It's a beautiful little movie, effortlessly funny and wonderfully made. Directed by Leo McCarey, and starring the great Charles Laughton as well as the unfairly forgotten Charlie Ruggles and Mary Boland, this is one of the great comedies. Sadly, though, it is also almost completely forgotten. Had you ever heard of 'Ruggles Of Red Gap' before looking at the title of this post?
This may require some thought before we continue. Perhaps we should talk about the story, then Laughton, then Ruggles the actor, and finally toss in a few words for McCarey and the mumbling Roland Young?
The story is exceedingly simple. A bumbling Earl (Roland Young) loses his extremely repressed butler Ruggles (Charles Laughton) to a Washington state couple (Ruggles and Boland) in a poker game, and the nervous servant slowly becomes liberated as he is assimilated into the American society around the turn into the nineteenth century. Everything else in the movie is a natural consequence of the character interactions between butler Ruggles and actor Ruggles, as the latter slowly releases the former from his traditional bonds, while Boland tries her best to keep those bonds in place!
The core of the movie is Laughton's wonderfully buttoned-down performance as the valet, and in the brief glimpses of a brilliant interior life that he seeds increasingly as the movie goes on. The man was truly a master, pulling off comedy here as well as he did drama in other famous instances. There is one marvelous drunken scene with actor Ruggles that works so well that it could almost have been a movie by itself. There are a couple of problems near the beginning of the movie, when the possibility of interminable sedateness becomes a fear, but it soons works itself out, as Laughton and actor Ruggles settle into their back and forth. Ah, Charlie Ruggles. a great comedic talent. You may have also seen him in 'Trouble in Paradise' or 'Bringing Up Baby', although I didn't realise it at the time and have no idea if he was any good.
One of the most famous aspects of the movie, apart from the marvelous checked suits of actor Ruggles and the wonderful interludes between Laughton and ZaSu Pitts, is the scene where a whole saloon fails to remember the contents of the Gettysburg Address, before being stunned by Laughton's quiet recital of the famous words. It's truly the turning point of the movie, and shows off Laughton's oratorical ability. Coupled with the closing moments, and the secondary conversion of the Earl when he visits the titular town of Red Gap, it makes for a great arc to the whole piece. Leo McCarey judges the tone precisely, possibly borrowing from the original play where necessary, and Roland Young takes mild-mannered to a whole new level as the Earl, before revealing some hidden depths of his own.
A grand old classic comedy. Well done, Leo McCarey.
O.
Thursday, 31 August 2017
Wednesday, 30 August 2017
Misadventures
Well, that's another trip done and dusted, with far too much coach travel. Almost three whole novels got read, which was an amazing feat, but almost nothing else could be done over a cumulative twenty hours on the road, including delays and some chaos. At least they were good books: 'Kentucky Thriller', 'Three Hearts and Three Lions' and 'God Save The Mark'. 'Three Hearts And Three Lions' is especially fascinating, but we'll get to that eventually. It was a nice trip, which included an excursion to Liverpool. In impersonal events, there was a good game of 'Mystery Of The Abbey', which is a more fascinating game than I suspected, and one which reopens a very odd quandary. You see, this deduction game had a misprint in its last edition which I enjoy playing with rather more than I suspect would be true with the unbotched rules. What to do? It's one of the odder first world problems you can bump up against, isn't it? Oh, let's just stick with the wrong rules and see what happens...
It's a wacky world, but sometimes it gets all kinds of wackier. Today, for example, in a burst of courageous idiocy, saw the first end of holidays board game extravaganza for my students, which was quite the rowdy affair and reminded quite forcibly of just why I'm ever so pleased to not be trapped in a classroom. There's no escape! Aaack! And there's no way to keep anything on the tracks. All you can do is hold your nerve, ride the bucking bronco of fate, and try to keep some plan up your sleeve to finish the time. Usually, said plan is Pictionary, but you never know when it might be something else. Sigh. I really thought 'Jamaica' would work out brilliantly. There's no justice.
Thankfully, with that trip and the party done, all the grand enjoyable disruptions are now over, and it is time to get back to simply living life for a few days. The value of that simple thing is not to be underestimated, even when you still have a grand woodworking project and the looming start of the second year of Open University studies on the horizon. Oh, what fun it will be to only be juggling two over-projects! What happy times! 'Wordspace' may even finish! Wowsers! We can only hope!
