bullet lists are totally a substitute for coherence

     Dear Harriet Walter,

     THINGS:

• I have overcome my deathly fear of people I know in real life reading my writing enough to give the url of this blog to my Auntlet today. Hello, Auntlet L.!

• I am super super excited about this Saturday. I think I mentioned it before. Several of us students are getting taken on a hike up to the Hollywood sign, out to lunch at In-N-Out and then to Amoeba Records and possibly to a coffeeshop. Apparently it's annual, although my school only moved to its Pasadena location at the beginning of last year. Most of my favorite people are going, and because it's Professor Mine Enemy's thing I am going to get to meet Mrs Professor Mine Enemy, who is coming along and who is somebody I have wondered about.

•  Dr Mac has learned how to tie a bowtie recently. It looked quite nice on him, although he said he felt naked with no necktie and with his buttons exposed like that.

• I bought pink-and-white animal cookies at the shops today. I am content.

• I love Pasadena and Los Angeles. Why on earth did I ever consider going to college in Iowa? I mean I'm sure Dordt College is a perfectly excellent and unimpeachable college itself - both of Best Friend's parents graduated from there, and they turned out ok - but Iowa versus Los Angeles? The Midwest versus SoCal? Cows and cornfields versus one of the major cultural and economic centers of the world? Yeah, I think I made the right choice. (The third college-option was too expensive. And also not far enough from home.)

Pasadena City Hall, which I see regularly. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

• It rained all day yesterday. It was awesome.

• My grades are ok so far. They may plummet after my history midterm next week.

•  My parents have finally set up Skype, so we video-called each other on Monday night when I was supposed to be doing math homework. Skyping is a good thing.

• I can do the basic steps and turns for the two-step and the waltz now. Education!

• I need to start studying somewhere I don't have access to the toys and thingums my Auntlet has sent to me.

• My mother has started up another blog. Two more, actually, but right now I'm going to link to the first. (No she has not written more in the very first blog she started up. I am hoping that with the less-structured style she's taken up for her newest 'un she will feel more free to piffle and thus write more.) I asked her if I could link to it, because I love my mumsy's writing, and she said yes so here is the link: Patter From Lavender Flat. It's written for an audience of her close friends and family so certain names, locations and situations will not be explained. If she writes in it, it will be Quality Stuff!

• One of the least awesome things about college is the fact that I don't have time to hunt down and watch things with you in them. I always intended to make this blog at least vaguely Harriet Walter-relevant (Walterelevant?), but now everything is all about me all the time. Blah. (At least I got my fix while I could watch Law & Order UK.) So, for the sake of cheerings-up and bright green dresses, let's have a couple of screencaps from one of my favorite movies.

    Speaking of watching L&O:UK, I never saw the episode after the one which ended with a certain person getting shot (fatally?) in a drive-by. I wonder how that turned out.

    Now I am going to do a bit of math and watch Merlin because Merlin is back and I need me some campy goodness.

updates and whateverings

     Dear Harriet Walter,

    More updatery!

•  My sister has gone home as of a couple days ago. I was an emotional wreck for a while but things are ok now.
• Today is pretty much the last day of freshman orientation at my college. Convocation was this morning and evening classes (which I have none of) start this evening, with day classes starting tomorrow. I wish I had all my textbooks already.
• All the upperclassmen came back to campus yesterday. I have been looking forward to this ever so much, as there were some I met when I visited the campus in March who I was really looking forward to seeing again. (They remember me and still like me and are apparently delighted that I ended up coming here.)
• Discovered yesterday that one of the upperclassmen, Libby, has apparently read Strong Poison and Gaudy Night, although she couldn't remember the name of the former and only read the latter for school. (Probably in high school.) Nevertheless, I was excited. Fellow freshman Dane, who Libby and I were eating dinner with when the subject came to books and so to mysteries and so to Sayers, remarked that that was the happiest he'd seen me since I arrived.
• The day before yesterday us freshmen were taken to the Getty Museum. It was super awesome. I never properly appreciated Degas before.
• Sister accidentally took the camera with her when she fled in the car. She says she'll mail it to me. I might be able to illustrate this blog more once I get it back. Things are looking kind of bare.
• I am very probably going to be freaking out and flailing in hysterical consternation more in the next few days starting tomorrow. The registrar and dean of student life have both spoken of something called "syllabus shock" in regretful tones when orienting us as regards classes starting, and I am really bad at handling the big picture. One tries to take one thing at a time, but it's not always possible. (don't you just love how optimistic and hopeful I am sometimes)

    Finally, I would just like to thank you, Harriet Walter, for being Harriet Vane in the eighties. I've been re-(rerere)watching the miniseries adaptations of Strong Poison and Have His Carcase in my free time for the sake of escapism and chilling-out, and they are just so relaxing and comforting. And you were so awesome.

also I want to own that dress.

ugh just give me your face

    Dear Harriet Walter,

     My life is such a dizzy muddle right now that I don't even have the energy to complain about it. Instead, I will say that I just watched the latest episode of Law & Order UK (nearly a week after it came out, how's that for busy?) and enjoyed it very much. Especially the bits with you and the bits with Jamie Bamber's face.

