The dust in darkness makes me wheeze

[sovay]

I dreamed last night that I was lost in a museum. It was cavernous and patchily lit and its walls were sliced out of some dark, veined stone, in which black and bronze-colored fossils—ammonites, spined worms, plated fish—were embedded, but there were also stone and metal sculptures and eighteenth-century canvases and cases of parchment maps with the names of Arctic cities written in Latin, and crowds of people who all seemed to know where their favorite galleries were, while I wandered in and out of rooms, trying to get as far away as possible from the family with whom I'd been fighting, who were only about half my real-life own. This was supposed to be the American Museum of Something or Other, though from the outside it had looked like an ornate villa with iron balconies and granite cornerstones and swarms of ivy on the roof-tiles; I remember there was a lightning theater, and a kind of causeway between two of the galleries, with an immense-eyed mosaic on the floor. But the more rooms I hurried through, the more I felt I was falling back in time. The people around me were not the visitors to the musem that day, but the visitors from ten years ago, or a century, or the dates of the paintings I passed. There were things made out of horn and bone in little windows in the walls, beneath the belemnites and lithographs of Venice. I might not ever have been able to surface back into my own time, and I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't been woken by the wind banging into the blinds; by the time I got back to sleep, the dream had mutated into some weird fanfiction, and I remember that much less vividly. I blame Russian Ark and P.C. Hodgell's Dark of the Moon, and maybe a little of Mary Gentle's Carthage Ascendant and greygirlbeast. But I also think I've dreamed of this place before—not inside the museum, but the configuration of buildings that I saw from outside. Maybe it's my own interior version of the Smithsonian. Either way, it was not a pleasant dream. It just had great scenery.

So. Content.

I caught the plague a few days before Christmas, and spent as much of the week as I could almost literally in bed: my brain dissolved into slurry and I was even more exhausted than usual. That was not fun. The last few days, however, have been a distinct improvement. On Monday, I walked into Arlington Center, and despite the fact that the used book store I wanted turned out to be closed for New Year's and I had to walk back in the drizzling rain, it was a great advance to be on my feet and conscious and relatively coherent, and not to fall over as soon as I got home; in the evening fleurdelis28 came over for the traditional New Year's fondue and we watched Wallace and Gromit and talked way more about capital punishment than I think either of us had expected. (New Year's Eve itself had been celebrated with the Marx Brothers, who were on TCM. At midnight, we raced upstairs, threw the front door open, and shouted, banged pots, and blew the conch shell, a time-honored ritual guaranteed to drive away bad luck and infuriate the neighbors.) On Tuesday, schreibergasse and Grace stopped by for a night on their way back from Portland; we visited Pandemonium in its new location, had dinner in Porter Square and a game-playing evening in Arlington with some friends of theirs, and experienced the wonder that is a steep raise in T fares. The Charlie Ticket was sadly, aptly named. On Wednesday, I walked back into Arlington Center and the used book store was open, so now I have what I wanted from them. And yesterday I walked into Harvard Square, which has determined me to buy new shoes, and met with nineweaving for Burdick's and dinner and catching-up conversation. I am now the proud owner of Liikkuva Linna, which is the Finnish translation of Howl's Moving Castle, with cover by Miyazaki and signature by the author. Since Diana Wynne Jones is one of the earliest writers I can remember, this is unexpectedly cool.

And today I am packing and unpacking, and wondering if I should rent M*A*S*H on DVD. But my brother is home for the weekend, so I think I'd rather talk with him instead. He's more infrequently accessible, and besides, he brought me a knife.

Comments

[wyldemusick.livejournal.com]

I started picking up the M*A*S*H DVDs whenever I can get them cheaply, although I'm tempted by the recent box set with all eleven seasons.

I recently started watching the series, and like it quite a bit, despite some issues here and there with characters and storytelling. As someone said to me recently, even the bad episodes are usually better than most series on their good days.

[lesser-celery.livejournal.com]

I caught the plague a few days before Christmas, and spent as much of the week as I could almost literally in bed: my brain dissolved into slurry and I was even more exhausted than usual. That was not fun. The last few days, however, have been a distinct improvement.

I'm glad that you have beaten back the peste, risen from your death mat, and enjoyed the past few days. Quite the dream: parchment maps and Arctic cities.