More will follow in the coming days, as the relief fully settles in. Cowabunga, dudes!
O.
It's a wacky world, but sometimes it gets all kinds of wackier. Today, for example, in a burst of courageous idiocy, saw the first end of holidays board game extravaganza for my students, which was quite the rowdy affair and reminded quite forcibly of just why I'm ever so pleased to not be trapped in a classroom. There's no escape! Aaack! And there's no way to keep anything on the tracks. All you can do is hold your nerve, ride the bucking bronco of fate, and try to keep some plan up your sleeve to finish the time. Usually, said plan is Pictionary, but you never know when it might be something else. Sigh. I really thought 'Jamaica' would work out brilliantly. There's no justice.
Thankfully, with that trip and the party done, all the grand enjoyable disruptions are now over, and it is time to get back to simply living life for a few days. The value of that simple thing is not to be underestimated, even when you still have a grand woodworking project and the looming start of the second year of Open University studies on the horizon. Oh, what fun it will be to only be juggling two over-projects! What happy times! 'Wordspace' may even finish! Wowsers! We can only hope!
More will follow in the coming days, as the relief fully settles in. Cowabunga, dudes!
O.
Monday, 28 August 2017
Television: 'Supergirl' (2015-2016)
(Pre-written cover for travelling)
After a fairly stinky season finale, it's time to talk about the season as a whole. For our purposes, this is a wrap for 'Supergirl', and we have to ask the question, 'Was it any good?'
It was both very good and bad. The writing was sometimes excellent, and sometimes very lazy and dumb. For every inventive and authentic use of Supergirl's powers, we also had a opposingly stupid brawl or angrily dumb heat vision staring duel. There was much heart and warmth, but it was sometimes ruined by spells of cynicism and tediousness when dealing with the arching thread of the escaped criminals from the crashed space prison Fort Roz. Most of the casting was great, except for the small portion which was plain bad. When every supporting character is absurdly beautiful, it's easy to switch off for a few minutes.
However, on the whole, it can be described as good. There are some nice moments wedged into the rickety composite framework of the show, and it was lovely to see the Martian Manhunter become part of the series, vastly improving David Harewood's role in the process. It was great to see Super-mythology being tapped into, and to have lovely touches like the Key to the Fortress of Solitude and Kelex, the presence of ex-Daily Planet staffers Cat Grant (the brilliant Calista Flockhart) and James 'Jimmy' Olsen, and some casting tie-ins with practically every available person who has been in a Super-show in the past. It would have been nice to not have recycled so many of the standard superhero series episode plots, but that's to be expected. Probably. Maybe. I don't know.
The stand-out episodes are 'How Does She Do It?', 'Human For A Day', 'Solitude' and then one of 'Manhunter' or 'Worlds' Finest'. When it works, it does so thanks to a great cast and a deep reliance on Melissa Benoist as the titular character Kara Danvers. When the show doesn't work, it's usually connected to the structural flaw that is having her work with the DEO, a para-military organisation that is essentially everything the Super-characters would hate, and an accompanying avoidance of the character of Kara/Supergirl. That deeply divisive flaw at the centre of the series is what stopped it being great. It's also why season two doesn't sound appealing at all, sadly, as all the character relationships are apparently trashed and Kara moved away from the centre of the show? Oh, CBS, why couldn't you just keep the series? Why?
Good character relationships, good acting, decent writing, some good to great directing. It was a solid show. It will never leave the DVD collection. Golly, if only they had tried harder and not been so lazy when it came to villains and nefarious deeds. Is it a good plan to just have your heroes turn up and wait stupidly and brainlessly to be engaged in a fight? I despair. Moving on, they actually dealt with the absence of Superman pretty well for the whole season. It was a good idea to not have him there, but be more of a legend, and an occasional chat partner with Kara.
Overall, Kara Danvers is there for the win. Melissa Benoist was wonderful. Not many people can pull off a cape and humanity at the same time. Mehcad Brooks and Jeremy Jordan get mentions for being lovely too, and it was nice to see Dean Cain again occasionally. Ah...
O.
After a fairly stinky season finale, it's time to talk about the season as a whole. For our purposes, this is a wrap for 'Supergirl', and we have to ask the question, 'Was it any good?'
