And should you glimpse my wandering form out on the borderline

[sovay]

Happy birthday, ungodchild!

My poem "Migration" is now online at Lone Star Stories. It was written in 2006 as an exercise in mainstream poetry, which failed, but I'm not complaining about the results.

Two nights ago was a DVD sale at Barnes & Noble. Guess who now owns Criterion's 1938 Pygmalion? I should probably write something more eloquent about this film than sorry, Rex Harrison.

Today was my grandfather's birthday observed; my aunt Naomi is in from San Francisco, and my brother and his fiancée crashed earlier this evening. To anyone who has ever wondered if it's possible to make a lemon meringue shortcake, the answer is yes, but it has an incredibly short lifespan.

This cold should buzz off, please. I have things I need to do.

Comments

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday to the ungodchild!

Congratulations on the online publication, and the new DVD.

Lemon meringue shortcake sounds interesting--I'm trying to envision it, and failing slightly, which in the morning will no doubt seem ridiculous.

I hope the cold takes your advice and leaves soon.

[sovay]

Congratulations on the online publication, and the new DVD.

Thank you!

Lemon meringue shortcake sounds interesting--I'm trying to envision it, and failing slightly, which in the morning will no doubt seem ridiculous.

Substratum of shortbread, mantle of lemon curd, meringue on top. Barring the eternal stirring of the lemon curd (which never thickens as quickly as it's supposed to, possibly because we don't use cornstarch), it took surprisingly little time to prepare.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

Most welcome!

Substratum of shortbread, mantle of lemon curd, meringue on top. Barring the eternal stirring of the lemon curd (which never thickens as quickly as it's supposed to, possibly because we don't use cornstarch), it took surprisingly little time to prepare.

Sounds lovely. I'm assuming it has a short lifespan because folk devour it on sight?

[sovay]

I'm assuming it has a short lifespan because folk devour it on sight?

Yep. It is our natural prey.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Yep. It is our natural prey.

Then you're a very lucky group of predators indeed.

PS

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

My mother asks if you've tried adding raspberries.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I like your lines on the halt of Canada geese (sentinel and ten pilgrims), and also this one:

The eastern moon hangs higher than the sun.
The roads thicken homeward, clotting

Especially that second line; I loved that.... keep turning it over in my head.

[sovay]

Especially that second line; I loved that.... keep turning it over in my head.

Thank you!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

They changed the end of the 1938 Pygmalion from the stage version, and not to its advantage. Other than that, I liked it a lot.

[sovay]

They changed the end of the 1938 Pygmalion from the stage version, and not to its advantage.

It works for me, possibly because I grew up on My Fair Lady—I had always wondered when the romantic element was introduced from play to musical, and now I know; the film is the fossil link between them—and if you want me to buy any kind of connection between Eliza and Henry Higgins, frankly I'll believe Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller much more readily than Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. But I like the non-Shavian twist that all the while Higgins thinks he's fashioning a duchess out of a squashed cabbage leaf, he's being knocked himself into something like human shape: Pygmalion both ways. That interests me more than whether I think they marry.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Leslie Howard, right? I was thinking about your review of Pimpernel Smith the other day; when I first saw it I was maybe seventeen, and dismissed it out of hand because I didn't like (Raymond Massey?)'s version of Chauvelin. To me, you see, the formative Chauvelin was Ian McKellen...though I also liked that weirdly butch dude they got for the more recent A&E adaptations. But all of this has convinced me the perfect Scarlet Pimpernel has yet to be made, and possibly would have to be cast piece-meal using cross-time image-capture technology that doesn't as yet exist, except for Pepsi commercials.

[sovay]

Leslie Howard, right?

Leslie Howard. I love him.

I was thinking about your review of Pimpernel Smith the other day; when I first saw it I was maybe seventeen, and dismissed it out of hand because I didn't like (Raymond Massey?)'s version of Chauvelin.

Do you mean The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)? That is Raymond Massey, who I'm also very fond of. What about his Chauvelin doesn't work for you?

(I've never actually seen another version, unless you count the original cast recording of the Frank Wildhorn musical.)

and possibly would have to be cast piece-meal using cross-time image-capture technology that doesn't as yet exist, except for Pepsi commercials.

