I should wait here for a bit. I rather like this place

Richard Morant has died. I saw him in none of the roles mentioned in this obituary; I knew him as Bunter to Edward Petherbridge's Wimsey. He was younger than I'd thought from the books, but the rapport was there. I never had any difficulty picturing him as a photography geek. He was a year older than my mother and I object to this.

One of the bloggers over at TCM's Movie Morlocks has just thrown her hat into the ring for favorite mad scientist: Robert Cornthwaite's Dr. Arthur Carrington from The Thing from Another World (1951). It's weirdly heartening to see that I'm not the only person who enthuses (I wrote "blithers," but that's unfair to the blogger) about random character actors and their memorable roles, but now I have to wonder who I'd choose. After hours of dealing with fudge, fruitcakes, a plum pudding which has just finished boiling, and the molten orange apricot-glazed sponge cake I turned last night's failed batch of fudge into filling for, I think I am tending toward boring on account of brain-dead—I thought instantly of Ernest Thesiger, Dr. Septimus Pretorius from Bride of Frankenstein (1935). This is probably like being asked for a favorite dessert and saying chocolate. (Which isn't my favorite dessert, actually.) The obvious challenger is C.A. Rotwang, but apparently tonight I feel like waspish corpse-stitching over tragic proto-robotics. The Man in the White Suit (1951) is one of the best pieces of science fiction onscreen in its decade, but I'm not exclusively enamored of Sidney Stratton, I just love watching the chaos he innocently creates. Fujimoto from Ponyo (2008) is more of a magician, magnificent sea-worshipping bundle of nerves though he is. Hans Conried's Dr. Terwilliker is a mad music teacher. Bishop—Lance Henriksen, Aliens (1986)—isn't actually mad.

Und so weiter. I could go on like this for some time. (Craziest mad scientist I've seen onscreen: Dr. Emilio Lizardo, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension (1984). The man is introduced clipping electrodes to his tongue. He normalizes slightly once he starts with his plans for interdimensional invasion. Ladies and gentlemen, John Lithgow.) But at least until I wake up tomorrow and remember which standout of cinematic strangeness I've left off the shortlist, I'm sticking with one of the classics. Who's yours?

I got a girl in the war, Paul, her eyes are like champagne

I am supposed to finish two poems by tonight. I don't know if it can be done. I didn't sleep very much. The subjects are not difficult ones, which means I really don't want to knock something out with my eyes closed; I don't want to be facile. Anyway, I had to run a bunch of errands with my brother. This is what I wrote with a borrowed pen on the rental car receipt he had in his glove compartment, because I forgot my usual pad and pencil, but for God's sake I am not going to start taking my laptop to the grocery store. It's the equivalent of my brain doodling. I'm terrified it will be better than whatever poem I can actually make myself write.

He never built himself another wife, Hephaistos. The lame, shamed god, wedded to war's lover: I imagine him one of the boys in the back room, watching her dance with soldiers, as carelessly alluring as he finds it hard to get words around things instead of fire, wires, springs, wheels. This could be a war movie: the boffin whose beautiful wife is having it off with the military's golden boy and everyone knows it. He's an aircraft engineer if her lover is a flier; if he's regular army, then it's explosives or artillery. Either way, it's her husband's hard work that her lover takes to war. Being thrown off Olympos is like having one of your inventions blow up in your face, you're never quite sure what will set anything off ever again. You're safest in your workshop, where sparks or chemicals still aren't as volatile as people. It was an arranged marriage, mythologically. I hate love triangles, so maybe historical poly will save the day. There's no point in expecting monogamy from a goddess of desire. Or let's cut out the middleman: it's modern, Hephaistos a programmer or an artist (a welder), Aphrodite the soldier he's married. She goes off to war again and again while he worries, in love with the shock of adrenaline, drawn back to the battlefield away from their bed. I don't know the ending to this one. I don't know if there is one.

I am really extraordinarily tired.