It was both very good and bad. The writing was sometimes excellent, and sometimes very lazy and dumb. For every inventive and authentic use of Supergirl's powers, we also had a opposingly stupid brawl or angrily dumb heat vision staring duel. There was much heart and warmth, but it was sometimes ruined by spells of cynicism and tediousness when dealing with the arching thread of the escaped criminals from the crashed space prison Fort Roz. Most of the casting was great, except for the small portion which was plain bad. When every supporting character is absurdly beautiful, it's easy to switch off for a few minutes.
However, on the whole, it can be described as good. There are some nice moments wedged into the rickety composite framework of the show, and it was lovely to see the Martian Manhunter become part of the series, vastly improving David Harewood's role in the process. It was great to see Super-mythology being tapped into, and to have lovely touches like the Key to the Fortress of Solitude and Kelex, the presence of ex-Daily Planet staffers Cat Grant (the brilliant Calista Flockhart) and James 'Jimmy' Olsen, and some casting tie-ins with practically every available person who has been in a Super-show in the past. It would have been nice to not have recycled so many of the standard superhero series episode plots, but that's to be expected. Probably. Maybe. I don't know.
The stand-out episodes are 'How Does She Do It?', 'Human For A Day', 'Solitude' and then one of 'Manhunter' or 'Worlds' Finest'. When it works, it does so thanks to a great cast and a deep reliance on Melissa Benoist as the titular character Kara Danvers. When the show doesn't work, it's usually connected to the structural flaw that is having her work with the DEO, a para-military organisation that is essentially everything the Super-characters would hate, and an accompanying avoidance of the character of Kara/Supergirl. That deeply divisive flaw at the centre of the series is what stopped it being great. It's also why season two doesn't sound appealing at all, sadly, as all the character relationships are apparently trashed and Kara moved away from the centre of the show? Oh, CBS, why couldn't you just keep the series? Why?
Good character relationships, good acting, decent writing, some good to great directing. It was a solid show. It will never leave the DVD collection. Golly, if only they had tried harder and not been so lazy when it came to villains and nefarious deeds. Is it a good plan to just have your heroes turn up and wait stupidly and brainlessly to be engaged in a fight? I despair. Moving on, they actually dealt with the absence of Superman pretty well for the whole season. It was a good idea to not have him there, but be more of a legend, and an occasional chat partner with Kara.
Overall, Kara Danvers is there for the win. Melissa Benoist was wonderful. Not many people can pull off a cape and humanity at the same time. Mehcad Brooks and Jeremy Jordan get mentions for being lovely too, and it was nice to see Dean Cain again occasionally. Ah...
O.
Sunday, 27 August 2017
Book: 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' by Douglas Adams (1987)
(Pre-written to cover a trip.)
JS Bach. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The mathematics of music and movement. Ghosts. Time travel. Conjuring tricks. Ancient aliens. More. Much more. Electric Monks? Good grief. That's not even a comprehensive list of what goes on inside this novel. There hasn't even been a mention of the sofa paradox!
Reading 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' (DGHDA) was one of the formative experiences of my life. Even now, many years later, this novel is still adored. It is one of the two best Adams novels, the other one being 'So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish', and is very difficult to describe. It's easier to describe it via questions, in fact. Why is technology guru and compulsive babbler Gordon Way shot to death by an Electric Monk that hitched a ride in a passing time machine to Earth? Why did the erratic Professor Chronitis feel the strange urge to make that trip in the first place? Why won't Gordon pass on, or why does he remain as a ghost? What does his employee, ace programmer Richard MacDuff, have to do with it, and why has he too been doing strange things? Does it all connect via Dirk Gently, the self-styled holistic detective? What exactly is a holistic detective anyway? Why are his professional expenses so eclectic? There are more questions than distinct answers, and it's goofy and rather intelligent in alternating fashions.
DGHDA is quietly awesome and unheralded. Yes, some people won't understand what on Earth is going on (and what NOT on Earth, too), and the short chapters which switch around so frequently might be disorienting, but to me it was and is excellent and brilliant. No-one else could have written it. It's a shame that the sequel, 'The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul', was so gloomy and laden with the doom of that last portion of Adams' life, as it could have been even better. DGHDA has jokes where you don't expect jokes, music where you don't expect music, and references to mathematics when no-one ever expects mathematics to be mentioned at all! Oh, it's wonderful. It's marvellous. How could so many disparate elements be incorporated into one novel? How?
