To the dentist in the morning to have a temporary crown affixed, with all the attendant drilling and sticking your entire jaw into gel and such. At least it fixes a hole that had become quite annoying during eating.
Instead of nitrous oxide, which I've probably had enough of, this dentist believes in relaxing his patients by prescribing them a little pill. It must be some powerful pill, because the pharmacy had raised a huge fuss over dispensing any of it, and the dentist subsequently earned my gratitude by being willing to negotiate the pharmacy's labyrinthine phone tree in order to get this settled.
One takes it the evening before, and I immediately drifted off to eight hours of a dreamless sleep. Immediately on returning home from the dentist (B. drove, both ways), I drifted off to eight hours of a dreamless sleep again, which wasted the whole afternoon. Pandora, I was later told, got on top of me in hopes of arousing me for feeding, but no luck.
We've had the outside furnace door locked, so I'm afraid it's now off-limits for homeless men to huddle and risk getting monoed or burning down the house.
I'm going to Potlatch, but now I find all sorts of tempting concerts going on at home that weekend. And, when I'm there, the Seattle Symphony is off for the week. Rats. The things I do for science fiction.
Kalimac's corner: a journal by DB
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
DVD reviews
Midnight in Paris. It was a good thing when Woody Allen finally stopped playing the Woody Allen character in Woody Allen movies. Now he leaves it to people like Owen Wilson, who is actually much better at it. The whimsical plot of this movie creaks and groans a great deal in getting itself set up, but once it's off and rolling - that is, once Owen accepts what's happening to him and just goes with the flow - it's an absolute delight from then on through the last drop. The previous Woody film it most resembles is The Purple Rose of Cairo. It's not quite as good, but the theme is the same: can you live in your fantasies?
Three other points. 1) In one sense, the plot is about the inevitable breakup of Owen and his fiancée. Usually I find such stories too sad and upsetting to watch. But they're so obviously utterly unsuited for each other from square one, and it's handled so lightly and skillfully, I didn't mind. (It's necessary, however, to empathize with the goofball him rather than the brittle her, and I'd like to hear from women who've seen it if this was a problem for them.) 2) In another sense, it's a love letter to Paris. I've never been to Paris, but mutatis mutandis (a big caveat, for the cities have very different atmospheres) the street scenes of this movie remind me vividly of what it's like to just walk around Rome, so now I feel I know what it's like to walk around Paris. Thanks, Woody. 3) After you watch the movie, watch the trailer. It's an amazing trailer. It gives simultaneously an accurate and a cheekily misleading idea of what the movie is like, and, unlike every other movie trailer of the past couple decades, it doesn't summarize or even give away the plot. Amazing.
Nightmare Alley. The 1947 film noir with Tyrone Power. Watched as a crude substitute for reading the novel, which I don't want to do, but I was curious. First reaction: A lot of good acting, too much of it gone to waste on typically crappy Forties-movie romantic dialog. Second reaction: Oh, come on, would that carny blather really work on everyone? "Every boy has a dog," say the shysters, so every man will think the description of the image of a boy running barefoot through the hills with a dog is him. Well, I didn't have a dog. I never ran barefoot either. Did have hills, though. Third reaction: This is supposed to be the story of the fall of an over-reaching man. Actually, though, it's mostly about his rise, leaving his fall to be stuffed hastily, details mostly undepicted, in the last reel. Fourth reaction: Yes, that was a big flashing neon plot sign prefiguring the end of the movie at the very beginning. I thought so. Final reaction: Wow, what a creepy story. No wonder the author's wife left him.
The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries. The original BBC adaptations, with Ian Carmichael. I saw these when they were first on Masterpiece Theatre decades ago, but I'd only ever seen a couple of them since. In fact they were my introduction to Sayers, almost the only canonical murder-mystery novelist I really like. Take the eleven Wimsey novels, remove the four with Harriet Vane (whom the producers obviously didn't want to handle), delete the two remaining ones which are the least good, and you have the five of this series. They turn out to be quite delightful, particularly in catching stock British tv actors of the day whom I recognize from The Prisoner etc. In fact, one of them was one of the Castle Anthrax "doctors" ("They, uh, have a basic medical training, yes") in Holy Grail. Holy blood!
The least successful was the adaptation of one of the best books, Murder Must Advertise. Too much of what makes that story delightful had to be edited out to fit, and Paul Darrow, later to win fame as the psychopathic Avon on Blakes 7, is too coiled and repressed to be well-cast as the weak, self-indulgent Tallboy. He's just about the only case of that, though. The script for The Nine Tailors, best of the five originals, tears the novel apart entirely but rebuilds it moderately well. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club is better still, with some great small parts. Clouds of Witness actually improves on a somewhat dodgy novel. Best of all the adaptations was Five Red Herrings. I've only read the novel once; I found it difficult to keep track of who was who among seven irascible Scottish landscape painters, nor could I work up much interest in which one of them killed which other one of them, and when, amid a welter of railway timetables. But on television, where you can see all seven and try to remember which is which, it works pretty well.
