Dear Harriet Walter,
Someday. Someday I will be able to make a fruit smoothie that does not taste like a historical quack's mysterious, super-for-real-this-time Medical Marvel Potion which will, for a modest fee, totally cure your bubonic plague. And your smallpox. And warts.
Anyway, to the point. About two weeks ago I finished working on an awesomely awesome musical fan-video of the Lord Peter Wimsey 'n Harriet Vane mysteries. (This is a completely normal thing. My sister makes fanvids for almost every show she ever loves. There's a whole subculture on YouTube of people who do that sort of thing.)
I tried to upload this video to YouTube, and it was up for a few hours before the Copyright Monster came and devoured the audio. My sister showed me how to dispute the claim, and we got the audio back for a few more hours before the monster returned and ate the audio again. I don't even know.
So we can't put it on YouTube, the one place where it has any chance at all to shine. Siiigh. (It's on Vimeo instead.)
I'll post it here just for the heck of it, though. I do love my little video.
Lord Peter Wimsey&Harriet Vane [the time is right].
Oh, and one should either go to the link or choose fullscreen (possibly with scaling off) to watch it, because the embedded version is small and we do not like small.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Performance: Onegin
Dear Harriet Walter,
About a week ago my sister and I watched the movie Onegin (1999), starring Ralph Fiennes and Liv Tyler (and, awesomely, Toby Stephens), solely because you were in it and it was on YouTube. (Lest I forget in future, it's pronounced "own-YAY-ghin". Except that looks really stupid.)
As we all know, Onegin is the story - I think it might be based on a book - of a limp, dead-fish-resembling Ralph Fiennes who flops around in 19th century Russia, and who gets, like, money from some dead uncle or whatever, and who thereupon decides to leave his idle existence and give living in his dead uncle's estate in the country a try for no discernible reason. Ralph Fiennes then shocks and outrages the quiet country dwellers by befriending Toby Stephens, politely talking with Liv Tyler, having no chemistry with her and mentioning new ideas about land ownership to the well-dressed Harriet Walter, Liv Tyler's criminally adorable mother. People make vaguely bad decisions every so often and everyone ends up vaguely unhappy.
(I will admit that I rather enjoyed the bit where Toby Stephens charges up to Ralph Fiennes at a party and is like OH MY GAWD YOU DANCED WITH MY GIRLFRIEND WE HAVE TO GO KILL EACH OTHER NOW. Which Ralph, with the tact and sensitivity of a true gentleman, replies to with something like "lol ur gf's a slut". Nice work, Ralph!)
While it was mostly rather useless as a movie - my mother, who watched the second half with us, described it as "pretty but vapid", which I think is apt - I really really enjoyed the few bits of it that had you playing Madame Larina.
I mean, the clothes! The hair!
Okay, I hadn't even noticed what was going on with Liv Tyler in the table picture. Wowzers.
About a week ago my sister and I watched the movie Onegin (1999), starring Ralph Fiennes and Liv Tyler (and, awesomely, Toby Stephens), solely because you were in it and it was on YouTube. (Lest I forget in future, it's pronounced "own-YAY-ghin". Except that looks really stupid.)
As we all know, Onegin is the story - I think it might be based on a book - of a limp, dead-fish-resembling Ralph Fiennes who flops around in 19th century Russia, and who gets, like, money from some dead uncle or whatever, and who thereupon decides to leave his idle existence and give living in his dead uncle's estate in the country a try for no discernible reason. Ralph Fiennes then shocks and outrages the quiet country dwellers by befriending Toby Stephens, politely talking with Liv Tyler, having no chemistry with her and mentioning new ideas about land ownership to the well-dressed Harriet Walter, Liv Tyler's criminally adorable mother. People make vaguely bad decisions every so often and everyone ends up vaguely unhappy.
(I will admit that I rather enjoyed the bit where Toby Stephens charges up to Ralph Fiennes at a party and is like OH MY GAWD YOU DANCED WITH MY GIRLFRIEND WE HAVE TO GO KILL EACH OTHER NOW. Which Ralph, with the tact and sensitivity of a true gentleman, replies to with something like "lol ur gf's a slut". Nice work, Ralph!)
While it was mostly rather useless as a movie - my mother, who watched the second half with us, described it as "pretty but vapid", which I think is apt - I really really enjoyed the few bits of it that had you playing Madame Larina.