This is about as close to fanatical raving as we get here in the Quirky Muffin. The novel is not without flaws, although I couldn't point any out in particular at the moment. Some people complain that the titular character doesn't appear for an extremely long time, but that's just how the story unravels. There could be complaints about all the references to 'Kublai Khan', Coleridge, and JS Bach, but those are easily remedied. You just have to look up the names, after all. No, I can't seriously think of anything wrong, apart from an entirely subjective and personal quibble over some unnecessary swearing. Maybe, just maybe, the final denouement is a little sudden and unexplained, but it works.
'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' does a set of things that practically no other book does. For that, it is to be commended. It's also very funny, very original, and explains the word 'holistic'. Read it, enjoy it, but don't accept any expense claims for obscure leisure trips to Bermuda.
O.
PS No, I'm not going to clarify the sofa paradox. You will just to have to find out the hard way.
JS Bach. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The mathematics of music and movement. Ghosts. Time travel. Conjuring tricks. Ancient aliens. More. Much more. Electric Monks? Good grief. That's not even a comprehensive list of what goes on inside this novel. There hasn't even been a mention of the sofa paradox!
Reading 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' (DGHDA) was one of the formative experiences of my life. Even now, many years later, this novel is still adored. It is one of the two best Adams novels, the other one being 'So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish', and is very difficult to describe. It's easier to describe it via questions, in fact. Why is technology guru and compulsive babbler Gordon Way shot to death by an Electric Monk that hitched a ride in a passing time machine to Earth? Why did the erratic Professor Chronitis feel the strange urge to make that trip in the first place? Why won't Gordon pass on, or why does he remain as a ghost? What does his employee, ace programmer Richard MacDuff, have to do with it, and why has he too been doing strange things? Does it all connect via Dirk Gently, the self-styled holistic detective? What exactly is a holistic detective anyway? Why are his professional expenses so eclectic? There are more questions than distinct answers, and it's goofy and rather intelligent in alternating fashions.
DGHDA is quietly awesome and unheralded. Yes, some people won't understand what on Earth is going on (and what NOT on Earth, too), and the short chapters which switch around so frequently might be disorienting, but to me it was and is excellent and brilliant. No-one else could have written it. It's a shame that the sequel, 'The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul', was so gloomy and laden with the doom of that last portion of Adams' life, as it could have been even better. DGHDA has jokes where you don't expect jokes, music where you don't expect music, and references to mathematics when no-one ever expects mathematics to be mentioned at all! Oh, it's wonderful. It's marvellous. How could so many disparate elements be incorporated into one novel? How?
This is about as close to fanatical raving as we get here in the Quirky Muffin. The novel is not without flaws, although I couldn't point any out in particular at the moment. Some people complain that the titular character doesn't appear for an extremely long time, but that's just how the story unravels. There could be complaints about all the references to 'Kublai Khan', Coleridge, and JS Bach, but those are easily remedied. You just have to look up the names, after all. No, I can't seriously think of anything wrong, apart from an entirely subjective and personal quibble over some unnecessary swearing. Maybe, just maybe, the final denouement is a little sudden and unexplained, but it works.
'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' does a set of things that practically no other book does. For that, it is to be commended. It's also very funny, very original, and explains the word 'holistic'. Read it, enjoy it, but don't accept any expense claims for obscure leisure trips to Bermuda.
O.
PS No, I'm not going to clarify the sofa paradox. You will just to have to find out the hard way.
Friday, 25 August 2017
Book: 'The Hollow Man' by John Dickson Carr (1935)
(Pre-written to cover a trip)
The might break the word barrier and become its own post. In, I know it will. 'The Hollow Man' is a legend in its own right amongst detective stories, and my own experience of it is dominated by my first exposure, which was the Radio 4 dramatisation starring Donald Sinden as amateur sleuth Dr Gideon Fell. If any of the other Carr novels approach this one in quality, then the author himself will be paramount amongst all the mystery writers, excepting Doyle, who doesn't really exist in any one genre, and is a category all of his own. However, that's a case for another day.
John Dickson Carr specialised in 'impossible crimes; and some his locked room mysteries are works of art. My experience is so far insufficient to allow putting this story at the top of his pile, but the resolution is so simple as to offer a full illumination based on one or two simple facts. What are those facts? Well, read it and find out!