And the bits with both!

    Anyway I'm going to screencap my favorite shots of you from that episode because they happened in a beautiful sequence. And I've had a long day and it cheers me up.

    (Click for bigs.)

"louk" should be a collective noun

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    AWWWWWW YEEEEEEEAAAAAHH  LAW & ORDER UK IS BACK ON

    AND YOU'RE STILL IN IT, UNLIKE JAMES AND GEORGE (sigh)

    YEEEAHHH MANNNNN

    I love this show so much. This show makes me happy and sad at the same time! (But usually the happy wins out.) They should do a DI Natalie Chandler-centric episode. As long as it didn't have a really horrifying or depressing ending, as the episodes often do. It should have a happy ending, and by happy I mean LOUK happy as in the bad guys are found guilty and the good guys walk away with their stiff upper lips still stiff while possibly being very emotionally impacted or damaged but still ambiguously ok.

    With fabulous scarves. All the time.
    (also, have I mentioned you look fantastic for 60?)

face/lehtarss

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    So, like....

 

    Dude.

    (do you ever?)

    Also, while sorting through my books today (keep-take-to-college, keep-make-parents-store, chuck outright), I found the first letters I wrote to you inside one of my notebooks. They were written on paper with a dullish pencil and they were over a year old, like dude.

hands hands

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    can i just take a moment to appreciate the fact that your hands are the sexiest hands of all the sexy hands

(taken from Dame Harriet Walter Appreciation)

i couldn't get this without the play button but i still wuv it

LOOK AT THEM LADYPAWS

    in semi-related news, Dame Harriet Walter Appreciation continues be my favorite thing of all the things. (I want to talk to them sometime. I need to know what the eff this is, I mean seriously.)

I want to be a Bond villain when I grow up

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    I have just been reminded by my right-hand man that the Telegraph article about you getting married at 60 (which I read and linked to before) clearly states that you got married (were getting married, at that time) in "the Minneapolis church where [fiance Guy Paul's] father was a Lutheran minister". Therefore not in England. Unless there's an original, hundreds-and-hundreds-of-years-old Minneapolis in England that I haven't heard of that was the fave haunt of the Druids and the one in Minnesota really ought to be called New Minneapolis or something.

    Obviously I need to be able to track you with a super high-tech GPS tracking device thing, because of course I cannot possibly expect myself to actually remember extremely important details about things I care about. No, indeed.

    Also, can we take a moment to appreciate how totally rad this photo of you is? I so cannot get over it.

taken from fyeahharrietwalter, again, because I love them so

HARRIET IS GETTING MARRIET

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    it's one-ish in the morning-ish here on the west coast of north America which means it's, like, nine-ish in the morning-ish in England and you're getting married today

    i can't even deal with this right now

    (that's assuming you're getting married in England anyway, i haven't heard anything to the contrary but then i haven't heard as much as i'd liiiike)

    (hnnnngah i just want to beeeee theeerrrrrrrre)

    but anyway congratulations and felicitations and all sorts of many-headed blessings! yuss. saying i have earnest hopes for your future happiness seems like stating the slightly obvious just a leetle bit, maybe just to me i don't know, but i will do so anyway, i hope you are the happiest thing in the universe today and all days henceforth and forever amen

like this except all the time and with your husband instead of Michael Fassbender. yuss.

either way, you'd better keep your maiden name

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    So this article from the Telegraph which I found through the aforementioned (totally awesome) http://fuckyeahharrietwalter.tumblr.com/ tells us that:

• You are getting married in something off-white (oh my stars I must have pictures as soon as physically possible)
• Your fiancé, Guy Paul, is actually named Guy Schuessler (blimey)
• You're getting married May 21 (oh gosh)
• You still wear Mr Blythe's ring (FRIGGIN' AWWWWW)
• You have been learning to ride horses (hnnnng awyeah)

    Also, I am currently so poor (and so...American...) that I'm not sure I can buy your new book Facing It any time soon. Damnation and hellfrogs. And my 19th birthday was a couple weeks ago now so I can't ask someone for it as a birthday present. Hrrrrgrarrrrarar.

