What remains? Every corner a new name

[sovay]

Today was unusually awful and exhausting and did not start to improve until the evening, but I want to note that I lost my wallet and keys in a downpour outside of Mass General Hospital and didn't find out until after my appointment was over and I was trying to put a piece of paper away in my suddenly nonexistent wallet and while they were soaked to the point that a check I am still hoping to deposit had almost dissolved, they had not only not been scooped off the street and stolen, they were sitting rather damply but plainly at the information desk of the Wang Building and I appreciate this enormously. Thank you, unknown person who did not make my day much, much worse! Also I have watched all ten hours of AMC's The Terror (2018) and loved everything about the show from acting to cinematography to Jared Harris' weird round wry haggard cat-face. Also Dakzen is an honest-to-God cheap eats in an escalatingly un-cheap town and I can add the ba mee moo dang to the list of dishes I recommend. Also the Tipping Cow now makes coconut-milk ice cream. Also our cats are nice.

Comments

[gwynnega]

How aggravating, but I'm very glad your wallet and keys could be found.

[sovay]

How aggravating, but I'm very glad your wallet and keys could be found.

Thank you. It was in the part of the day where everything was terrible and I fully expected them to be gone forever. It was really, really nice that they were not.

[nineweaving]

Oh, thank heavens! That's a wonderful feeling, finding what you fear is lost. I've had things restored, and I've rescued things over the years (a purse, a huge bunch of keys, several student IDs, which are also dorm keys), which feels nearly as good. Very glad your day took an upward turn.

Nine

[sovay]

Very glad your day took an upward turn.

Thank you. Losing all of my money would not have improved anything!

[lilysea]

Yay! ^_^

I lost my credit card recently, and it wasn't handed in, but at least no one seems to have used it. Cancelled it and ordered a new one, which should arrive next Wednesday...

[sovay]

Yay!

Thank you!

I lost my credit card recently, and it wasn't handed in, but at least no one seems to have used it. Cancelled it and ordered a new one, which should arrive next Wednesday...

That is aggravating, but I am very glad that it's just a matter of a replacement card, not stolen identity!

[thisbluespirit]

It is always good when someone hands something in like that. I'm sorry for the rest of the awful day, though.

[sovay]

It is always good when someone hands something in like that. I'm sorry for the rest of the awful day, though.

Thank you. It was good for restoring my faith in people not being universally awful.

Off-topic

[rydra_wong]

But I thought you might like to know that the ghost of a 17th-century garden has risen to join the forts:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-44951970

Re: Off-topic

[sovay]

But I thought you might like to know that the ghost of a 17th-century garden has risen to join the forts

I am absolutely delighted to hear it.

Re: Off-topic

[rydra_wong]

And an 18th-C mansion, a WWII airfield and a Victorian garden, but apparently the garden pops up every summer:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44767497

Re: Off-topic

[sovay]

And an 18th-C mansion, a WWII airfield and a Victorian garden, but apparently the garden pops up every summer

I love the idea of a seasonal ghost garden!

The airfield being more recent almost makes it stranger. "'What I really wanted was the detail of the taxiways and aircraft dispersal patterns from the 1940s that I've seen in old photos of the airfield,' he said."

Thank you!

[choco_frosh]

:( on the first nine-tenths of your day.

[choco_frosh]

ps: can you get a new copy of the check?

[sovay]

on the first nine-tenths of your day.

Thank you.

*hugs*

ps: can you get a new copy of the check?

I am going to try to deposit it this afternoon: it's still recognizable as a check with a money amount and a couple of signatures, if extremely fragile in the way of paper that has turned to mush and dried out again. If the bank won't take it, I'll ask for a new one.

[isis]

So you recommend The Terror? I was dithering about it. On the one hand, Tobias Menzies and Ciarán Hinds, history and the NORTHWEST PASSAGE. On the other hand, horror and ... demonic polar bears? Is it very gory?

[sovay]

On the one hand, Tobias Menzies and Ciarán Hinds, history and the NORTHWEST PASSAGE. On the other hand, horror and ... demonic polar bears? Is it very gory?

