Disordered Thoughts and Curmudgeonly Ramblings
You know it’s bad when the most authentic version featured Ted Danson…
Saw a preview for Jack Black’s version of Gulliver’s Travels this week. It’s kind of ironic that the only bit that looks authentic to the book is the one bit everyone would assume isn’t in the book.
(If you don’t get what I mean then go out and read it you phillistine!)
Clench!
I always thought it would be amusing to draw a picture of Thomas Covenant jumping wildly up and down in baggy pants with brightly dyed hair, waving glowsticks in the air, while a confused and frighted Lord of Revelstone asks “Lord Covenant, do you rave?!”
C’mon! It’s as least as funny as Clench Racing!
The recrudescent malkins of the calid garde-manger
Last week I stopped into the second hand bookstore that’s opened down the road and purchased the copy of Titus Groan that’s been taunting me in the shelf by the window. Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy is something I’ve meant to read for years so I figured that with a copy of the first book so convenient I might as well get on with it.
The somewhat eccentric bookseller (despite being a new establishment the store is doing a very good job of being rambling, cramped and musty with a slightly gnome-like proprietor – the way all bookshops should be!) reminisced about the first time he read the book while looking for my change. He told me not worry about words I couldn’t understand because I should be able to figure out most of them from context.
As such I was somewhat primed to watch for words I didn’t understand, and have kept a list of them as I go. I’m about halfway through and have hit six of them so far, which I think is pretty good going. The list (and the definitions) are as follow…
Recrudescent – My first reaction to this word was that it could mean almost anything. The actual definition is “breaking out again” or “renewing”.
Calid – I guessed that this means ‘clammy’, it actually means ‘hot’. Which makes sense when you think of the words ‘calorie’ and ‘calorific’ or perhaps the Italian ‘caldo’.
Fumid – I assumed this meant ‘full of fumes’, which in fact it does. Excellent!
Garde-Manger – My sketchy knowledge of French, combined with context, led me to assume that a garde-manger is a pantry. It’s actually a cool and well ventilated area of a kitchen used for the preparation of cold foods – although it seems more commonly used to refer to a chef that works in such an area.
Ichadbod – I am of course familiar with the name Ichabod, but in the book it’s used to describe a semi-ruinous section of the castle. I can’t find a definition online supporting this use, but I presume it’s a reference to the Hebrew meaning “the glory is departed”. Nice one Mr Peake!
Malkin – From context it was clear that this means ‘cat’.
Expect an update to this list when I’ve read some more – assuming I run into any other new words that is.
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
It was 150 years ago today Darwin published his book explaining exactly what was going on. If I had time I’d compose an eloquent tribute, but as I don’t, the following quote will have to do…
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
Indeed Charles, indeed.
So if Saint Pickerel is a toad with golden feet, is Saint Toad a Pickerel with golden fins?
TV makes everything better!
One of the things about myself that I’m kind of embarrassed about is that while I apparently come across as highly erudite and well educated, I’m not actually particularly literary. Confront me with a list of the greatest novels of the last 200 years and I’ll have to admit that I’ve read very few of them. Dostoyevsky? Nope. Balzac? Nup. Orwell? No. Tolstoy? ‘Fraid not. The BrontĂ«s? Uh-uh. Steinbeck? Never. Dickens? Well I read Great Expectations in high school. Kipling? No. The list goes on.
A few years ago I decided to do something about this. I – on the basis that everyone always goes on and on about it – obtained a copy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and set to work on it with vigour and enthusiasm.
I got about two thirds of the way through before collapsing in apathy and giving up.
I just couldn’t get into it. The pace was glacial, there were dozens of characters you had to keep track of, Elizabeth and Darcy were irritating as all get out and I really just could not motivate myself to push through to the end. Once again literature one, me nil.
(I dare say the book’s many millions of fans – or at least the few that stumble over this blog – are foaming at the mouth at the above. Let me state here that I’m in no way saying it’s a bad book, just one that I couldn’t understand. The fault is entirely mine!)
The reason I bring all this up was that the ABC played the first two (as is their wont) episodes of Lost in Austen last night, and I loved it. It was freaking hilarious!
For those unfamiliar with the premise, a young 21st century woman (and fan of the book) finds herself somehow swapped with Elizabeth Bennet and by her very presence horribly disrupting the plot. Her attempts to get things back on track make matters even worse and – well I don’t want to include any spoilers and I’ve only seen half of it anyway, but it’s entertaining in the extreme.
(Mr Collins! Oh my lord Mr Collins!! The sniffing!!)
I think one of the main reasons I like this version is that the actors do all the heavy lifting on remembering who’s who. It’s much easier to remember what’s going on when you’ve got a clear image of each character in your head. It’s also got the right mix of sly, post-modern humour and Austenic (if I might be permitted to coin an adjective) witticisms. I’m very much looking forwards to the conclusion next week and, who knows, once it’s all over I may even go back and give the book another try.
Maybe.
200 Years!! Wooo!!
Happy Birthday Mr Darwin!
I’m still at work at 5:30 and I’m bored…
“I survived the great Collapsing Hrung Disaster of 03758 and all I got was a son named Ix”
Well *I’m* not going to write it!
You know, there’s an idea that’s been floating around in my head for some years, and now that I have the means to write blog entries quickly and efficiently, I figured I might as well write it up (oh joy!).
So. There are a number of popular, well known songs that have fairly interesting histories. I’ve been thinking that someone with some decent writing skills (ie: not me) could do a lot worse than to write a “popular history” style book telling these stories. Divide it up into one song a chapter, give it a snazzy title, get it on Oprah and you’d be on the New York Times best seller list in no time!
Suggested inclusions…
The Lion Sleeps Tonight – Originally written and performed as ‘Mbube’ by Solomon Linda and the Evening Birds in South Africa in 1939 this song went through a tortuous number of twists and turns before morphing into one of the most recorded songs in history. And (until comparatively recently) Solomon Linda’s family didn’t see a cent for it. There was actually a lengthy article about its history in Rolling Stone magazine some years back – a good jumping off point for this theoretical book.
House of the Rising Sun – Originally recorded as “The Rising Sun Blues” by ethnographers working in the Appalachian mountains in the 30’s (trying to preserve America’s folk music heritage before it was homogenized by the arrival of radio). It too went through a number of adaptions before turning into the version we know today.
Amazing Grace – The official story is that a slave trader named John Newton had a religious revelation on the deck of his slave ship one night, wrote the words, and immediately quit the slave trade – becoming a passionate abolitionist. It didn’t actually play out like this in reality – he remained in the slave trade for another six years at least and didn’t speak out against it for another 30 years – but it still makes for a fascinating story.
So there we go, add in five or six more songs with interesting histories and you’ve got yourself a best seller! Just be sure to send me appropriate royalties 🙂
And I’ve never even read/seen Dune
From a current ad for an SBS cooking show…
What’s charming, seductive and full of spice?
(It’s a joke people! Sheeze!)