    Let us conclude with a picture of your fiancé, because the face of the current luckiest bastard in the world is a face worth noting. (Please ask him to wear nicer ties.)

Thank you again for finding this picture for me, JP!

fellowship! fraternity! fandom!

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    Oh my giddy goodness and sweet merciful Sherlock Holmes on a pink moped.

    I've just discovered http://fuckyeahharrietwalter.tumblr.com/.

    Excuse me while I stand over in this corner and die of happiness.

basically my face right now.

unfortunately I just can't see you two as a couple

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    One knows that one's Fred Astaire obsession is getting out of hand when one is typing in the url for IMDB and one sees this:

Search prompts for the letters "im".

    I'm trying to tell myself that Fred's movies just have more trivia and things but gosh I just feel dirty looking at that screenshot. Do I really look at his page that much more than I look at yours?

     Hold on, I need to count whose movies I've seen more of.

    Fred: 19 movies and the parts of Ziegfeld Follies as had him in. 19.5 total.
    Harriet: 12 movies, 6 miniseries/TV shows, 3 movies/tv shows that had you in such tiny roles that they basically don't count (Rebecca, "Marple: Sleeping Murder", "Five Days"). 18 things and 3 almost-things total.

    HRRRRRRRRRRMMM.

    That's counting all three of the Dorothy L Sayers Mysteries miniseries as one miniseries, of course, which I'm not sure if I ought to do or not. (Side note: I used to know several Romanian people over the internet who used "serie" as the singular of "series". I've looked at a couple of dictionaries and I still can't figure out if it's an additional correct form or not.)

    And besides, if I could un-see Finian's Rainbow I totally would, and that would bring the Fred-total down to a more even range. (My new glass eyeballs are a pain.)

    MAYBE I JUST NEED TO WATCH MORE HARRIET WALTER MOVIES AND RESOLVE THE ISSUE, HRRRMMMM

    Obviously my life is now a battleground between King Fred Astaire and Queen Harriet Walter.

whyyyy do I not have any quality screencaps of Queen Harriet Walter whyyy

    Obviously.

My Super Top Secret LPW Fanvid

    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.

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!

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.

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.)

interview

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    So the other day I came across this article from January discussing your...can I call it "elevation to damehood"? Is damehood a word?...No it is not. Neither is "dameness". Why is knighthood a word but damehood isn't? Isn't a dame kind of the equivalent?

    Whoa off track. What I wanted to say was that not only is it a nice little interview (or, you know, mini-bio, I mean gosh), but the words "She is writing a book to accompany them" (them being your collected photographs of older women in your Infinite Variety show) make me skippingly happy. Also making me happy are little things like the positive ending, the fact of people paying attention to you (nottheonlyonehwawaha) and the fact that you still get, you know, work. And damehoods. (Dammit, it ought to be a word.)

    Oh, and regarding the article's...sub-heading I think one calls it, their use of the word "throes" is, like, Awkwardsville. I mean, do intelligent, well-rounded, experienced 60-year-olds really go through "throes" with new romancings? Is that even something that happens?

    On a related note, I don't know if it means anything beyond extreme and bone-deep flippancy but when we heard from this article that you've got romance happenin' (yay), my sister and I both independently wondered if you and Janet McTeer were gay with each other now. Seriously. It's so weird, I don't even know why. I had just decided not to wonder it out loud when my sister did so and I was like "...".
    But the end of the article says that the (stupid-lucky) person you're embarking on a beach-walk-of-the-heart with is an American actor, so Janet's not really an option!

    I expect to hear from the tabloids that you're dating George Clooney. Any day now.

Image taken from the article in question, lazy me. Also, this image's url ends in "/Harriet-Walker-007.jpg". The name mishap is rather wince-making, but the "007" is...intriguing. "Walter. Harriet Walter."

Ballet Shoes (2007)

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    Watching a movie I've never seen before which has you in it is always exciting. Questions like "what will she do", "what will she look like", "what will she say" and so on arise. And the film could be a rotting, soggy heap of Useless Drivel in all other respects (read: The Governess (1998)) but always I know, I know, I know with all of my knowings that at least a few moments of the whole will be totally worth it.

    Ballet Shoes (2007) delivered in this way. Oh, oh, how it delivered.

    Language is a mysterious and wonderful thing. Once in rather a while, noises and letters can be neurologically processed into explosions of happiness in under a second, and it's entirely normal and good.

    I didn't know what those moments in Ballet Shoes as had you in would be like when I watched it a few months ago. If someone had caused such an explosion (of happiness) by saying to me, "Ballet Shoes has a couple scenes with Harriet Walter wearing a monocle", I don't know exactly how I would have reacted. The revelation came as a surprise. Even now it lights my days and makes me unable to sleep at night for gleeful wriggling.

