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At three A.M., I sleep again
This afternoon: met ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lesser_celery in Harvard Square and did not drown from walking to Rodney's and back, but it was a close thing. We had a single umbrella between us. It took the left side of my jacket until about six-thirty to dry out.
This evening:teenybuffalo came over; we ate cake-thick brownies and watched The Flesh and the Fiends (1960). George Rose and Donald Pleasence as Burke and Hare, Peter Cushing as Dr. Knox. This is the sort of film I should devote a real review to and almost certainly won't, because I have to get up early tomorrow; suffice to say that we were prepared for a penny dreadful and got a terrific dark historical drama with twinges of the Glasgow-grin humor of Sweeney Todd ("Nobody touched her! Willie just killed her, that's all") and a surprisingly unsentimental approach to its murders, anticipating by six years the famous scene in Hitchcock's Torn Curtain—actually killing another human being is an unwieldy, inefficient business if you're not used to it. Pleasence is brilliant, a rags-and-bobs dandy with a sly air of deference and a sickened fascination with the violence required to turn a drunken lodger into a salable corpse. Cushing's Knox is a curious variation on his Frankenstein, genuinely committed to the improvement of medical science, but with very little time for those students or colleagues who can't shrug off a little moral blood on their hands in its pursuit; it is again a tribute to his ability to play sudden, shocking vulnerability that the film is able to pull a last-minute quasi-redemption out of its ear for him. There is a pointless vanilla romance, but it can fortunately be ignored in favor of the much more sympathetic pairing of a struggling med student and a prostitute who resists being reformed; there were also way more frankly-shot tits than we were expecting, probably because we watched the Continental cut. Recommended, as you might be able to tell.
About two hours ago: discovered a first edition of Connie Willis' Doomsday Book (1992) stacked horizontally on a shelf in the music room, which astonishes me because I could have sworn we got rid of that book years ago. More specifically, I could have sworn we got rid of the mass-market paperback I inherited in college because I bounced off it; at that point the only Willis I'd read and liked was "Fire Watch" and Remake (1995). Several people recommended the novel to me recently, so I was keeping a desultory eye out in used book stores; I'd glanced through the house just in case and found nothing. I am forced to conclude this hardcover spontaneously manifested. Now, of course, it will always have been here. It cannot be accidental that I found it between A Tale of Time City (1987) and The Lantern Bearers (1959).
I love the idea of bribing children to do their war work with Mars Bars.
lesser_celery in Harvard Square and did not drown from walking to Rodney's and back, but it was a close thing. We had a single umbrella between us. It took the left side of my jacket until about six-thirty to dry out.This evening:
teenybuffalo came over; we ate cake-thick brownies and watched The Flesh and the Fiends (1960). George Rose and Donald Pleasence as Burke and Hare, Peter Cushing as Dr. Knox. This is the sort of film I should devote a real review to and almost certainly won't, because I have to get up early tomorrow; suffice to say that we were prepared for a penny dreadful and got a terrific dark historical drama with twinges of the Glasgow-grin humor of Sweeney Todd ("Nobody touched her! Willie just killed her, that's all") and a surprisingly unsentimental approach to its murders, anticipating by six years the famous scene in Hitchcock's Torn Curtain—actually killing another human being is an unwieldy, inefficient business if you're not used to it. Pleasence is brilliant, a rags-and-bobs dandy with a sly air of deference and a sickened fascination with the violence required to turn a drunken lodger into a salable corpse. Cushing's Knox is a curious variation on his Frankenstein, genuinely committed to the improvement of medical science, but with very little time for those students or colleagues who can't shrug off a little moral blood on their hands in its pursuit; it is again a tribute to his ability to play sudden, shocking vulnerability that the film is able to pull a last-minute quasi-redemption out of its ear for him. There is a pointless vanilla romance, but it can fortunately be ignored in favor of the much more sympathetic pairing of a struggling med student and a prostitute who resists being reformed; there were also way more frankly-shot tits than we were expecting, probably because we watched the Continental cut. Recommended, as you might be able to tell.About two hours ago: discovered a first edition of Connie Willis' Doomsday Book (1992) stacked horizontally on a shelf in the music room, which astonishes me because I could have sworn we got rid of that book years ago. More specifically, I could have sworn we got rid of the mass-market paperback I inherited in college because I bounced off it; at that point the only Willis I'd read and liked was "Fire Watch" and Remake (1995). Several people recommended the novel to me recently, so I was keeping a desultory eye out in used book stores; I'd glanced through the house just in case and found nothing. I am forced to conclude this hardcover spontaneously manifested. Now, of course, it will always have been here. It cannot be accidental that I found it between A Tale of Time City (1987) and The Lantern Bearers (1959).
