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timerippleHere follows a faithful chronicle of the days of my vacation (abbreviated), and Things of Interest that have happened since I returned:
- Thursday, June 14. I finish my paper, at last finished and entitled, as threatened, “Beside the Dark River, or, What’s a Nice Poet like You Doing in a Place like This?”. I must run to turn it in. I do so. I arrive in the evening in Vancouver, where it is a lovely afternoon.
- Friday, June 15. Touring selected bits of Vancouver, meeting Important People, launch party reading rehearsal, some touring of the University of British Columbia by car.
- Saturday, June 16. Book launch party. We arrive early to help with set-up. There are three excellent tents, and a green-and-chartreuse-covered table for signing. The catering is magnificent. I meet more Important People.
Back in CA, I made my parents go see Pirates 3. I went too, naturally.
OFFICIAL CRIER: Rights, blah, blah... SUSPENDED.
HANGMAN: *crank*
PIRATES, AND AIDERS AND ABETTERS THEREOF: *hang*
OFFICIAL CRIER: Blah, blah... SUSPENDED.
HANGMAN: *crank*
PIRATES, AND AIDERS AND ABETTERS THEREOF: *hang*
ME: zomg I JUST got that!
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Ye Olde Movie Reviewes:
The Sea Hawk. Well... frankly it’s better than Captain Blood. Yes, this means an Errol Flynn kick. Queen Elizabeth I is awesome. And there is a monkey. What’s not to love?
Brigadoon. Urgh. Dreadful. I realize Scottish accents are notoriously difficult, but better American ones than the tongue-twisting attempts so unfortunately employed here. Also the plaid trousers just look silly. And they’d have been a bit less lost if their map had showed the Highlands rather than the Outer Hebrides.
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. Okay, so I cried. At last, a movie in which Errol Flynn does not have ridiculous hair! In fact... oh, my. *hums “Men in Tights”, quietly*
Captain Kidd. It was... okay? 90 minutes was about the right length, anyway.
And in film class...
Singin’ in the Rain. I’d seen this years before and forgot how funny it is. Definitely good for getting your intro film class in the mood.
The Kid. Awwww. Window-breaking five-year-olds have never been so cute. Being mentored by Tramp!Charlie Chaplin obviously has its perks. Also the score is really good.
Way Down East. The narration bits and the moralizing made me wince, but it wasn’t terrible. Too bad the eccentric aunt never reappeared; I liked her. I quite liked the penultimate scene too:
LENNOX “SLIMEBALL” McRICHIE: So, I know I totally deceived and cruelly abandoned you before. But I’m willing to marry you now with, like, an actual priest, and stuff. For real, this time. If you, you know, want me to.
ANNA: Um... NO.
ME: Yay!
HOTTIE McFARMBOY: Yay!
LENNOX “SLIMEBALL” McRICHIE: I understand completely. Hottie McFarmboy is hotter than I am, it is true. In addition to being, you know, not a total slimeball with evil pencilled eyebrows.
ANNA: Yeah, he’s kind of naïve, but he does have great eyebrows.
LENNOX "SLIMEBALL" McRICHIE: *shoots Hottie McFarmboy an evil look*
HOTTIE McFARMBOY: Grr. You want me to punch him again for you, my love?
ANNA: Nah, I might swoon a fourth time and then we’d have to delay the triple wedding.
HOTTIE McFARMBOY: Right. Let nothing, not even well-deserved retribution, come between us and the sacred union of our pure and noble hearts!
ANNA: ...Riiiiiiight.
MORALIZING NARRATIVE ENDCARD THING: And thus is proved the One True Rule of Relationships: One Man for One Woman.
ME: Actually, I think what you’ve proved is that womanizing slimeballs will be womanizing slimeballs, but whatever.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Spent all day alternately messing around at the piano, genuinely trying to practice, and practically having kittens at the sight of UCLA’s collection of Celtic/English dance music and songs.