    Harriet Walter wearing a monocle.

    (tiny images are tiny and can be clicked for maximization and maximum awesome.)

(yes this has no monocle but I can think of no reason to exclude it)

slightly terrifying Gemma Jones is slightly terrifying.

    I don't know whose idea it was but they need a very shiny award right now.

yeah film adaptations

(written at a previous date)

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    I want to write awesome novels. I want to have my awesome novels published. I want Hollywood to approach me with contracts and greed and be like well hello there little missy, can we make your awesome novels into movies/miniseries?

    And then I'll be like sure thing man, but you have to give me consultation/veto rights on the casting k

    and they'll be like hmm, well, maybe, did you have anyone in mind for any particular roles?

    and I'll be like I think Harriet Walter should play So-and-so

    and they'll be like but...So-and-so is a young man with three mohawks and things...

    and I'll be like whateverrr, she can pull it off, don't you have faith in your costumery/makeup department

    and they'll be like uhh, we're not sure that -

    and I'll be like Harriet Walter needs to play What's-her-face, too, if you want to make this at all!

    and they'll be like what? you mean, instead of So-and-so, surely?

    and I'll be like no, we have to cast her in both roles!

    and they'll be like madam, we can't do that! are you really -

    and I'll be like and she should also play Dr Someone!

    and they'll be like ...

    and I'll be like HARRIET WALTER SHOULD PLAY EVERYONE

    and they'll be like Miss, are you feeling all r-

    and I'll be like EEEVERRRRYYYYYOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNEE

    and then I will stick to my terms and keep renewing my copyrights and write very clear instructions into my will and no one will ever make a movie or miniseries based on my novels, which will be just fine by me.

only way to do things right.

      (image linked from here, and let us notice that Dolly Parton also resides in that same photo gallery and seeing her, I would like to thank you, Ms Walter, for not doing unnatural things to your face. And for dressing awesomely. Can we come up with a good, happy word for "wrinkles" that is less degrading and not so phonetically horrible? Because wrinkles in moderation are sexy and distinguished and I wish Ms Parton had allowed them into her life. I tried a thesaurus but only got awful results like "crinkle" and "crease" and "fold", which are obviously unacceptable. And why do people still use the word "crow's-feet" for the wrinkles around one's eyes? Facial crow's-feet don't even look like the feet of crows. I suppose it must be poetic license. Nothing more romantic than the idea of one's face being trampled by grubby, squawking things that look disease-ridden even when they aren't.)

identify

(written at a previous date)

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    I love Lord Peter Wimsey. I am in love with Lord Peter Wimsey.

    I can't really identify with Lord Peter Wimsey.

    I am female. I am way younger than he is in any of the stories. I am poor. I am not universally fabulous. I am not talkative, quick-witted, a fast thinker, highly educated (yet), British, a war veteran, good with people, romantic or good at detection.

    I can't identify with Lord Peter as portrayed by Mr Ian Carmichael. Ian Carmichael is old and fat and made slightly creepy by the incongruity between his fattened oldness and his light, bouncy adopted speech, which flings Gs away with the maddened velocity of denial. (That is to say that he sounds rather affected and fake.)

Huuuu boy.

    I can't particularly identify with Lord Peter as portrayed by Mr Edward Petherbridge. Edward Petherbridge has, through his youtube videoblogging, become something of a cinematic British grandfather-figure to me. I adore him, but I watch his portrayal of Lord Peter as a grandchild would have their grandparent's old photo album from younger times shown to them and say, "gosh, Grandpapa, you were a looker back in the day!" if they had a habit of saying things before thinking those things through.

Yuss.

    I could almost identify with Peter-bridge through his devotion to a character (an awesome character) played by you, Ms Walter, except that he has a rather unusual and offputting method of expressing adoration and love and smitten-ness and so on with his face. Like, he looks kind of like he wants to stab you.

Umyeahaboutthat. (image taken from here.)

would you kindly get out of my personal space, miss vane?

                     

 (This is, I am more than happy to admit, a perfectly wonderful moment of loveface. I often think that the two of you had agreeable chemistry most of the time and completely devastating chemistry at certain well-placed moments.)

    Anyway. To get back to my theme.

    The times when I can best identify with any Lord Peter, be he literary, Carmichael or Petherbridge, is when I am watching Petherbridge as Peter and he's looking at (I want to type "loving on") a photo of you.

    At those times I am, like, one with the man. One and shining. Because I've just been there so many times. It's like "hey I'm not the only one!"

(iamsuchadork)

(let the reader note that I do in fact adore Edward Petherbridge)