As mentioned obliquely, 'The Hollow Man' is one of the Dr Gideon Fell mysteries (Carr had several series, including the books under his pseudonym Carr Dickson), and therefore features much harrumphing and contemplation of the facts at hand, and many theories, fancies and twists shot to pieces by the procession of events. There is also, famously, a chapter devoted to a lecture given by Fell on the categorisation and classification of locked room mysteries, in which Fell himself acknowledges his own status as a character in a television story, and adds much novelty to the other claims for this being Carr's masterwork. Some people prefer 'Till Death Do Us Part', but such a distinction will have to wait until I've read that other work.
Is 'The Hollow Man' really a masterwork? It's certainly very, very good, and holds up to re-reading (In one day, no less!) very well. This is where the Sinden influence breaks in, though, as his fruity voice washes over the whole story, enriching it unfairly. There's an awful lot of subjectivity creeping in here from that radio play. However, as I begin to hear you ask, “What's it about?”, it becomes clear that there has been a glaring omission.
A French amateur expert on the paranormal, a Professor Charles Grimaud, is murdered, apparently by someone who had publicly threatened him the week before at a club night for enthusiastic eccentrics. The killer thrust himself into Grimaud's study, locked the door behind him and shot the professor before promptly vanishing into thin air on a night laden with undisturbed snow all around. Simultaneously, the supposed killer is killed in the middle of an empty snowy street, at almost point blank range. No-one was there, and no traces remained of his attacker. Dr Fell and Superintendent Hadley are baffled!
It's a classic mystery, despite all my haphazard ramblings. A recommended story if you don't mind some meandering on the way to the final revelation we all expect in a mystery story. In this one, it involves an entirely non-supernatural Hungarian connection.
O.
The might break the word barrier and become its own post. In, I know it will. 'The Hollow Man' is a legend in its own right amongst detective stories, and my own experience of it is dominated by my first exposure, which was the Radio 4 dramatisation starring Donald Sinden as amateur sleuth Dr Gideon Fell. If any of the other Carr novels approach this one in quality, then the author himself will be paramount amongst all the mystery writers, excepting Doyle, who doesn't really exist in any one genre, and is a category all of his own. However, that's a case for another day.
John Dickson Carr specialised in 'impossible crimes; and some his locked room mysteries are works of art. My experience is so far insufficient to allow putting this story at the top of his pile, but the resolution is so simple as to offer a full illumination based on one or two simple facts. What are those facts? Well, read it and find out!
As mentioned obliquely, 'The Hollow Man' is one of the Dr Gideon Fell mysteries (Carr had several series, including the books under his pseudonym Carr Dickson), and therefore features much harrumphing and contemplation of the facts at hand, and many theories, fancies and twists shot to pieces by the procession of events. There is also, famously, a chapter devoted to a lecture given by Fell on the categorisation and classification of locked room mysteries, in which Fell himself acknowledges his own status as a character in a television story, and adds much novelty to the other claims for this being Carr's masterwork. Some people prefer 'Till Death Do Us Part', but such a distinction will have to wait until I've read that other work.
Is 'The Hollow Man' really a masterwork? It's certainly very, very good, and holds up to re-reading (In one day, no less!) very well. This is where the Sinden influence breaks in, though, as his fruity voice washes over the whole story, enriching it unfairly. There's an awful lot of subjectivity creeping in here from that radio play. However, as I begin to hear you ask, “What's it about?”, it becomes clear that there has been a glaring omission.
A French amateur expert on the paranormal, a Professor Charles Grimaud, is murdered, apparently by someone who had publicly threatened him the week before at a club night for enthusiastic eccentrics. The killer thrust himself into Grimaud's study, locked the door behind him and shot the professor before promptly vanishing into thin air on a night laden with undisturbed snow all around. Simultaneously, the supposed killer is killed in the middle of an empty snowy street, at almost point blank range. No-one was there, and no traces remained of his attacker. Dr Fell and Superintendent Hadley are baffled!
It's a classic mystery, despite all my haphazard ramblings. A recommended story if you don't mind some meandering on the way to the final revelation we all expect in a mystery story. In this one, it involves an entirely non-supernatural Hungarian connection.
O.
Wednesday, 23 August 2017
Story: 'Wordspace' Phase II, Part XIII
( Part I , XII , XIV )
There is coincidence, and there is Coincidence. The latter had a habit of dropping on people just when they were about to enjoy afternoon snacks, while the former seemed to be responsible for the rampaging Invader, the discovery or rediscovery of Infinity or Forever or whatever the massive word underneath the foundation of the Wordspace was, and the long delayed returns of the Ordinals to the known Wordspace. Oh, and the presence of Sorpresa, a fun but unexpected visitor from another world.