I love the idea of bribing children to do their war work with Mars Bars.
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Man, you're magnificent.
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Clearly at one time you were making yourself an apocalypse section.
I'm trying to interpret the grin of the man watching the boy dig for chocolate - in a tie! Affectionate laughter, or (as I suspect) derision?
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I think it's accreting of its own accord!
(The next book down is Peter Rushforth's Kindergarten (1979). Help.)
Affectionate laughter, or (as I suspect) derision?
He shouldn't laugh too hard; someone's been teaching those kids to use oxyacetylene.
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Your shelves have a strange sensibility. I like it.
Nine
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Re Doomsday Book, having now read Blackout and All Clear, aka We Have No Good Reason for Having Split This Volume, it is at least good to read if you want to read those two.
MARS FOR MERIT. *staples Milky Way over computer monitor*
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It's not exactly a plot twist!
having now read Blackout and All Clear, aka We Have No Good Reason for Having Split This Volume, it is at least good to read if you want to read those two.
How do they hold up as novels themselves? I've read mixed reviews.
*staples Milky Way over computer monitor*
Always glad to help.
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(Was the unreformed prostitute the remarkably lovely girl from the Canongate who eventually ends up *SPOILER but it's in the court records* ?)
I schlurped through Blackout and was so annoyed at the gimmick of splitting off All Clear that I enjoyed it much less, and I think one could actually not-read it unless one needs closure. I do think Connie Willis is a reincarnated WAC disguised as a mild-mannered midwesterner, though; she has imbibed Blitz Britain and now exudes it flawlessly onto the page.
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It is entirely possible; the timing would have been right.
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Nine
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"G is for George, smothered under a rug . . ."
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Cushing does seem to play such characters an awful lot--but hearing that he does it again in this film just makes me want to immediately watch it!
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It's worth watching! And he's not a carbon copy; it's just that steel-rimmed intelligence, which is hard not to want to exploit.
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http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~spacelem/peter_cushing.jpg
I apologize for the duplication, if it's old news to you...
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No, I'd never seen that. Thank you. Yay.
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So, you've received an apported copy of Doomsday Book, it sounds like. I hope you don't next get something horrifying, like Twilight. I've read To Say Nothing of the Dog, which I gather is a sequel or at least related to DB--I enjoyed TSNotD, but I'm not sure I'd care for the other. Curious to hear what you think of it, I will be.
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I cannot imagine what there would be here for it to generate out of; but in that unpleasant eventuality, it will be burned with tongs.
I enjoyed TSNotD, but I'm not sure I'd care for the other. Curious to hear what you think of it, I will be.
I find her style a little odd, but the plot and what I can glimpse of the characters are pulling me along; I certainly plan to keep reading.
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That sounds like a good plan. I hope you're right about it being a case of spontaneous generation, and therefore not a process likely to result in books leading to this reaction. I was envisioning poltergeist-type phenomena and the book being an apport, thus opening up the possibility of an entity with terrible taste in books (or malicious intent) becoming involved.
I find her style a little odd, but the plot and what I can glimpse of the characters are pulling me along; I certainly plan to keep reading.
That's good. I hope you enjoy it.