Just so we're cool—they know they're good
In fact, I spent much of yesterday assisting at a tree surgery: my father fired up the Sawzall and cut dead branches out of the trees in my parents' side and back yard and I dragged them off and threw them into the small ravine behind the house, which since the nor'easters has begun to resemble a tree graveyard. The rowan was the worst hit, being three-quarters heart-rotted deadwood, full of fungus and—unwelcomely discovered in the process of pruning—ants' nests; I apologized to the branches as I took them away, telling them that we were doing our best to keep the tree itself alive. It is now thin and off-kilter, but all green. We are hoping. Having a rowan die on you just feels like a poor omen. Rosabella the late-blooming dogwood lost a couple of small, snapped branches, but otherwise retains most of her low-curling, nearly thirty-year-old reach and crown. Two of the lilacs required somewhat more extensive pruning, but they are bushes and can take it; the pussy willow sacrificed a few stalks and continues to fuzz up with catkins for the season. Otherwise I carried boxes of books and boxes of slides up and down stairs and stacked them on shelves and in the storage space under a bed and finally framed the signals diagram from 1905 that I have owned for six years now. It was a very manual day.
I finished it up by watching the very Torontonian The Silent Partner (1978) with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch and some friends; directed by Daryl Duke from a screenplay by Curtis Hanson and originally the Danish novel Think of a Number (Tænk på et tal, 1968) by Anders Bodelson, it's an ingenious neo-noir starring Elliott Gould as a mild-mannered bank teller at the Eaton Centre who makes the impulsive, dissatisfied decision to scoop the armed robbery he's correctly guessed will hit his branch and almost at once finds himself playing cat-and-mouse for his $48,300 pains with criminals, cops, and coworkers, like you do. In that sense it could be a period piece, as simply noir as 1948 as Gould changes shape even to himself, discovering and then cultivating his capacity for deception and double-cross while the danger of the world deepens around him; because it was shot in the late '70's, while I don't say it as a complaint, I was not expecting this plot to contain nearly as much bisexual, crossdressing, psychopathic Christopher Plummer as it did. (I was going to write that Anthony Perkins must have been busy that year, but actually he made Remember My Name with Geraldine Chaplin and Berry Berenson and I love that movie too much to use it as a punch line; it does even better things with the misdirection of the femme fatale.) He's beautiful and the film uses it to unsettle, because male beauty is so often untrustworthy in this genre, long lashes and chain-link jewelry, polished nails and a predator's smile. I guess he got typed from playing Commodus after all. The movie is actually sparing with its violence, but the one big scene is nasty enough to have been spliced in from a slasher film. Don't have a fish tank if you're in a crime movie, is all I can say; it's bad for everyone's health.
I am delighted to know that there is an exhibit at the Center for Jewish History in New York called Jews in Space.
I finished it up by watching the very Torontonian The Silent Partner (1978) with
spatch and some friends; directed by Daryl Duke from a screenplay by Curtis Hanson and originally the Danish novel Think of a Number (Tænk på et tal, 1968) by Anders Bodelson, it's an ingenious neo-noir starring Elliott Gould as a mild-mannered bank teller at the Eaton Centre who makes the impulsive, dissatisfied decision to scoop the armed robbery he's correctly guessed will hit his branch and almost at once finds himself playing cat-and-mouse for his $48,300 pains with criminals, cops, and coworkers, like you do. In that sense it could be a period piece, as simply noir as 1948 as Gould changes shape even to himself, discovering and then cultivating his capacity for deception and double-cross while the danger of the world deepens around him; because it was shot in the late '70's, while I don't say it as a complaint, I was not expecting this plot to contain nearly as much bisexual, crossdressing, psychopathic Christopher Plummer as it did. (I was going to write that Anthony Perkins must have been busy that year, but actually he made Remember My Name with Geraldine Chaplin and Berry Berenson and I love that movie too much to use it as a punch line; it does even better things with the misdirection of the femme fatale.) He's beautiful and the film uses it to unsettle, because male beauty is so often untrustworthy in this genre, long lashes and chain-link jewelry, polished nails and a predator's smile. I guess he got typed from playing Commodus after all. The movie is actually sparing with its violence, but the one big scene is nasty enough to have been spliced in from a slasher film. Don't have a fish tank if you're in a crime movie, is all I can say; it's bad for everyone's health.I am delighted to know that there is an exhibit at the Center for Jewish History in New York called Jews in Space.
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I love this. It made me think of the prayers in Cato's De Agri Cultura which (if I've remembered correctly) are basically about asking permission from whatever gods might inhabit a patch of land or grove before you start working it - the same principle, but at the other end of the process. I thank biros for their service when I throw them away. It would feel rude, otherwise.
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Thank you! I am happy to be in that tradition. I don't have to take all of Cato's advice.
I thank biros for their service when I throw them away. It would feel rude, otherwise.
That makes sense to me. I told the branches they had protected us well.
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I'd say there was potential here in the form of writing as summons for future states, except that usually when one tries to manipulate the power, something goes wrong....
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It was strange to me! It was not planned. I was in Lexington to haul boxes and reshelve slides and then we were in the side yard looking at the rowan and then it was tree surgery time.
I will try to use my powers, if they can be used rather than observed, for good.
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Also, yay Jews in Space!
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He's great. Like, I may still like him best as Commodus, but only because as Commodus he damn near singlehandedly salvages his scenes out of the three-hour chariot wreck that is The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) and here he actually has a script; it's not a lesser performance, it's just not an act of epic heroism.
Also, yay Jews in Space!
I wish the website would say how long it's running. If I have the opportunity to be in New York, I'll go.
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I’ve heard the same can be said of his performance in Royal Hunt of the Sun (1969).
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I hope you can get to New York!
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Oh, I'm so glad! I love that people really write stories for the images and the lines.
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Thank you. We planted it a few years after Rosabella and it has never had a name other than "the rowan," but I do not want it to die. I love its berries in the fall.
Is there any chance of a photo of your signals diagram?
I'll try tomorrow, when there's sunlight! I keep meaning to post some photos I took on May Day anyway.
I hope you can get to New York!
Thank you! I want a travel budget. Or a teleporter. Or both.
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Also taller than I am is an 8ft holly that has suddenly appeared behind my cherry - my next door neighbour pointed out there's a matching one two doors up, so it's probably seeds dropped by birds, but I swear it wasn't there last year. It's too close to the cherry to leave, and I'd quite like to transplant it if I can, but with barely a foot between it and the cherry, and between it and the fence, I doubt I can get a viable root ball out.
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That has yet to happen with my parents' yard. I have to rake all the broken bits of leftover nor'easter twigs off first, so they don't murder the lawnmower.
Also taller than I am is an 8ft holly that has suddenly appeared behind my cherry - my next door neighbour pointed out there's a matching one two doors up, so it's probably seeds dropped by birds, but I swear it wasn't there last year.
That's a lot of holly to have all at once. I hope you can get at least enough of it out to transplant. What are your options if you can't? Memorial service?
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The holly has to come out, it's just too close to the cherry, but it isn't too thick as yet, so if I can't dig it out I'll just go for lopping it off near ground level.
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-Nameseeker
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That does sound nice. What do you have that's made of it?
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Aw. Can you give it a home elsewhere in your yard?
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Thank you. It was actually rather nice out: sunny, but spring-cool enough underneath that no one overheated.