Mystery looked over at Sorpresa, who was looking down randomly at the Wordspace below, pensively. He apparently had no idea what was happening. Ground, Air, Water and Fire had united for the first time in recent history, and after two of them had been defeated by the rampaging giant word from places unknown. The massive words were below them, communing as only the Elementals could. War and her cohort were making attempts on the Invader, but very ineffectually in the distance.
"Misterio?"
Mystery jumped, caught as he had been in his own contemplative phase, at Sorpresa's question. "Sorpresa?"
"¿Es una ocasion muy rara, si??"
"Occasion? Rare? Yes." Mystery nodded a few syllables emphatically.
"Si..." Sorpresa seemed to be thinking deeply about something. Then he jumped off of Cloud into nothing.
"What the --- ?!" Mystery crawled over to the edge, even as Cloud pulled a sharp turn to try and go after their mad friend from another space.
"He's okay." Murmured Cloud, in some quiet surprise.
"What?" Mystery looked over and saw a big white sheet of punctuation gliding slowly to the ground. "What in the Wordspace is that?"
Cloud didn't respond. She was on the move.
The sheet hit the ground, and he watched Sorpresa ran up to Ground and hitched a ride. The Elementals seemed to be on the move. Massively. Thunderously. They might have been the biggest pacifists in the world that they knew, but they were definitely a force to be reckoned with. Maybe they hadn't need War after all?
Mystery would have been even more surprised if he had seen Club arriving with his own reinforcements.
* * *
At this point, Coincidence almost certainly had arrived with a camera, just in time to take a snapshot of the Elemental reunion.
* * *
The eye of Infinity was vast, and looked at Dream, occasionally blinking.
"Do you know us?" Asked Dream.
Infinity waited for what seemed an eon before answering.
"Know? No. Yes. Who?"
"Us."
"Ah..."
Dream realised that this might take a while.
To be continued.
Note:
No more live posts until after the weekend trip. Have fun, imaginary readers. Beware mad people on busses!
There is coincidence, and there is Coincidence. The latter had a habit of dropping on people just when they were about to enjoy afternoon snacks, while the former seemed to be responsible for the rampaging Invader, the discovery or rediscovery of Infinity or Forever or whatever the massive word underneath the foundation of the Wordspace was, and the long delayed returns of the Ordinals to the known Wordspace. Oh, and the presence of Sorpresa, a fun but unexpected visitor from another world.
Mystery looked over at Sorpresa, who was looking down randomly at the Wordspace below, pensively. He apparently had no idea what was happening. Ground, Air, Water and Fire had united for the first time in recent history, and after two of them had been defeated by the rampaging giant word from places unknown. The massive words were below them, communing as only the Elementals could. War and her cohort were making attempts on the Invader, but very ineffectually in the distance.
"Misterio?"
Mystery jumped, caught as he had been in his own contemplative phase, at Sorpresa's question. "Sorpresa?"
"¿Es una ocasion muy rara, si??"
"Occasion? Rare? Yes." Mystery nodded a few syllables emphatically.
"Si..." Sorpresa seemed to be thinking deeply about something. Then he jumped off of Cloud into nothing.
"What the --- ?!" Mystery crawled over to the edge, even as Cloud pulled a sharp turn to try and go after their mad friend from another space.
"He's okay." Murmured Cloud, in some quiet surprise.
"What?" Mystery looked over and saw a big white sheet of punctuation gliding slowly to the ground. "What in the Wordspace is that?"
Cloud didn't respond. She was on the move.
The sheet hit the ground, and he watched Sorpresa ran up to Ground and hitched a ride. The Elementals seemed to be on the move. Massively. Thunderously. They might have been the biggest pacifists in the world that they knew, but they were definitely a force to be reckoned with. Maybe they hadn't need War after all?
Mystery would have been even more surprised if he had seen Club arriving with his own reinforcements.
* * *
At this point, Coincidence almost certainly had arrived with a camera, just in time to take a snapshot of the Elemental reunion.
* * *
The eye of Infinity was vast, and looked at Dream, occasionally blinking.
"Do you know us?" Asked Dream.
Infinity waited for what seemed an eon before answering.
"Know? No. Yes. Who?"
"Us."
"Ah..."
Dream realised that this might take a while.
