sovay: (Rotwang)
sovay ([personal profile] sovay) wrote2012-09-06 09:38 pm

I've come to fix the sink

And this morning I had a set of complex anxiety dreams about construction, but that is because the plumbers arrived at [livejournal.com profile] derspatchel and [livejournal.com profile] ratatosk's around nine o'clock and by nine-thirty had flooded the kitchen. (No, the washer hose was not supposed to do that.) Deadpanned the older of the two on his way to the downstairs half-bath: "No charge for washing the floor." I just can't believe none of us had the presence of mind to imitate a parrot.

1. I took a silly quiz! For the first time in years! Courtesy of [livejournal.com profile] rinue on Facebook, WETA's Sherlock Personality Quiz. Apparently I'm Mycroft:

You are Mycroft Holmes. It's possible you hold a minor position in the government. By which we mean, you probably run it. Organized, mysterious and well-connected, you're a master of manipulation and surprisingly adept at kidnapping people. You're actually the smartest person in your family, despite the fact that most people tend to pay more attention to your more dramatic sibling. You are the person in your social circle most likely to have a minion. (Or two.) And your diet is going just fine, thank you.

I don't have any minions! Where do I file an application?

2. [livejournal.com profile] houseboatonstyx has alerted to me to the existence of the complete online text of Vachel Lindsay's The Art of the Moving Picture (1915, although this appears to be the revised edition of 1922). It's certainly about movies; the book has a claim to being the first significant work of film criticism. It is also at least half manifesto, verging on revelation. He is reminded of Poe every time he looks at Chaplin and wishes the makers of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari had applied German Expressionism to the myth of Isis and Osiris. (I don't actually disagree with him on that point. Especially considering Conrad Veidt.) Later on, he rhapsodizes about the Book of the Dead ("Man is an Egyptian first, before he is any other type of civilized being. The Nile flows through his heart") and the shadowy, dream-flickery likeness of a movie theater to a spell-pictured tomb, the class of scientific and artistic visionaries he refers to as prophet-wizards and inventor-seers whose necessary union he views as a kind of alchemical process ("We shall have a tin heaven and a tin earth, if the scientists are allowed exclusive command of our highest hours"), and it all goes fascinatingly transcendent in the last chapter, America as the New Jerusalem as a perpetual World's Fair:

Why should we not consider ourselves a deathless Panama-Pacific Exposition on a coast-to-coast scale? . . . If it is not possible to bring in the New Jerusalem to-day, by public act, with every citizen eating bread and honey under his vine and fig-tree, owning forty acres and a mule, singing hymns and saying prayers all his leisure hours, it is still reasonable to think out tremendous things the American people can do, in the light of what they have done, without sacrificing any of their native cussedness or kick. It was sprawling Chicago that in 1893 achieved the White City. The automobile routes bind the states together closer than muddy counties were held in 1893. A "Permanent World's Fair" may be a phrase distressing to the literal mind. Perhaps it would be better to say "An Architect's America."

Take that, John Winthrop. You only thought everyone was watching Boston?

3. Have a new photo of Emily Dickinson.

Otherwise Rob and I went to M3 for the third time in two weeks (the pan-fried catfish with harissa is much more delicately spiced than it sounds, the duck fat burger is pure savory on a bun) and Backbar for our absinthe on fire and nobody gave anyone pomegranates; no one is bound. I voted. I am making my mother's coconut-and-chicken curry. Tomorrow I see [livejournal.com profile] rushthatspeaks.

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2012-09-07 01:40 am (UTC)(link)
commenting quickly while the precious, precious internet is still working: please, a curry with coconut *and pomegranates*

Also, absinthe on fire? green into red? How wonderful THAT must be.

Take that, John Winthrop

Can't you just see him sulking?

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2012-09-07 01:43 am (UTC)(link)
P.S. You are the first person in your circle most likely to have a minion?

I find that distressingly potential. Let's excise that most likely. The fact that you have not yet come into possession of said minions does not mean that you will not still be the first.


(two, count them, two comments, and my unreliable evening Internet has not yet crapped out!)

[identity profile] barry-king.livejournal.com 2012-09-07 02:49 am (UTC)(link)
Apparently, I'm Molly Cooper. It's a vile accuracy.