So I am a difficult person to ask about gore tolerances because I don't necessarily find disturbing the same things that other people do, but I would say that while there is gore in this miniseries, there is never gore that feels gratuitous, by which I mean gore that feels like it's being shown to get at the audience. The Terror does not subscribe to the fallacy that the past was inexorably grimdark and a story must be the cruelest version of itself in order to be any good. There is a thing that looks a lot like a polar bear and it dismembers some people and devours others and there's plenty of blood on the snow, but the primary horror of the series is not the mutilation of bodies (although in a story whose historical record ended in cannibalism, that is always so to speak on the table) but the cold and the isolation and the paradoxical sense of claustrophobia and entrapment in the middle of seemingly endless wastes of ice and sky, six-month stretches of darkness and light that scramble everyone's clocks and the mounting fear of having forged bravely for Queen and Country into a place that just flat fucking doesn't care about empire or discipline or pluck. For what it's worth, I did not leave the series with a dominant impression of ultraviolence. It has just as many striking moments of grace and beauty and they are done without irony. Also, if you are interested in Tobias Menzies, I had never actually seen him in a major role before and he is ridiculously good as Captain Fitzjames of HMS Erebus. Some of his scenes with Harris' Captain Crozier are the best in the series.

[isis]

I fell in love with Tobias Menzies as Brutus in Rome. He also plays two characters in Outlander - mild-mannered history professor Frank Randall and his cruel 17th-century ancestor, Captain "Black" Jack Randall, and it's tremendously fun to see how he inhabits each character so differently. I just love his crooked teeth and his odd-shaped face.

[sovay]

I fell in love with Tobias Menzies as Brutus in Rome. He also plays two characters in Outlander - mild-mannered history professor Frank Randall and his cruel 17th-century ancestor, Captain "Black" Jack Randall, and it's tremendously fun to see how he inhabits each character so differently.

That is a nice thing to watch someone do. I first started hearing about him with Outlander; I'd missed that he was on Rome! That makes me wonder if a costume choice on The Terror was a tip of the hat to the actor's history—when the icebound crew hold a carnival for the first return of the sun, Fitzjames is dressed as a Roman centurion.

I just love his crooked teeth and his odd-shaped face.

I registered him as classically good-looking. Go know.

[selkie]

Not to derail, but:

a place that just flat fucking doesn't care about empire or discipline or pluck

...St. Clair's brain??

Edit: apparently in Outlander his regiment was the 8th Dragoons (same as Banastre Tarleton) but on television they got the regimentals arsy-versy. It's okay, they all went to India and got cholera anyway. This is why I can't watch teavee.

[sovay]

...St. Clair's brain??

Icier, I think. Blessedly not devoid of queerness, however. Or seals.

[umadoshi]

I'm sorry the day overall was so awful, and glad that someone turned in your lost things. Fingers crossed for the bank accepting the poor sodden cheque!

[sovay]

I'm sorry the day overall was so awful, and glad that someone turned in your lost things. Fingers crossed for the bank accepting the poor sodden cheque!

Thank you! I dried it very carefully in strong sunlight and have been nursing it back to legibility!

Yay! for honest, thoughtful finders-not-keepers

[jesse_the_k]

My goodness. I'd love to sample Tipping Cow's ice cream, and the silly videos on their Kickstarter almost make up for my inability to taste it.

Re: Yay! for honest, thoughtful finders-not-keepers [Amen!]

[sovay]

My goodness. I'd love to sample Tipping Cow's ice cream, and the silly videos on their Kickstarter almost make up for my inability to taste it.

I didn't even know they'd had a Kickstarter! That's adorable.

They have just started making coconut-milk flavors about a month ago and they are, unsurprisingly, delicious. I now have three local options for coconut-milk ice cream. I don't have as much money as I'd like to spend on ice cream, of course, but I'm still pretty happy.

[selkie]

....one of my pocket parenting friends' kids works at Tipping Cow. World small.

[sovay]

....one of my pocket parenting friends' kids works at Tipping Cow. World small.

I suppose I should not have been surprised by this.

[brigdh]

I'm sorry to hear your day was awful, though at least someone returned your wallet! Sometimes strangers are very kind.

And I'm glad to hear your thoughts on The Terror too. I really enjoyed the book, and have been meaning to get around to watching the show. The book, at least, was surprisingly faithful to the facts (as known in 2007, when it was written, at least), despite the horror-mythology additions.

[sovay]

I'm sorry to hear your day was awful, though at least someone returned your wallet! Sometimes strangers are very kind.

Thank you! It was a good day for kind strangers.

I really enjoyed the book, and have been meaning to get around to watching the show. The book, at least, was surprisingly faithful to the facts (as known in 2007, when it was written, at least), despite the horror-mythology additions.

I enjoyed the book, but I liked its premise better than its execution, so for me the show had the quality of top-drawer fix-it as well as sterling adaptation. Plus it takes into account the new information that has come to light about the Franklin expedition since Simmons wrote his novel, which really pays off in some specific plot and character beats. I would like to write about it. Just after a month of not writing about and hardly watching any film, the thought of generating words with intellectual content feels like a delusion.