To be continued.
Note:
No more live posts until after the weekend trip. Have fun, imaginary readers. Beware mad people on busses!
Monday, 21 August 2017
In The Wake
In the immediate wake of finishing 'The Goodies', or at least all the episodes that are available, there's a bit of a letdown. As a series, it ended on a very weird note, but that will be something to write about more copiously in its own post. For now, it's all over, until a miracle happens and every episode comes out on DVD. It might happen one day, somehow, mightn't it? Please? Some of the episodes that we do have were absolutely and wonderfully funny and remarkable.
Moving on, this was supposed to be the next episode of 'Wordspace', but awful time management and a general lack of inspiration is keeping that story on the slowest of slow burns. Hopefully, with all good intentions, there will be another part before the next brief trip kicks off on Friday, and the blog is converted to pre-written reviews for a few days. Oh, there's nothing wrong with 'reviews', although here they tend to degenerate into the usual ramblings but on a more focussed topic, but they are rather easy to write. There's not a lot of challenge to it. Writing extemporaneously is harder, and writing the stories is harder still. However, they can be very nice to compose, in a trivial way. It's odd, but it feels strange to push one person's opinion upon the world. Why should anyone care in one way or another about what Person X thinks about this, that or frozen yogurt? Is it egocentric just to throw your opinions out into the world, or is it okay if you know no-one's going to read them anyway, have no intention of forcing anything upon anyone, and do it solely as a writing exercise? It's all in the intention, isn't it?
Yes, another trip looms, to go off an a tangent to a previous comment, and with it the usual challenges of staying with people. The usual battles to escape itineraries, dig tunnels out of the bathroom, remove the radioactive shower curtains before turning into a mutant carrot, and of course the imperative to find the nearest ferry port, in order to indulge in a slow and steady escape to the Netherlands or Ireland. You have to be prepared for all contingencies. For example, on visiting people, you must emulate Batman and take shark-repellent spray and a portable rope ladder. They are both essential. You may also need a jetpack, a copy of 'The Voyage of the Beagle' by Darwin, and some playing cards. Oh, okay, you may not need the jetpack, but directions to the nearest supermarket and a pogo stick are compulsory preparations. Some of this, of course, is not strictly true, but let's not criticise the Netherlands without reason.
A cumulative twenty hours of travelling await, which means there will be enough time to probably furnish a whole new edition of 'The Literary Reflection' with thoughts on the books read in that time. Twenty hours can see a whole lot of reading get done...
O.
Moving on, this was supposed to be the next episode of 'Wordspace', but awful time management and a general lack of inspiration is keeping that story on the slowest of slow burns. Hopefully, with all good intentions, there will be another part before the next brief trip kicks off on Friday, and the blog is converted to pre-written reviews for a few days. Oh, there's nothing wrong with 'reviews', although here they tend to degenerate into the usual ramblings but on a more focussed topic, but they are rather easy to write. There's not a lot of challenge to it. Writing extemporaneously is harder, and writing the stories is harder still. However, they can be very nice to compose, in a trivial way. It's odd, but it feels strange to push one person's opinion upon the world. Why should anyone care in one way or another about what Person X thinks about this, that or frozen yogurt? Is it egocentric just to throw your opinions out into the world, or is it okay if you know no-one's going to read them anyway, have no intention of forcing anything upon anyone, and do it solely as a writing exercise? It's all in the intention, isn't it?
Yes, another trip looms, to go off an a tangent to a previous comment, and with it the usual challenges of staying with people. The usual battles to escape itineraries, dig tunnels out of the bathroom, remove the radioactive shower curtains before turning into a mutant carrot, and of course the imperative to find the nearest ferry port, in order to indulge in a slow and steady escape to the Netherlands or Ireland. You have to be prepared for all contingencies. For example, on visiting people, you must emulate Batman and take shark-repellent spray and a portable rope ladder. They are both essential. You may also need a jetpack, a copy of 'The Voyage of the Beagle' by Darwin, and some playing cards. Oh, okay, you may not need the jetpack, but directions to the nearest supermarket and a pogo stick are compulsory preparations. Some of this, of course, is not strictly true, but let's not criticise the Netherlands without reason.
A cumulative twenty hours of travelling await, which means there will be enough time to probably furnish a whole new edition of 'The Literary Reflection' with thoughts on the books read in that time. Twenty hours can see a whole lot of reading get done...
O.
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