And now I have discovered the joy of anime sheet music. I really, really want to play the DN Angel theme. Unfortunately I do not think I will be able to play it very well in five weeks for my juries, given that right now all I can play is four lines of “Ode to Joy”, and I keep screwing up the left hand on that. Oh well. Dreams, dreams.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
I find this book extremely funny:
“Father Chantry-Pigg and aunt Dot and I scarcely liked to expatiate on the Ottomans and Islam, though aunt Dot did just say that, when it came to bloodthirstiness, murder, torture, violence, and all that, it seemed a pretty near thing between Byzantines and Turks; after all, as she pointed out, both the Comneni and their conquerors were Asiatic, and deeply devoted to cruelty. Look, she said, at the way Mahomet II had massacred or enslaved the Christian Greeks of Trebizond.
“Dr. Halide said, look at the religious tolerance of Sulemein the Magnificent in sixteenth century Istanbul.
“‘So much more tolerant was he than the West,’ she said, ‘that no doubt some of your ancestors fled to Istanbul to escape from persecution at home.’
“I thought this would have been very wise of our ancestors, whatever it was they were being persecuted for, because Istanbul would have been a very beautiful and romantic city to flee to.” (Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond, ch. 9 p. 75)
I have just finished These Old Shades, by Georgette Heyer, and am thoroughly charmed. I am always pleased to meet any relations of Alec and Katherine’s. Satanic Dukes, swordfighting Duchesses, the lot.
Spent part of the afternoon in a sea of shoe sales. What exactly does one wear with navy blue heels? I am rather enraptured, but not at all sure what I would wear with them.
Spent the other part of the afternoon in the Hammer museum happily looking at one gallery and the bookstore, which has an excellent selection of picture books. I like Gustav Moreau's Salome Dancing before Herod, the great dark glittering vaults and pillars of the hall all bejeweled, and Salome making them all dim in comparison. *coughs* Sorry. The entire The Towers of Trebizond reads like this. Also Henri Fantin-Latour’s Portrait of Miss Edith Crowe. Her hands are a bit like mine.
- Thursday, June 14. I finish my paper, at last finished and entitled, as threatened, “Beside the Dark River, or, What’s a Nice Poet like You Doing in a Place like This?”. I must run to turn it in. I do so. I arrive in the evening in Vancouver, where it is a lovely afternoon.
- Friday, June 15. Touring selected bits of Vancouver, meeting Important People, launch party reading rehearsal, some touring of the University of British Columbia by car.
- Saturday, June 16. Book launch party. We arrive early to help with set-up. There are three excellent tents, and a green-and-chartreuse-covered table for signing. The catering is magnificent. I meet more Important People.
Back in CA, I made my parents go see Pirates 3. I went too, naturally.
OFFICIAL CRIER: Rights, blah, blah... SUSPENDED.
HANGMAN: *crank*
PIRATES, AND AIDERS AND ABETTERS THEREOF: *hang*
OFFICIAL CRIER: Blah, blah... SUSPENDED.
HANGMAN: *crank*
PIRATES, AND AIDERS AND ABETTERS THEREOF: *hang*
ME: zomg I JUST got that!
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Ye Olde Movie Reviewes:
The Sea Hawk. Well... frankly it’s better than Captain Blood. Yes, this means an Errol Flynn kick. Queen Elizabeth I is awesome. And there is a monkey. What’s not to love?
Brigadoon. Urgh. Dreadful. I realize Scottish accents are notoriously difficult, but better American ones than the tongue-twisting attempts so unfortunately employed here. Also the plaid trousers just look silly. And they’d have been a bit less lost if their map had showed the Highlands rather than the Outer Hebrides.
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. Okay, so I cried. At last, a movie in which Errol Flynn does not have ridiculous hair! In fact... oh, my. *hums “Men in Tights”, quietly*
Captain Kidd. It was... okay? 90 minutes was about the right length, anyway.
And in film class...
