Throwing down roots in my own time
The one silver lining of the slow-motion apocalypse of the supply chain is that having each given the other IOUs for our respective birthdays, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rushthatspeaks and I were able to exchange birthday presents this evening. I had ordered him a dress of purple dragons from Princess Awesome that arrived three months late thanks in part to a typhoon; he had gotten me Sean Sherman and Beth Dooley's The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen (2017). We read through the latter hungrily. I will need to find a local source of juniper. Then he showed me Patrick McHale's Over the Garden Wall (2014), which I firmly believe should be an October tradition. Within the first few episodes, I was comparing its autumn country to Ray Bradbury and Greer Gilman; by the end of it I would add Nathaniel Hawthorne, H.P. Lovecraft, and Carl Sandburg, but a catalogue of pastiche misses the point that it while it is full of echoes and allusions and hat-tips, it is also very much its own fairy tale and as successful a new one as I have seen in ages. It is funny and eerie and awkward and poignant and intensely liminal. The time-slipped specifically New England flavor was particularly attractive to me. Plus I knew both of the opera singers in the cast, whom I hadn't been expecting at all. I would like to get hold of the soundtrack. The animation would be satisfying just to stare at, but the story seems to have rung hard with me and I am all right with that. In some ways I have had so little of this month.
rushthatspeaks and I were able to exchange birthday presents this evening. I had ordered him a dress of purple dragons from Princess Awesome that arrived three months late thanks in part to a typhoon; he had gotten me Sean Sherman and Beth Dooley's The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen (2017). We read through the latter hungrily. I will need to find a local source of juniper. Then he showed me Patrick McHale's Over the Garden Wall (2014), which I firmly believe should be an October tradition. Within the first few episodes, I was comparing its autumn country to Ray Bradbury and Greer Gilman; by the end of it I would add Nathaniel Hawthorne, H.P. Lovecraft, and Carl Sandburg, but a catalogue of pastiche misses the point that it while it is full of echoes and allusions and hat-tips, it is also very much its own fairy tale and as successful a new one as I have seen in ages. It is funny and eerie and awkward and poignant and intensely liminal. The time-slipped specifically New England flavor was particularly attractive to me. Plus I knew both of the opera singers in the cast, whom I hadn't been expecting at all. I would like to get hold of the soundtrack. The animation would be satisfying just to stare at, but the story seems to have rung hard with me and I am all right with that. In some ways I have had so little of this month.
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Oooh, besides juniper, I see "venison, duck, blueberries, sage, amaranth, and abundant wildflowers."
It is funny and eerie and awkward and poignant and intensely liminal.
This sounds amazing. I've just put it on my watchlist. And gosh, I'm thrilled to be in that autumnal company.
Happy Rebirthdays!
*hugs*
Nine
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I thought so as soon as I saw it announced! Which was back in the spring. I understand the terrifying number the pandemic is doing on supply and distribution, but I still feel the typhoon was egregious.
Oooh, besides juniper, I see "venison, duck, blueberries, sage, amaranth, and abundant wildflowers."
This sounds amazing. I've just put it on my watchlist. And gosh, I'm thrilled to be in that autumnal company.
I hope you enjoy it! It is profoundly October.
Happy Rebirthdays!
Thank you!
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Also, that dress is awesome and now I want to buy things from this company.
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Yay!
Also, that dress is awesome and now I want to buy things from this company.
I recommend them highly. We have been successfully clothing my niece in their products since she was very small and I even have a couple of shirts of theirs—most recently the rainbow orb weaver. They are very good on dragons.
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It brings autumn with it wherever it goes!
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A friend of mine is hosting a pre-Halloween watch party later this week!
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That is an excellent kind of party to have around this time of year! How did it go or is it yet to come? (I lost most of this week to my immune system.)
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Plus I knew both of the opera singers in the cast, whom I hadn't been expecting at all.
Besides the Beast, who is the other character voiced by an opera singer?
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Awesome!
Besides the Beast, who is the other character voiced by an opera singer?
Deborah Voigt as the Queen of the Clouds.
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I truly loved it. I am planning to purchase a copy of my own so that I can rewatch it at need and share it with the rest of my family. It's a miniseries, but it's ten episodes of eleven minutes each, so it can be watched in the time of an ordinary movie. I had heard of it when it came out, but basically just that it existed; it won the Emmy in its year for Outstanding Animated Program and it deserved it.
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I have never heard of Amphibia, but if their fantasy tolerance can cope with anything called The Dragon Prince, Over the Garden Wall is worth a shot—it's not high fantasy, it's sort of an American autumnal yene velt—and there is a significant frog in it. And lots of music.
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I believe it. I wasn't joking about Bradbury. There are ways in which it is even more resonant with me than his October country which I grew up on.
I bought my old roommate the soundtrack on vinyl; she of course took it with her to her new place and as autumn intensifies I have been feeling an increasing need to acquire my own.
I have no means of playing vinyl myself, but I sympathize with and support your plan!
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Oh, wonderful! Thank you for checking. That was the major ingredient we didn't immediately know where to lay hands on.
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I liked the frogs.
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They are quite excellent frogs.
(How neat of the queer youth center!)
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The other point of comparison that I draw with it and must badger other people into seeing as well is The Fantasticks. There's a particular sort of Americana vibe to it, as well as the whole seasonal idea, of course. Which was your favorite segment? I love the Pottsfield episode - "You'll join us someday."
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Yes! And I love how if you recognize him, he brings an entire performance history of Mephistopheles and Nick Shadow and the four villains of Les contes d'Hoffmann with him, and if you don't, it's still remarkable voice work. The cast is truly ridiculous. You want Shirley Jones, John Cleese, and Christopher Lloyd in the same project? Ta-da. Have some Tim Curry.
The other point of comparison that I draw with it and must badger other people into seeing as well is The Fantasticks.
I associate The Fantasticks so inevitably with September that an October comparison didn't occur to me, but I appreciate you bringing it up! Very strongly agreed on the Americana. The Carl Sandburg it reminded me of is specifically the Rootabaga Stories.
Which was your favorite segment? I love the Pottsfield episode - "You'll join us someday."
I don't know if I had an individual favorite, but Pottsfield—even more than the pilot—was an amazing calling card for the show. I was fairly blown away by the finale, honestly, in terms of sticking the landing.
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That reprise of the opening number, with the montage, is really lovely. (Which is part of what makes me draw the Fantasticks connection, also! Drawing the curtain over everything as the snow falls.)