*hmf*... I could have a minion if I wanted to. It's just I've got too much to do right now.

[identity profile] andrian6.livejournal.com 2012-09-07 01:44 am (UTC)(link)
Apparently Mycroft (http://www.weta.org/tv/picks/sherlock/quiz/mycroft) is popular this evening.

Ah, now to find the alternate universe where there is a German Expressionist Isis & Osiris.

[identity profile] andrian6.livejournal.com 2012-09-07 12:41 pm (UTC)(link)
I think he's what happens if you check all the boxes for intelligence but would actually save your pet in the event of a fire.

And here I thought the work schedule made the difference.

Ah, now to find the alternate universe where there is a German Expressionist Isis & Osiris.
Burn me a DVD!

Working on it. Alternate universe film preservation is a tricky business. We're still rescuing uncut Josef Von Sternberg films...

[identity profile] ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com 2012-09-07 04:20 am (UTC)(link)
I don't have any minions! Where do I file an application?

I wish I knew. I could probably use a minion or two, myself. My dog says she's my minion, but her notion of being a minion seems closer to my being her minion.

2.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing this.

3. Have a new photo of Emily Dickinson.

Thanks! It's interesting that there are so few photographs of her--I wasn't aware of that.

...nobody gave anyone pomegranates; no one is bound.

That's good.

I am making my mother's coconut-and-chicken curry.

Sounds delicious. Is it made of coconut milk, or pieces of coconut flesh? Or both?

I hope ye have a lovely tomorrow.
larryhammer: floral print origami penguin, facing left (Default)

[personal profile] larryhammer 2012-09-07 04:47 am (UTC)(link)
Have a new photo of Emily Dickinson.

!!

[identity profile] strange-selkie.livejournal.com 2012-09-07 11:48 am (UTC)(link)
They did find Phineas Gage, have you seen? Except for lacking the eye, he's not so bad.

c/o Diogenes Club

[identity profile] steepholm.livejournal.com 2012-09-07 07:51 am (UTC)(link)
I was fully expecting to be Mycroft, but turned out to be Sherlock. Where did I go wrong?

[identity profile] ashlyme.livejournal.com 2012-09-07 08:30 am (UTC)(link)
O Lor'. Turns out I'm Mycroft as well. It would be nice to have minions, but Martin's gone to work, sadly.

(I was holding out for Wiggins; it's a shame The Baker Street Irregulars never made it to Sherlock.)

I am *drooling* at the thought of of an Expressionist Isis and Osiris. Not doing my netbook any good, but my God, I would love to see that.

Duck is the one meat I miss from time to time; I'd definitely join you in a flaming absinthe though, even with the risk of rigor mortis to follow. Have a good day with Rush.
selidor: (Janus)

[personal profile] selidor 2012-09-07 12:43 pm (UTC)(link)
I have occasional spare minions! Mostly they just need supervision on working out the distance scale for the universe. (Minions one can give back again after having for a while are the best kind).

See, now I have to jailbreak my Kindle so I can put the new Dickinson photo on there; the sketch of her always makes me happy when it turns up.

America as the New Jerusalem as a perpetual World's Fair
I'm not sure I should forgive my brain for immediately mashing this together with Men in Black. And then adding in Journey of the Magi; something about the vine-leaves...

[identity profile] snowy-owlet.livejournal.com 2012-09-07 01:18 pm (UTC)(link)
1. How in the world did I get Sherlock? I am WAY too perky for that.

2. The "I'm the plumbah; I'm heyah to fix duh sink" is one of my favorite earworms.

[identity profile] lesser-celery.livejournal.com 2012-09-07 06:31 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm Molly Hooper :)

Otherwise Rob and I went to M3 for the third time in two weeks (the pan-fried catfish with harissa is much more delicately spiced than it sounds...)

Because nothing says Southern dining like harissa! Sounds terrific.
ext_13979: (Default)

[identity profile] ajodasso.livejournal.com 2012-09-07 09:01 pm (UTC)(link)
The Nile flows through his heart.

Don't know why, but I'm very struck by that line, and would be equally so if the pronoun were anything else. Pan-fried catfish? Oh, God. That sounds so good it's torturous.