[sovay]

Quite the dream: parchment maps and Arctic cities.

Kind of Lovecraftian, actually . . . They were sort of like the Vinland Map, only more detailed and legitimate.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

You were getting crosstalk from my web browsing: I was researching whether anyone runs scheduled ferry service to Ultima Thule. (It seems not, which is to be regretted. But one can get there on various "expedition" boats.)

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear about the plague, but glad your condition's improved.

And congrats on the interesting Wynne Jones find!

Dare I ask what you thought of the film? ;-)

[sovay]

Dare I ask what you thought of the film?

The adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle? I actually haven't seen it; enough seems to have been changed from the book that I remain wary, no matter how many people have told me that it's very good. The book was one of my childhood touchstones, so I'm not quite sure I'm ready to see it differently.

[sovay]

I was researching whether anyone runs scheduled ferry service to Ultima Thule.

May I steal "The Ferry to Ultima Thule" as a title for something?

[sovay]

despite some issues here and there with characters and storytelling.

In what sense? I've now seen five episodes, mostly from the fourth season, and the characterization does interest me. Probably my favorite so far was the black-and-white episode where all the characters are interviewed as though by a real-life reporter, a sort of historical broadcast, but the next one in the marathon was the first I'd seen where Frank Burns wasn't an utter asshat (although my mother, who watched the series for years, informs me that this was a temporary state of affairs), which also caught my attention. What worked for you, or what didn't?

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

I blame Russian Ark and P.C. Hodgell's Dark of the Moon, and maybe a little of Mary Gentle's Carthage Ascendant and greygirlbeast.

I figured it wouldn't be Night at the Museum (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0477347/). But I certainly saw Russian Ark in it. If you didn't mention it, I was going to.

I caught the plague a few days before Christmas,

The Secular Progressives must be implementing biological warfare on Christmas!

he brought me a knife.

What kind of knife?

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

All yours. Send postcard when you get there!

[sovay]

But I certainly saw Russian Ark in it. If you didn't mention it, I was going to.

Yeah. But the steady progression back in time the more rooms I went through, I think, pretty clearly comes from the Master's House in Dark of the Moon—the layers of time in Russian Ark are much more shapeless and fluid.

The Secular Progressives must be implementing biological warfare on Christmas!

*snerk*

What kind of knife?

A small black liner-lock knife that looks like a raven's beak or a fossil skull when it's not fully locked back on itself, because of the serrations along the blade; I think it's mostly for cutting twine or opening boxes, but I like it. Traditionally he has given me pocketknives as holiday presents, so this is along the same spectrum.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Zut, I just lost the response to this I'd put together.

In short, I don't think I could commend the film to your attention. It was a good Miyazaki movie, albeit not one of his absolute best, but a poor adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle, cos he essentially took Sophie and Howl and the Castle (along with Calcifer and a few other characters) and stuck them into a standard-issue Miyazaki story about standard-issue Miyazaki issues. And set the whole thing in a steampunky anime Mitteleuropa.

I wasn't especially offended once I accepted that the storyline wasn't going to be that of HMC and Howl wasn't going to be a Welshman from our world and reminded myself that it's more ironic than offensive that a Japanese director can't tell the difference between creampuff comic-opera Austria-Hungary and a bucolic rural-England-analogue, but I didn't read HMC until I was an adult. If it had been a central text of my childhood, I would've been ticked, I think.

[sovay]

cos he essentially took Sophie and Howl and the Castle (along with Calcifer and a few other characters) and stuck them into a standard-issue Miyazaki story about standard-issue Miyazaki issues.

I have heard this from other reviewers, which always made me wonder why he chose to adapt Howl's Moving Castle rather than write a film of his own with a tip of the hat in Diana Wynne Jones' direction.

and Howl wasn't going to be a Welshman from our world

That remains one of my favorite aspects of the book, especially once I realized where Calcifer's saucepan song came from, and the night that Howl comes back trashed from his rugby club reunion.

If it had been a central text of my childhood, I would've been ticked, I think.

I doubt I'd be offended by the movie, and I honestly don't think that it would ruin the book for me, but I'm still not sure I need to see it.