Miscellanous stuff

[estepheia]

I feel vaguely virtuous. I spent several hours gardening and weeding over the past few days. My garden looks quite nice already. I buried lots of flower bulbs last autumn, and now I have several bunches of beautiful yellow mini-tulips that I'd forgotten I ever planted. :-) Lots of weeds, though. After about 6 hours of thorough weeding I'm still only half-way through. :-(


I watched Dead Again with a friend tonight and then introduced her to the opening scenes of Branagh's wondefully warm Much Ado About Nothing (Kenau Reeves was never prettier) and his powerful Henry V. And now I feel like watching his other movies again, like Peter's Friends and In the Bleak Midwinter. Branagh is definitely one of my favorite directors. Other favorites are Howard Hawks and Clint Eastwood.

I finally started rewriting Let's Talk About Sex. I always felt that the opening chapters were pretty weak, so I tinkered with them a few times, but now I am quite resolved. I already added the first revamped chapter to my archive. The others will follow in short succession. I intend to get rid of a few pet peeves of mine. I'm also de-woobiefying Spike a little and making his utterances choppier. There were also formatting problems, inconsistent punctuation, and a few other problems that I'm hoping to eliminate without compromising the essence of the series.
I'm hoping to get back into a Spander frame of mind so I can work on my Spander WIPs. My Xander voice and my Spike voice are both (more than) a little rusty these days.

Toyah seems to have fully recovered. She eats like a horse and she played with a friend all afternoon. I'll send her back to kindergarten on Tuesday. Tomorrow she's allowed to stay at home. Meaning very little writing time for me. *sigh*

Eyes is growing on me. Slick. Blind Justice gets bad ratings but I still like the show. Numb3rs is cute. Dare I admit that I adore Peter MacNicol's character, the physicist, more than the (very cute) main characters? I am getting a bit bored with the whole maths angle, but the soap stuff is fun. Oh, and the last House episode had a few very powerful scenes. Hugh Laurie rocks! Amazing how different Gregory House is from Bertie in Jeeves and Wooster or, for that matter, from his various Blackadder appearances.

Comments

[makd.livejournal.com]

Great news about Torah. Give her hugs from me, yeah?

[estepheia.livejournal.com]

Will do. :-)

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

Wonderful news about Toyah.

[estepheia.livejournal.com]

We are quite relieved that she's bouncing back so well.

[zyrya]

I'm so glad Toyah is on the mend. And very glad you're writing again! I love 'Let's talk' and I can't wait to read your new work.

Branagh's one of my favourite directors, too. I wrote a paper for uni on his 'Henry V', so watched it over and over (and over!), but I must see 'Dead Again' because I've only seen that once.

[estepheia.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I wrote a paper on Branagh's Henry V as well! I compared his version of the Battle of Agincourt with Olivier's, and rambled on about what really happened on the battlefield that day. My lecturer liked it so much, he published it in an anthology...

It's a fine movie. I also love his Hamlet a lot. Very beautiful - although I'm slightly more partial to Kosinzev's version. :-)

I didn't like Love's Labour's Lost. *shudder*

[zyrya]

I loved him in 'Othello', too, because Iago is always played as a hand-wringing, mustachios-twirling "I'll get you, my pretty!" villian, and it makes so much more sense that he'd be a personable, charming man. I have his 'Hamlet' on tape but still haven't watched it ... Hamlet annoys the hell out of me.

Is your Henry V paper online? Mine's here:
http://220.244.124.18/study/henryv.html

[shatten.livejournal.com]

Try "Theory of Flight" where Branagh is a little less over the top than in most of his other films... Actually a cool film all the way through and Helen Bohnem Carter should have won and oscar for it, but in typical fashion they have already given out an award for a handy cap roll to Hoffman for rainman, so I guess that wont happen again for a generation or more...

[estepheia.livejournal.com]

I think I've seen it but it didn't leave a lasting impression.

Hey, aren't you supposed to be in Vegas? What are you doing, reading LJ in VEGAS???

Tsk.

Man, I'm so green with envy. Is this about your computer book?

[shatten.livejournal.com]

I'm on wireless hi fi in my hotel room sufering from jet lag :-(

[estepheia.livejournal.com]

But you're THERE!

