That two girls are too many, three's a crowd, and four you're dead

[sovay]

My sleep schedule has gone so far off the rails, I'm not even sure what time zone I'm in anymore, but I don't think it's the one I live in.

Yesterday I tried to take a sort of mental health break, finishing my work in the afternoon and then spending the rest of the day reading Henry Green's Back (1946) and watching John Cromwell's Caged (1950) and a serial and a half of Sapphire & Steel (1979–82) with an interlude of returning books to the library and making rice pudding. I would like to write about all of these things; they were differently great. I may just stare at more Sapphire & Steel instead.

I have decided that my personal best mode of dealing with white supremacists going around invoking Odin as a hate symbol and generally misunderstanding the Vikings is to go around invoking Loki as a queer symbol and talking a lot more about seiðr.

Courtesy of moon_custafer: I may be in the wrong country to catch a theatrical screening of Leslie Howard: The Man Who Gave a Damn (2016) tomorrow night (watching movies for people's yahrzeits is just as valid as for their birthdays), but it looks like it will be coming to TCM. Hurrah.

P.S. Has anybody on this friendlist seen the 1977–78 ITV adaptation of Joan Aiken's Midnight Is a Place (1976)? I just discovered it exists; I like its setting of "Denzil's Song" and it's got David Collings, but I can't tell anything else about it except that it seems to have aged up Anna-Marie.

Comments

[kore]

Did you read Al Ewing's Loki, Agent of Asgard comic run? I'm waiting for my library to get it, I've heard it was really great.

[sovay]

Did you read Al Ewing's Loki, Agent of Asgard comic run?

No, but I've also heard good things. Can I ask you for a review when your library gets it in?

[kore]

Why sure! altho my critical facilities are pretty much crap these days.

[sovay]

altho my critical facilities are pretty much crap these days.

Hold up a second, you've got some Tiny Wittgenstein on you.

[gwynnega]

Great news about the Leslie Howard documentary!

[sovay]

Great news about the Leslie Howard documentary!

I'm really looking forward! I've been hearing about it for years at this point.

[asakiyume]

Wow yes that song is beautiful! ("Denzil's Song")

I seem not to have read this Joan Aiken, but I like that it features Blastburn, which I remember fondly from The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.

[nineweaving]

So glad you won't miss this. ("...in the wrong country"?)

Nine

[sovay]

("...in the wrong country"?)

I'm not in London.

[kore]

OMG. That actually made me smile, thank you.

[sovay]

Wow yes that song is beautiful! ("Denzil's Song")

It's a significant piece of poetry in the novel. Patrick John Phelan's setting seems to have put all the verses together in a way I do not mind and added a verse of his own, although it's conceivable they could have asked Aiken for it. The originals are:

When, when shall I see you
When shall I see your face
For I am living in time at present
But you are living in space.

Night's wingèd horses
No one can outpace
But midnight is no moment
Midnight is a place.

Time is only a corner
Age is only a fold
A year is merely a penny
Spent from a century's gold.

So meet me, meet me at midnight
(With sixty seconds' grace)
Midnight is not a moment;
Midnght is a place.

I had a tune for it in my head when I read the book as a child, but since it does not resemble this one at all, I think I may have made it up. It's much simpler.

I seem not to have read this Joan Aiken, but I like that it features Blastburn, which I remember fondly from The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.

It's not the first Aiken I read, because that was A Necklace of Raindrops (1968), but it's kind of my formative one—I read it before any of the Wolves books, with which it shares a universe but not much else. It has a Victorian setting and is a perfect miniature Gothic novel (but not a grimdark one, despite a plot about child labor and industrialization) and I like all of its protagonists very much.

[cyphomandra]

Has anybody on this friendlist seen the 1977–78 ITV adaptation of Joan Aiken's Midnight Is a Place (1976)? I just discovered it exists; I like its setting of "Denzil's Song" and it's got David Collings, but I can't tell anything else about it except that it seems to have aged up Anna-Marie.

I have, but I am not much help as I saw it when I was 9 or 10 years old (I enjoyed it then, though; it and Whispering Mountain are my two favourite overlooked Aikens). My paperback copy has photos from it (Anna-Maria trapped in burning building on the front, assorted period urchins on the back) and I remember singing Denzil's song while wandering the playground, to what your link confirms is their setting.

[sovay]

I have, but I am not much help as I saw it when I was 9 or 10 years old (I enjoyed it then, though; it and Whispering Mountain are my two favourite overlooked Aikens).

Still counts for purposes of data! I need to re-read The Whispering Mountain. I remember liking it, but almost nothing about the plot except Wales.

My paperback copy has photos from it (Anna-Maria trapped in burning building on the front, assorted period urchins on the back) and I remember singing Denzil's song while wandering the playground, to what your link confirms is their setting.

Oh, that's neat! I grew up with a paperback edition with a very '70's Gothic cover I can't find on the internet (it more or less fell apart and I replaced it eventually with this one). I take it this was your copy?

[asakiyume]

I would love to hear your tune, too. Do you think you have it enough in your head to get it down? If so, maybe you can sing it sometime. Alas, I won't be at Readercon this year (... though I need to respond and tell them so), but maybe somewhere, somehow, I can hear your tune.

Thank you for the lyrics, too!

[nineweaving]

D'oh! That's what I get for not clicking.

Nine

[conuly]

P.S. Has anybody on this friendlist seen the 1977–78 ITV adaptation of Joan Aiken's Midnight Is a Place (1976)? I just discovered it exists

What. I have got to see this!

[alexxkay]

I liked it quite a lot. Not *quite* as much as Kieron Gillen's earlier Loki run ("Journey into Mystery"), but enough to start following most of Ewing's other comics work.

[kore]

I really love Ewing -- I read a couple of issues and then got hooked and now try to look at everything he does. I think Marvel treats him terribly, though.

[rydra_wong]

Sapphire and Steel! (That is all I have to say at this level of caffeination.)

[sovay]

Sapphire and Steel! (That is all I have to say at this level of caffeination.)

I am enjoying it immensely. Also, I hoped someone I knew would have an icon with Silver. (For various reasons, I saw the third serial first. For obvious reasons, I imprinted.)

[sovay]

What. I have got to see this!

All right, you can tell me how it is!

[conuly]

I just hope it's available online. (And free. I never did get to see that much-vaunted Bruno and Boots movie.)

[questioncurl]

I'd completely forgotten about Midnight Is a Place till I read this, though it was my first Aiken, and I even wrote a continuation of the song for an English class. Somehow I can't imagine it being filmed though. Please do review it if you get around to watching the movie...

[sovay]

Do you think you have it enough in your head to get it down?

I can't write it out, but I can certainly sing it for you the next time we meet. In my memory it's always gone with the words. I'm in a similar situation with Yeats' "The Song of Wandering Aengus"—I can't remember hearing it set to music until Jolie Holland, but I've always known a tune for it.

Thank you for the lyrics, too!

You're welcome! They did get the new lyrics from Aiken and I missed a few from the book when I was transcribing! Also, the music is by John Sebastian Brown.

[cyphomandra]

Yes, although in my head it's always this hardback I read from the library. I am resisting picking up my actual copy again because I have things to do tonight and I know I'd just end up reading it (IIRC I have this copy because I started reading it in a used bookstore, didn't have time to read it and couldn't leave it behind). The idea of the carpet press is something I'm never going to forget...

Sapphire and Steel! I have many fond (and more recent) memories of that series. I wish it would suddenly reappear again like Twin Peaks, but I think that's unlikely.