close-ups and wide angles… in general, one of my favourite movies. If you haven’t seen it, you ought! And, of course, I loved the Odyssey references, which were stronger for me this time around.
It’s just so wrong
So very, very wrong.
My love and I both had crap days. We both got home tonight feeling the need for utter mindlessness, so when we discovered The World is Not Enough waiting for us, it felt like fate.
It’s just such utter crap!
Denise Richards – Dr Christmas Jones – argh! What an embarrassment to the sorority of Bond girls everywhere!
Even Sophie Marceau is pretty crap. And I loved Hamish Macbeth, but Robert Carlyle is also quite average.
As for Pierce Brosnan… well, it’s reaching Roger Moore levels of stupid one-liners, in this one. The stunts aren’t quite as daft as they get in the next one – and the speed boat chase is pretty cool – but still, I feel quite impatient watching it a second (third? Can’t remember) time.
Perfect, though, for a Monday night with the need to do nothing.
I think this won the Pulitzer Prize?
This article is long but truly – you must read it.
It’s about what happens when a seriously famous and uber-talented violinist goes busking.
It’s brilliant. The concept, the writing… part of the reason for blogging it is so I keep the link!!
Fish… the sad bit
Very sad.
My apple snails are no more.
In fact, they never were: they never came out of their shells in my tank.
Apparently – having called the aquarium I bought them from – some areas of my town have increased copper in their water due to the drought. And this kills snails, like, instantly.
Was there a mention of this at the shop? No. Was there any suggestion that there might be an issue? No. And how does the shop know about the copper? Because they had a batch of snails drop like flies a few months ago, got their water tested and found out about the copper. So this is not exactly a surprise to them.
Argh!! I sent a moderately-worded email expressing my disappointment.
No snails, again! I’m so sad. And one of my lovely new cloaches died, too. But the other three seem happy enough….
New fish!
Ah, the things that make me happy.
After being nixed in what I had hoped would be the completion of my want-a-blue-coat saga, I finally bought some new fish for my depleted tank.
I got 15 Colombian tetras, because they were on sale as a bulk – we had a fleet of them for a while but they’ve slowly died off over three or four years. So now we’ve got more, they’re happily schooling – and they have colour, too, which is nice (they didn’t in the fish shop).
To appease my love, we also got some clown loaches. Five of the beggars! (Another bulk deal.) I said we were never, ever going to get more, because it is just too, too heartbreaking when they die: they are my love’s favouritest fish ever (except for discus fish, which we ain’t getting because the tank isn’t big enough for more than, oh, one of them). They are terribly cute, and being all cloachy: going up and down in the corners, going around and around… they are like the excitable dogs of the fish world. And then they hide under rocks and don’t come out for days.
And, finally… mystery snails! It’s the first time our aquarium place has had snails in years – since my last wonderful snail died, in fact. J said I wasn’t allowed to name this one, because I was so sad when Ajax (the last one) died… but it was too late. Two snails, so I get to have Major and Minor (Ajax).[1]
So now the tank is looking more full, which is lovely. I can’t wait for them all to settle in. I still might go and get some more rasboras… but that should probably be in about a month, if not longer, to let these guys become acquainted with their tank mates.
[1] If you don’t get the reference, you haven’t read The Iliad.
History, being myopic and such things
This is an interesting little article, from ages ago now, by Daniel Lord Smail, author of On Deep History and the Brain, which certainly sounds like something I’d read. From the article, it seems like Smail is targeting that tendency of historians to ignore prehistory in accounts of human history – starting, instead, with Mesopotamia and agriculture, because that’s when you really get documents that can be used to examine history (this idea c/o Leopold von Ranke). The use of ‘prehistory’ to describe this period itself indicates this tendency, since it places undocumented times ‘before’ history proper – I really hope it’s something Smail addresses; if he doesn’t, he’ll have lost a bit of cred from me.
Couple of ideas that have been floating around in my head, thanks to reading the precis linked above:
1. I have never really understood the historian/archaeologist divide. I know, from the little bit of Sumerian/Assyian study I did in undergrad, that there is (or has been?) argy-bargy on both sides. I just don’t get it: it’s like animal handlers not cooperating with vets, or something. How can the two disciplines seriously expect to get the most out of their studies without talking to each other? It just seems daft.
2. An issue with the article itself: ” It is time we rectified our Christian-induced myopia, argues Daniel Lord Smail. … Before the 19th century, few doubted Genesis was historical truth.” Yo – if you want to argue for getting an Africa-centric beginning to history, being quite so Euro-centric probably isn’t the best way to go about it! Perhaps he is aiming his accusations primarily at European/American authors, from a Judeo-Christian society, but still… I think he’s also underestimating the amount of undermining of accepted Christian cosmology had gone on in the Enlightenment, and from then on too.
This is something that requires a bit more thought from me, and probably me actually buying the book and reading it. I can understand why historians have gone for the places with documents and so on to base their study on – and perhaps this reveals me falling into the Ranke trap that I was probably indoctrinated with in my undergrad days, and I am just so not post-modern enough to throw that off without a really good reason and several convincing arguments (with foototes).
Randomly Yours, Alex 