By the way: though all five stories are set off by a dead body, only two of them turn out to be actual murders, with villainous intent to kill.
Three other points. 1) In one sense, the plot is about the inevitable breakup of Owen and his fiancée. Usually I find such stories too sad and upsetting to watch. But they're so obviously utterly unsuited for each other from square one, and it's handled so lightly and skillfully, I didn't mind. (It's necessary, however, to empathize with the goofball him rather than the brittle her, and I'd like to hear from women who've seen it if this was a problem for them.) 2) In another sense, it's a love letter to Paris. I've never been to Paris, but mutatis mutandis (a big caveat, for the cities have very different atmospheres) the street scenes of this movie remind me vividly of what it's like to just walk around Rome, so now I feel I know what it's like to walk around Paris. Thanks, Woody. 3) After you watch the movie, watch the trailer. It's an amazing trailer. It gives simultaneously an accurate and a cheekily misleading idea of what the movie is like, and, unlike every other movie trailer of the past couple decades, it doesn't summarize or even give away the plot. Amazing.
Nightmare Alley. The 1947 film noir with Tyrone Power. Watched as a crude substitute for reading the novel, which I don't want to do, but I was curious. First reaction: A lot of good acting, too much of it gone to waste on typically crappy Forties-movie romantic dialog. Second reaction: Oh, come on, would that carny blather really work on everyone? "Every boy has a dog," say the shysters, so every man will think the description of the image of a boy running barefoot through the hills with a dog is him. Well, I didn't have a dog. I never ran barefoot either. Did have hills, though. Third reaction: This is supposed to be the story of the fall of an over-reaching man. Actually, though, it's mostly about his rise, leaving his fall to be stuffed hastily, details mostly undepicted, in the last reel. Fourth reaction: Yes, that was a big flashing neon plot sign prefiguring the end of the movie at the very beginning. I thought so. Final reaction: Wow, what a creepy story. No wonder the author's wife left him.
The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries. The original BBC adaptations, with Ian Carmichael. I saw these when they were first on Masterpiece Theatre decades ago, but I'd only ever seen a couple of them since. In fact they were my introduction to Sayers, almost the only canonical murder-mystery novelist I really like. Take the eleven Wimsey novels, remove the four with Harriet Vane (whom the producers obviously didn't want to handle), delete the two remaining ones which are the least good, and you have the five of this series. They turn out to be quite delightful, particularly in catching stock British tv actors of the day whom I recognize from The Prisoner etc. In fact, one of them was one of the Castle Anthrax "doctors" ("They, uh, have a basic medical training, yes") in Holy Grail. Holy blood!
The least successful was the adaptation of one of the best books, Murder Must Advertise. Too much of what makes that story delightful had to be edited out to fit, and Paul Darrow, later to win fame as the psychopathic Avon on Blakes 7, is too coiled and repressed to be well-cast as the weak, self-indulgent Tallboy. He's just about the only case of that, though. The script for The Nine Tailors, best of the five originals, tears the novel apart entirely but rebuilds it moderately well. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club is better still, with some great small parts. Clouds of Witness actually improves on a somewhat dodgy novel. Best of all the adaptations was Five Red Herrings. I've only read the novel once; I found it difficult to keep track of who was who among seven irascible Scottish landscape painters, nor could I work up much interest in which one of them killed which other one of them, and when, amid a welter of railway timetables. But on television, where you can see all seven and try to remember which is which, it works pretty well.
By the way: though all five stories are set off by a dead body, only two of them turn out to be actual murders, with villainous intent to kill.
Monday, January 9, 2012
King John and the Bastard
My Shakespeare reading group's play tonight was The Life and Death of King John, a play now so obscure that some may not even know Shakespeare wrote a play on that subject. It should be played more often; it's quite dramatically effective. And it suffers from having the most famous most misquoted line in Shakespeare: "to gild refined gold, to paint the lily" (Act 4, Scene 2), usually rendered as "to gild the lily," which doesn't make any sense, or, rather, the original version is the one that doesn't make sense, both (and several others in the same speech) being cited as examples of "wasteful and ridiculous excess."
Among the dramatis personae are characters called "the Bastard" and "the Lord Bigot". I knew Shakespeare wrote propaganda, but this is ridiculous. (For the humor-impaired: that was a joke.)