I mean, the clothes! The hair!
 |
| Stop being so adorable. |
 |
| Seriously. |
 |
| Also, I'm pretty sure that's you on the left, dancing with the young girl. |
 |
| And knocking over a table in your rush to comfort Liv Tyler. |
 |
| And OH MY GIDDY GOODNESS. THE HAT. THE HAAAAAT. |
Okay, I hadn't even noticed what was going on with Liv Tyler in the table picture. Wowzers.
Friday, April 15, 2011
bendaniel(s)craig
Dear Harriet Walter,
Have you ever noticed how Ben Daniels and Daniel Craig are kinda the same person?
CONSPIRACY
Have you ever noticed how Ben Daniels and Daniel Craig are kinda the same person?
 |
| Ben Daniels. |
 |
| Daniel Craig. |
 |
| Ben Daniels. |
 |
| Daniel Craig. |
 |
| Ben Daniels. |
 |
| Daniel Craig. |
CONSPIRACY
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Wimsey covers: The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
Dear Harriet Walter,
Hurgh blugh I so do not feel like myself today. Partly because I've been drinking a fruit smoothie all day instead of, you know, actually eating. But I haven't felt like myself for over a week! It's disconcerting! Feeling like me isn't always the best thing, but by golly it's usually better than feeling like a great lumpish sack of gah.
Anyway it's been, like, a month since I was rambling about Wimsey book covers, so we're going to see if doing that makes me feel better about things.
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1928)
With this story, we have the premise of a stiff in an armchair. Specifically an old dude. Is this a charming image? Absolutely. Hell, I want to end up as a dead old man in an armchair myself someday. The real horror of the plot (well, for me) comes when we find out that the man didn't actually die in the armchair in which he is found dead (read: murderalert! murderalert!). I mean, it's just so sad. He should have died peacefully in the armchair. Cruel universe!
(as always, captions refer to the image which comes before them)
I rather like this cover. The colors are bold and straightforward, although the fern-things make things a little awkward as the one on the left rather looks like it's growing out of General Fentiman's head. Also I like that it looks like he was smothered with a newspaper. Actually, the newspaper rings bells in my mind that remind me of the sorts of white blankety things official people cover corpses with, which is appropriate. This one's just a little small. Like the baby-blanket version of a corpse blanket. Do people make corpse blankets for babies? Oh gosh.
I'm pretty sure the Bellona Club wouldn't look like that, but let's say it's a depiction of the solitude of death or something. Again, the colors are nice. I like that it's rather subtler than the corpse-in-your-face versions of these mystery covers you get sometimes. Hey, let's look at those.
Corpse with a fabulous mustache!
Skeletal green corpse! (Love this.)
Tasteful, quiet black-and-white Elizabeth George corpse!
Um okay that doesn't make me uncomfortable at all...
UM HI
okay let's take a break from corpses now
This, now, is super fabulous. Clean and pretty and simple.
This is...not so fabulous. The spatial relations are really weird and keeping paint and alcohol in such close quarters makes me uncomfortable.
Holy cow it's one of the covers in that series of covers which I've never seen a good picture of but I can actually see this one! It looks like...somebody taking a photo of a desk.
I'm not...this is a little...well, er...um. Wow.
Okay, that's much more soothing.
wow that's tiny why did I even save that
Hi, Ian Carmichael! I see you have the monocle in today. You almost never do in the miniseries. (This totally isn't a book cover but whatever.)
Goodness, that's lovely! Totally unrelated to the story but lovely! Will it win the honor of being the best cover on this list?
No. No it will not. Why not? Because there is still this:
HOW BADASS IS THAT
Hurgh blugh I so do not feel like myself today. Partly because I've been drinking a fruit smoothie all day instead of, you know, actually eating. But I haven't felt like myself for over a week! It's disconcerting! Feeling like me isn't always the best thing, but by golly it's usually better than feeling like a great lumpish sack of gah.
Anyway it's been, like, a month since I was rambling about Wimsey book covers, so we're going to see if doing that makes me feel better about things.
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1928)
With this story, we have the premise of a stiff in an armchair. Specifically an old dude. Is this a charming image? Absolutely. Hell, I want to end up as a dead old man in an armchair myself someday. The real horror of the plot (well, for me) comes when we find out that the man didn't actually die in the armchair in which he is found dead (read: murderalert! murderalert!). I mean, it's just so sad. He should have died peacefully in the armchair. Cruel universe!
(as always, captions refer to the image which comes before them)
I rather like this cover. The colors are bold and straightforward, although the fern-things make things a little awkward as the one on the left rather looks like it's growing out of General Fentiman's head. Also I like that it looks like he was smothered with a newspaper. Actually, the newspaper rings bells in my mind that remind me of the sorts of white blankety things official people cover corpses with, which is appropriate. This one's just a little small. Like the baby-blanket version of a corpse blanket. Do people make corpse blankets for babies? Oh gosh.
