I never get arrested, you know

[sovay]

This has already been a week!

On Monday, people were useful to me on the internet. Thank you for that.

On Tuesday, I exchanged a lot of links with strange_selkie about Bletchley and the SOE and continued the theme later that evening by meeting derspatchel for dinner and watching The Red Machine (2009), which at that point I had been trying and failing to catch at various festivals for two years. The DVD was my birthday present from my brother. Very happily, it turned out to be worth the wait. It is a beautiful little crime-and-cryptographer caper with a cast full of character faces and no budget to speak of and not a wasted shot in its eighty-four minutes, some of them very classically composed, too; it has the resourcefulness of a Golden Age B-picture, but it takes full advantage of the atmospherics of color film. It doesn't overplay its period slang, either Navy or underworld. (It does know its way around the Denver Post.) No one in the story is inscrutable, although Lee Perkins' Lieutenant F. Ellis Coburn is giving it his best brass-bound try. And if it is not a historical account of the breaking of the Japanese "Red" cipher machine in 1935, it wins major points with me for including Agnes Driscoll and making her pretty much as awesome as she actually was. We are now very invested in tracking down a copy of their newsreel short, Gandhi at the Bat (2006). And waiting to see what they do next.

On Wednesday, Rob and I met up with hermitgeecko, cirne, juldea, and the twenty thousand other people at TD Garden to see Rush's Clockwork Angels tour. I had correctly guessed the steampunk in advance, but I should probably have been expecting the pyrotechnics. There was a string section. There were very impressive things done with drums. Except for the fact that one of the people behind us spilled their terrible cheap beer all over my hat and gloves just as we were leaving (I am taking them to the dry cleaners tomorrow), I had a really wonderful time. Of the new material, I gravitated to "The Wreckers" above anything else, but that should not be very surprising. The video was like animated Wondermark.

And tonight I had a rehearsal for Sunday's concert and Selkie has found me a Wittgensteinian brewery and tomorrow night there will be pumpkin-carving, which I enjoy. In the meantime, I am recharging and (as of the last five minutes) working on not beating myself up about missing out on tickets for the Peabody Museum's Día de los Muertos. At least that night there will be new Gravity Falls?

Comments

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I had never before heard of Agnes Driscoll. She sounds pretty bloody awesome.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I'm glad people were useful to you on the internet. I'm pleased your Tuesday had such pleasing contents.

Glad there were impressive things and steampunk at the Rush concert. Pity about cheap beer on your hat and gloves, and I hope the dry cleaners will be able to sort them. Animated Wondermark does sound like something that should exist.

It's cool that there's a Wittgensteinian brewery. They sound promising--if I find myself in North Carolina I'll have to check their products out. If only anyone I'd be most likely to be visiting there liked beer... but all the same, I'll hold it in mind.

I wish you happy pumpkin-carving!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, the ninja girl at least, and possibly Little Springtime too, will be excited about Gravity Falls (and I am excited vicariously).

I figured The Red Machine would not be available on Netflix--not if you'd been trying to catch it at festivals and things--but I thought I'd give it a try anyway. You'll be amused (?) to know that the first, most likely offering they had for me in place of the actual film was The Sex Machine. Two out of three correct words isn't bad, right? And that third word was three letters and had the right vowel, so what more do I want?

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Rush! Glad they're still touring--I've heard them perform twice, but both times were within 10-15 years ago.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Wow. The Red Machine looks fabulous. And I just watched the trailer for Gandhi at the Bat and fell over.

Thank you!

Nine

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

Aggie does look fascinating. (They nicknamed the third bombe at Bletchley after her, I think. Nominally it was short for Agnus Dei, but come on. Theism among cryptanalysts?)

And huzzah for Gravity Falls.

Feel better.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Is there no Día de los Muertos procession or anything around your area yet? It seems to be a slow-building but strong trend (rolling, as these things all seem to now, from West to East).

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

So how is the brewery Wittgensteinian?

[mrbelm.livejournal.com]

From an episode of Archer:

"It's my greatest achievement yet!"

"What, you finally nailed 'YYZ"?"

"It's zed! And, no. Neil Peart stands alone."