I got to read Hubert the Executioner in the emotional scene where Prince Arthur pleads not to have his eyes put out. Rather than making him sound deep and clumsy like Wilfred Shadbolt, I tried for a lighter voice vaguely inspired by that of another famous Hubert, Humphrey. I also got to be the aforementioned Bastard in one scene. He's one of Shakespeare's fine examples of a loose, casual-speaking character. Done with a bit of gum-chewing drawl he's a lot of fun to play. And also the leading citizen of Angiers, who when asked to declare allegiance either to John or to Philip of France (representing Arthur's rights), basically says "Let's you and him fight over it." And when they reply, "We've got a better idea. Let's both of us unite and destroy you first, and then we can discuss who gets the allegiance of the ruins," hastily changes his mind.
Among the dramatis personae are characters called "the Bastard" and "the Lord Bigot". I knew Shakespeare wrote propaganda, but this is ridiculous. (For the humor-impaired: that was a joke.)
I got to read Hubert the Executioner in the emotional scene where Prince Arthur pleads not to have his eyes put out. Rather than making him sound deep and clumsy like Wilfred Shadbolt, I tried for a lighter voice vaguely inspired by that of another famous Hubert, Humphrey. I also got to be the aforementioned Bastard in one scene. He's one of Shakespeare's fine examples of a loose, casual-speaking character. Done with a bit of gum-chewing drawl he's a lot of fun to play. And also the leading citizen of Angiers, who when asked to declare allegiance either to John or to Philip of France (representing Arthur's rights), basically says "Let's you and him fight over it." And when they reply, "We've got a better idea. Let's both of us unite and destroy you first, and then we can discuss who gets the allegiance of the ruins," hastily changes his mind.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
and about time
Found this photo recently. Everybody knows that Obama has a dog, so here for a change is Obama petting a cat. Or "stroking", as they call it over there, this being Larry, who lives in Downing Street with the title of Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office. (Some guy in the background of the picture might also have a job thereabouts.)
Friday, January 6, 2012
passported
I suddenly remembered something I'd taken note of several months ago and then forgotten about, which was that my passport was about to expire. I'm not planning any foreign trips any time soon (I might go to Canada sometime, and you need a passport for that these days, and I might go to Arizona, and with their new laws I'm not going there without a passport either), but I feel unequipped without a valid passport in the house.
All the forms may now be found on the State Dept. website. That leaves the fee ($110 for a renewal, ouch) and the photo. Put on my jacket and tie, because this is official business, and went to a notary office deep in the Silicon Valley industrial zone. They took four photos, trying for one in which I keep my head straight and don't squint. Concluded that the first one was the best - is it not always so? - and printed that.
All the forms may now be found on the State Dept. website. That leaves the fee ($110 for a renewal, ouch) and the photo. Put on my jacket and tie, because this is official business, and went to a notary office deep in the Silicon Valley industrial zone. They took four photos, trying for one in which I keep my head straight and don't squint. Concluded that the first one was the best - is it not always so? - and printed that.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
follow-ups
1. To my list of things written last year.
I had another article in press that slipped my mind, one which arrived in print yesterday with a last year's date on it: "A Tolkien Classification System" in the December issue, no. 32, of that intensely special-interest occasional magazine, The Tolkien Collector. It's a discussion of and outline for a suggested way for prolific collectors to arrange their books by and especially those about Tolkien in an order more interesting and possibly more useful than just author and title, drawing on my long professional experience with fine-grained library classification.
I also have an article that I submitted to Chunga when the newly-released issue was being first prepared, so if it's accepted it'll be in the next one, but I haven't heard back from the editors about it yet.
2. Pyffe asked, since I'd posted my song to feed cats by, if I might post my alluded-to songs to clean litter boxes by. Actually, most of them are just nonsense reworkings, but there is one rather more special. The delightful singer-songwriters Lou and Peter Berryman have an old-home nostalgia song called "Your State's Name Here", which you may hear them perform on this video. Lou sings generic lyrics in praise of a generic state, and at any point where something specific is called for, Peter interrupts with words like "your state's name here" or "the state songbird" or "place a colloquialism right here," all of which of course fit the rhythm and rhyme scheme of the rest of the lyrics perfectly.
It seemed to me that this song was crying out for a parody called "Your Cat's Name Here," and many years ago B. and I collaborated on writing one, which we performed with great success at a couple of filksings when I was still attending them occasionally. I won't print the entire lyrics here, but there were a lot of comic references to annoying feline behaviors that cat owners like us somehow put up with and even find endearing, and the chorus alludes to a daily duty that never seems to show up in other paeans to cats, so I tend to sing it while performing that duty. It goes like this, the first singer's part in ordinary type and the second singer's interjections in bold brackets:
I had another article in press that slipped my mind, one which arrived in print yesterday with a last year's date on it: "A Tolkien Classification System" in the December issue, no. 32, of that intensely special-interest occasional magazine, The Tolkien Collector. It's a discussion of and outline for a suggested way for prolific collectors to arrange their books by and especially those about Tolkien in an order more interesting and possibly more useful than just author and title, drawing on my long professional experience with fine-grained library classification.