I'm pretty sure the Bellona Club wouldn't look like that, but let's say it's a depiction of the solitude of death or something. Again, the colors are nice. I like that it's rather subtler than the corpse-in-your-face versions of these mystery covers you get sometimes. Hey, let's look at those.
Corpse with a fabulous mustache!
Skeletal green corpse! (Love this.)
Tasteful, quiet black-and-white Elizabeth George corpse!
Um okay that doesn't make me uncomfortable at all...
UM HI
okay let's take a break from corpses now
This, now, is super fabulous. Clean and pretty and simple.
This is...not so fabulous. The spatial relations are really weird and keeping paint and alcohol in such close quarters makes me uncomfortable.
Holy cow it's one of the covers in that series of covers which I've never seen a good picture of but I can actually see this one! It looks like...somebody taking a photo of a desk.
I'm not...this is a little...well, er...um. Wow.
Okay, that's much more soothing.
wow that's tiny why did I even save that
Hi, Ian Carmichael! I see you have the monocle in today. You almost never do in the miniseries. (This totally isn't a book cover but whatever.)
Goodness, that's lovely! Totally unrelated to the story but lovely! Will it win the honor of being the best cover on this list?
No. No it will not. Why not? Because there is still this:
HOW BADASS IS THAT
Monday, April 4, 2011
so, like
Dear Harriet Walter,
Lately I have totally
-knitted 5 tiny piggies and started on a kiwi bird
-finished I, Claudius and started on Claudius the God and read all of The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
-watched War and Peace (1956), Superman (1978), Jane Eyre (2011) and a ton of "Doctor Who"
-finally found a song for and started work on my LPW/HV video (huzz-freaking-ZAH)
-had my sister fall asleep on me while I was reading Clouds of Witness to her, twice
-closed a car door on my ankle really hard (by accident)
-experienced strawberry-rhubarb crepes with warm mascarpone inside and handmade whipped cream on top
-procrastinated and avoided writing a scholarship essay by writing in my useless blog instead
(watching Jane Eyre movies, especially really good ones, on five hours of sleep after a long day is not a good idea)
Lately I have totally
-knitted 5 tiny piggies and started on a kiwi bird
-finished I, Claudius and started on Claudius the God and read all of The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
-watched War and Peace (1956), Superman (1978), Jane Eyre (2011) and a ton of "Doctor Who"
-finally found a song for and started work on my LPW/HV video (huzz-freaking-ZAH)
-had my sister fall asleep on me while I was reading Clouds of Witness to her, twice
-closed a car door on my ankle really hard (by accident)
-experienced strawberry-rhubarb crepes with warm mascarpone inside and handmade whipped cream on top
-procrastinated and avoided writing a scholarship essay by writing in my useless blog instead
(watching Jane Eyre movies, especially really good ones, on five hours of sleep after a long day is not a good idea)
Saturday, April 2, 2011
HW Is Totally Engaged; or, I fail as a news source
Dear Harriet Walter,
Okay first off, one quick thing: HAHAHAHAHA. Jennifer Garner as Miss Marple. Oh, Disney, you're funny.
But mainly I wanted to say holy what you are totally getting married.
What?
I found out last night (like, WEEKS after I should have found out) and was left literally pacing my darkened kitchen at 2AM trying to figure out why I felt like somebody whose best friend has just gotten engaged and who only heard about it from the town gossip's parrot. There's something wrong with the way my brain is wired.
CONGRATUMAFATOOTIN'LATIONS
(I think that you will be happy!)
(quick edit the nextish day: I told my dad about you getting engaged and the only thing he said was "Nuuuuuu! Another dream crushed!" because he's just hilarious and cryptic like that.)
Okay first off, one quick thing: HAHAHAHAHA. Jennifer Garner as Miss Marple. Oh, Disney, you're funny.
But mainly I wanted to say holy what you are totally getting married.
What?
I found out last night (like, WEEKS after I should have found out) and was left literally pacing my darkened kitchen at 2AM trying to figure out why I felt like somebody whose best friend has just gotten engaged and who only heard about it from the town gossip's parrot. There's something wrong with the way my brain is wired.
CONGRATUMAFATOOTIN'LATIONS
(I think that you will be happy!)
(quick edit the nextish day: I told my dad about you getting engaged and the only thing he said was "Nuuuuuu! Another dream crushed!" because he's just hilarious and cryptic like that.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)