Have fun, Paul!!!!!

[tesla321.livejournal.com]

I adore Branagh, but I've never seen "In the Bleak Midwinter".
Good?

[estepheia.livejournal.com]

Good?? Brilliant! It's a quaint little movie about the every day insanity of being an actor at the bottom rung of acting fame. The main character is a neurotic actor who puts Hamlet on stage for charity (played by the guy who played the Dauphin in Henry V). His agent gives him her office for auditions and some funding. Now, the casting scenes alone are hi-larious. (e.g. A man reads for the Gertrude part - and gets it!) From then onwards the project is beset by quarrels, and technical problems...

There is some marvellous structural irony in some of the editing. The movie tries to be 'small' and comes across as wonderfully charming. Extremely realistic, with loveable characters. A must see, IMHO.

Branagh does not star in it, he's merely the director. But some of the faces in the movie are familiar.

:-)

[quasi-hayley.livejournal.com]

I hear you on the Branagh films. I saw his four hour adaptation of Hamlet in the middle of the night one time and went on to watch everything he'd ever done in the following week. Kenneth Branagh is awesome.

[estepheia.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, his Hamlet is awesome! Long, but very good.
Have you seen Kositzev's b&w Hamlet (called 'Gamlet') - a Russian version that won a prize in Cannes in the sixties. Fascinating imagery, very focused on the political angle, where the Mel Gibson one focused on the whole Oedipus angle (not entirely successfully, if I may say so).

I love comparing Hamlet adaptations. :-)

And yeah, Branagh's movies are interesting/fascinating. I must have seen his Henry V at least 6 times.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Such good news about Toyah, and Branagh's "Much Ado" and "Henry V" are two of my favorite films ever. Mmm, "Peter's Friends" is excellent, too. Now you've got me interested in re-watching them!

(And yay for Spander!)

[estepheia.livejournal.com]

Heee. Yeah, I'm interested in rewatching too. My friend is coming again next Sunday. We'll definitely watch another one of Branagh's movies then. Possibly In the Bleak Midwinter, because the casting scene is just so good... :-)

And Spander feels odd, these days. Boy, is my Spike out of character in LTAS. *cringes*

[kenyacandoit.livejournal.com]

I, too, love Much Ado About Nothing and Peter's Friends.

Yay! for a recovered Toyah!

And Yay! for possible S/X updates. I reread Let's Talk About Sex a few weeks ago, but would be more than happy to do it again when you finish tweaking. Will you update us on that and any S/X updates? Could I use the word "update" more?

Thank you.

[estepheia.livejournal.com]

LOL. I just rewrote the second chapter. I hope to do this a chapter a day. I just hope I don't kill the naive charm of the story, but seriously, it really needs a bit more snark and better embedding in canon.

*cringe*

So, if you reread it recently, maybe you can tell me eventually if you like the improved version better. I don't intend to remove the old version entirely...

[rubywisp.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear that Toyah's better. :)

[estepheia.livejournal.com]

Thanks. She's still a little off-kilter, easily annoyed or crushed if things don't go her way, but all in all I'm pleased how quickly she's putting everything behind her. The hospital staff were wo nice that the whole stay wasn't really traumatic.

Besides, Toyah is quite resilient. Thank god.

Having to cook fat-free meals is a bit of a bother, since Toyah likes unhealthy food best. :-)

[fishsanwitt]

Don't remind me about weeds. ::passes out from the jungle in our backyard::

Yay that Toyah is all better :)

[estepheia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, weeds suck. I just hope I didn't kill any real flowers. I've been pretty rigorous. LOL.
Today I'll plant a few flours. I look forward to that. Also the kids have seeds to plant.... I am determined to have a nice garden this summer. Mmm, BBQs...

:-)

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Good news about Toyah indeed.

Gina

[estepheia.livejournal.com]

Say, Gina, may I please link to your Ethan/Lorne story?

I am recommending (instead of archiving) a few stories over at the Spike/Ethan archive, that pair the characters with others - and I believe your drabble set is great and deserves a rec. :-)

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Awww, I'm all flattered. Go right ahead. Webbed version at http://pinkdormouse.org.uk/fiction/emerald_city.htm

Gina

[shapinglight]

Glad Toyah is so much better.