I also have an article that I submitted to Chunga when the newly-released issue was being first prepared, so if it's accepted it'll be in the next one, but I haven't heard back from the editors about it yet.
2. Pyffe asked, since I'd posted my song to feed cats by, if I might post my alluded-to songs to clean litter boxes by. Actually, most of them are just nonsense reworkings, but there is one rather more special. The delightful singer-songwriters Lou and Peter Berryman have an old-home nostalgia song called "Your State's Name Here", which you may hear them perform on this video. Lou sings generic lyrics in praise of a generic state, and at any point where something specific is called for, Peter interrupts with words like "your state's name here" or "the state songbird" or "place a colloquialism right here," all of which of course fit the rhythm and rhyme scheme of the rest of the lyrics perfectly.
It seemed to me that this song was crying out for a parody called "Your Cat's Name Here," and many years ago B. and I collaborated on writing one, which we performed with great success at a couple of filksings when I was still attending them occasionally. I won't print the entire lyrics here, but there were a lot of comic references to annoying feline behaviors that cat owners like us somehow put up with and even find endearing, and the chorus alludes to a daily duty that never seems to show up in other paeans to cats, so I tend to sing it while performing that duty. It goes like this, the first singer's part in ordinary type and the second singer's interjections in bold brackets:
Oh, [your cat's name here], oh, [again], what a cat
She always brings presents, a fish, bird, or rat
When I rise in the morning, each day of the year
I clean out the catbox of [your cat's name here]
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
concert review update
Review of the concert I attended last weekend. All Beethoven, all the time. Such conservative programming won't get any complaints from me when it's played this well. Music is a performing art: even masterpieces need to be performed to live.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
75 years ago
Today, the sainted Geri Sullivan reminds us, is the 75th anniversary of the first science fiction convention, which was held in Leeds, Yorkshire.
A few miles to the south, 75 years ago was also the 45th birthday anniversary of the author whose first book that would today be eligible for a Hugo, The Hobbit, was already in press and would be published in September. In fact, only the following day he would send the two endpaper maps to his editor. At that point nobody - author or publisher - had the slightest notion of what would be in store after that, least of all the impending doom I wrote about last month.
Anyway, happy birthday, JRRT. He's 120 today - "twelvety," I guess, as 111 is "eleventy-one."
A few miles to the south, 75 years ago was also the 45th birthday anniversary of the author whose first book that would today be eligible for a Hugo, The Hobbit, was already in press and would be published in September. In fact, only the following day he would send the two endpaper maps to his editor. At that point nobody - author or publisher - had the slightest notion of what would be in store after that, least of all the impending doom I wrote about last month.
Anyway, happy birthday, JRRT. He's 120 today - "twelvety," I guess, as 111 is "eleventy-one."
Monday, January 2, 2012
on feeding cats
I have my songs for cleaning litterboxes; now I find I have one for the rarely-ceased task of feeding them. This is mostly about skinny Pandora, but chubby Pippin makes a guest appearance in the bridge.
Hungry kitty, you're the one
You make breakfast lots of fun
Hungry kitty, you've got to have food, it's true
Doo doo doo dee doo
Hungry kitty, joy of joys
Till I feed you, you make noise
Hungry kitty, I'm somehow still fond of you
Oh oh oh …
Every day when I
Make my way from the tubby
I find a little fellow who's
Cute and orange and chubby
Rub a dub dubby
Hungry kitty, you're so thin
Yet you scarf that food all in
Hungry kitty, I'm going to keep feeding you
(and if you don't recognize the tune, it's this classic)
Hungry kitty, you're the one
You make breakfast lots of fun
Hungry kitty, you've got to have food, it's true
Doo doo doo dee doo
Hungry kitty, joy of joys
Till I feed you, you make noise
Hungry kitty, I'm somehow still fond of you
Oh oh oh …
Every day when I
Make my way from the tubby
I find a little fellow who's
Cute and orange and chubby
Rub a dub dubby
Hungry kitty, you're so thin
Yet you scarf that food all in
Hungry kitty, I'm going to keep feeding you
(and if you don't recognize the tune, it's this classic)
Sunday, January 1, 2012
peace and a concert
This was a quiet new year's for us. For once, we were both in bed and asleep before the witching hour. Aside from Friday's wedding and a New Year's Eve celebratory lunch, my only commemorative indulgence was a New Year's Day afternoon concert and dinner afterwards. The concert was by the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra and was titled "I Like Ludwig," and they didn't mean Ludwig Spohr. A solid two hours of the essence, the quiddity, of mid-period Beethoven from an orchestra of unparalleled grit and color, enough to make even a jaded listener - I hope - remember how he came to be considered a great composer in the first place. I shall be saying so in my review, which is to be written next. Happy Asimov's birthday on Monday and Tolkien's birthday on Tuesday; I shall have to find equally sedate ways of celebrating those.
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