*snerk*

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

No, that's odd...I was sure you reviewed Pimpernel Smith, a (then-)updated version that someone did during the initial years of WW2 which pits Howard as a guy-who-is-like-the-Pimpernel against the Nazis, at one point. Weren't you talking about having rented a VHS version of it from the library, because it had never been released on DVD? Or am I just INSANE?!?

Anyhoo: I know I saw that, and I know I didn't like the Chauvelin, whoever he was--I think because he wasn't even vaguely as morally grey and yet genuinely committed as Chauvelin should be. Of course, my liking for Chauvelin comes in large part out of my sympathy for all the people behind the French Revolution...I'm a big fan of Robespierre, for example, even in all his hypocritical, OCD, Goddess of Reason-worshipping weirdness. But yeah, I get a big kick out of Chauvelin being a former ci-devant aristo who actually believes more strongly in the Revolution than some of its backbone members do. And it's simply a lot harder to feel that way if you make the dude in question a Nazi.

[sovay]

I was sure you reviewed Pimpernel Smith, a (then-)updated version that someone did during the initial years of WW2 which pits Howard as a guy-who-is-like-the-Pimpernel against the Nazis, at one point.

No, no, you are not hallucinating—I did watch and review Pimpernel Smith last year. I'm sorry. It was your mention of Chauvelin which confused me, especially since Leslie Howard stars in the 1934 Scarlet Pimpernel. I hadn't realized you'd ever seen Pimpernel Smith! No one else I know has. I really shouldn't be surprised.

I'm a big fan of Robespierre, for example, even in all his hypocritical, OCD, Goddess of Reason-worshipping weirdness.

Can we hope for a cameo in Year Zero?

But yeah, I get a big kick out of Chauvelin being a former ci-devant aristo who actually believes more strongly in the Revolution than some of its backbone members do. And it's simply a lot harder to feel that way if you make the dude in question a Nazi.

I don't know. There is a character like that in Powell and Pressburger's 49th Parallel (1941)—a latecomer to the Party who makes even his commander, a Nazi for the last eleven years, nervous. Converts are hardcore.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Year Zero has waaay too many characters as it is. Though I think I at least mentioned Citizen R. a couple of times in "Year Zero" the short story...

Never saw 49th Parallel, though I know I should. You're much more caught up on the Powell/Pressburger ouevre than I am, aside from say Peeping Tom. But yeah, converts are hardcore; that's the lure of it, isn't it?

[sovay]

Never saw 49th Parallel, though I know I should.

A Canterbury Tale (1944) is the one I lean on people to see—I think it's their best and strangest and it is one of my favorite things on film. But I recommend all their work I've seen. Even A Matter of Life and Death (1946), which mostly leaves me cold, has some neat brain science and an escalator between heaven, earth, and hell.

[gwynnega]

Congrats on the poem. And yay Pygmalion!

[sovay]

Congrats on the poem.

Thank you!

And yay Pygmalion!

Always.

[seajules]

I love that poem. Though the images are different in specifics, the rhythm reminds me of playing among the wharfs in San Francisco as a child, and on the beach used for PT while my mother shopped in the commissary.

[sovay]

Though the images are different in specifics, the rhythm reminds me of playing among the wharfs in San Francisco as a child, and on the beach used for PT while my mother shopped in the commissary.

It's still the sea: I'm honored. Thank you!

[clarionj.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this. Especially this morning when I needed something (do I always or do you just post at the right time?).

I've experienced what you've written here so many times, and I've never captured it like this (I don't know that I've ever written it at all, just watched). So, I'm very pleased to now have a poem to say this is the world I've just been through. I love so much in your images, the ferry curling back the harbor, parchment haze, the way I see the landscape receding and in that feeling the movement away, the sea breathing, cordgrass, tundra, and tiger stripes, craned with industry ... haha, I always do this ... I think to pull one or two images/word choices I love, and I write the whole poem.

Just thank you. So good to read this before I start my own writing today.

[clarionj.livejournal.com]

Oh, one other thing, Sonya. Do you mind if I link to your online poems in my LJ? I'd like other people to read them, but I don't know if you prefer to keep control of your audience :)

[sovay]

Just thank you. So good to read this before I start my own writing today.

Thank you! I hope soon to read what you write.

Do you mind if I link to your online poems in my LJ?

Not at all!