Singin’ in the Rain. I’d seen this years before and forgot how funny it is. Definitely good for getting your intro film class in the mood.
The Kid. Awwww. Window-breaking five-year-olds have never been so cute. Being mentored by Tramp!Charlie Chaplin obviously has its perks. Also the score is really good.
Way Down East. The narration bits and the moralizing made me wince, but it wasn’t terrible. Too bad the eccentric aunt never reappeared; I liked her. I quite liked the penultimate scene too:
LENNOX “SLIMEBALL” McRICHIE: So, I know I totally deceived and cruelly abandoned you before. But I’m willing to marry you now with, like, an actual priest, and stuff. For real, this time. If you, you know, want me to.
ANNA: Um... NO.
ME: Yay!
HOTTIE McFARMBOY: Yay!
LENNOX “SLIMEBALL” McRICHIE: I understand completely. Hottie McFarmboy is hotter than I am, it is true. In addition to being, you know, not a total slimeball with evil pencilled eyebrows.
ANNA: Yeah, he’s kind of naïve, but he does have great eyebrows.
LENNOX "SLIMEBALL" McRICHIE: *shoots Hottie McFarmboy an evil look*
HOTTIE McFARMBOY: Grr. You want me to punch him again for you, my love?
ANNA: Nah, I might swoon a fourth time and then we’d have to delay the triple wedding.
HOTTIE McFARMBOY: Right. Let nothing, not even well-deserved retribution, come between us and the sacred union of our pure and noble hearts!
ANNA: ...Riiiiiiight.
MORALIZING NARRATIVE ENDCARD THING: And thus is proved the One True Rule of Relationships: One Man for One Woman.
ME: Actually, I think what you’ve proved is that womanizing slimeballs will be womanizing slimeballs, but whatever.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Spent all day alternately messing around at the piano, genuinely trying to practice, and practically having kittens at the sight of UCLA’s collection of Celtic/English dance music and songs.
And now I have discovered the joy of anime sheet music. I really, really want to play the DN Angel theme. Unfortunately I do not think I will be able to play it very well in five weeks for my juries, given that right now all I can play is four lines of “Ode to Joy”, and I keep screwing up the left hand on that. Oh well. Dreams, dreams.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
I find this book extremely funny:
“Father Chantry-Pigg and aunt Dot and I scarcely liked to expatiate on the Ottomans and Islam, though aunt Dot did just say that, when it came to bloodthirstiness, murder, torture, violence, and all that, it seemed a pretty near thing between Byzantines and Turks; after all, as she pointed out, both the Comneni and their conquerors were Asiatic, and deeply devoted to cruelty. Look, she said, at the way Mahomet II had massacred or enslaved the Christian Greeks of Trebizond.
“Dr. Halide said, look at the religious tolerance of Sulemein the Magnificent in sixteenth century Istanbul.
“‘So much more tolerant was he than the West,’ she said, ‘that no doubt some of your ancestors fled to Istanbul to escape from persecution at home.’
“I thought this would have been very wise of our ancestors, whatever it was they were being persecuted for, because Istanbul would have been a very beautiful and romantic city to flee to.” (Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond, ch. 9 p. 75)
I have just finished These Old Shades, by Georgette Heyer, and am thoroughly charmed. I am always pleased to meet any relations of Alec and Katherine’s. Satanic Dukes, swordfighting Duchesses, the lot.
Spent part of the afternoon in a sea of shoe sales. What exactly does one wear with navy blue heels? I am rather enraptured, but not at all sure what I would wear with them.
Spent the other part of the afternoon in the Hammer museum happily looking at one gallery and the bookstore, which has an excellent selection of picture books. I like Gustav Moreau's Salome Dancing before Herod, the great dark glittering vaults and pillars of the hall all bejeweled, and Salome making them all dim in comparison. *coughs* Sorry. The entire The Towers of Trebizond reads like this. Also Henri Fantin-Latour’s Portrait of Miss Edith Crowe. Her hands are a bit like mine.
