Torchwood and Life...

At first I thought I was getting echoes of Torchwood in Life just because I was being delusionally obsessive. This isn't a problem, you understand - being obsessively deluded where Captain Jack Harkness is concerned is sheer pleasure.

The first time I saw Crews standing on a roof I thought Torchwood, and then dismissed it as a silly thought - it was just a hero on a roof, and he had a reason for being on a roof. Anybody on a roof these days will make me think of Captain Jack Harkness, with or without a greatcoat.¹ And when Charlie Crews was standing on a rooftop with Ted, and Ted made a Batman reference, I thought of the Batman references made in connection with Torchwood - but of course any hero lurking on a rooftop will make a person think of Batman. That's what Batman is all about.

Then Charlie Crews stands on a rooftop with a guy named Captain Jack Reese.

When they found the Zen master's dessicated body in the construction site, I thought of the body found in the construction site at the beginning of Torchwood's "Greeks Bearing Gifts" and laughed at myself.

Then I realized they were playing as background music the same song used in Torchwood's episode "Day One".

They are messing with my head.

~ ~ ~

¹ Though not invariably. The rooftop in New York in Heroes where Claude kept his pigeons and Charles had his terrace does not remind me of Torchwood in the least.

Those wonderful books of the past...

This week’s question is suggested by Island Editions:

Do you have a favourite book, now out of print, that you would like to see become available again? (I have several…)

My first thought was of books of my childhood. The first would be A Treasury of Great Poems, edited by Louis Untermeyer. Not actually intended for children, this book was given to my mother by her Sunday School class when she got married in 1944. She loved it, as did I. It had a friendly, clear introduction to each poet and each poem, and the poems were well chosen, and I got more of an education in poetry from this book than I ever did in high school or university English classes. It had in it poems that are still my favourites, like the wonderful translation Tennyson wrote of "The Battle of Brunanburh". Can't you just imagine how that burned its shield-wall into my adolescent imagination?

Then there is He Went With Christopher Columbus or any of the books by Louise Andrews Kent, whom I loved as a kid. I was mad over history. This book sent me into years of happy role-playing games as a stowaway or cabin boy/girl with Columbus. All the Kent books fanned my imagination and increased my love of history.

Likewise, Merrylips by Jean Marie Dix, a wonderful adventure about a little girl in the English Civil War.

So, dragging myself away from childhood reading - there's Edward, Edward or any of the novels of Lolah Burford. Historical novels with a psychological slant - themes of white slavery and abuse of aristocratic privilege.

O City of Byzantium by Niketas Choniates. It ought to be in print. It's a wonderful book. I can't think why it isn't. It ought to be a much-read classic. Likewise, I'd love to see L'histoire de guillaume le maréchal in print again - it was last published in Paris in the 1870s - but now that it's available online, my feelings aren't quite so urgent. I love electronic technology.

Because I like this topic, I asked this question of a couple of my friends. One said "Dickens' magazine 'Household Words'." Another cited the Pitman shorthand version of A Sign of Four. Another said, "The works of John Masefield" - which actually is in print, but (appallingly) not available in Canada, for copyright reasons.

There's also a Louis Untermeyer poem I've been looking for and not finding anywhere - I don't know if it's in print or not, and I can't remember the title of the book where I originally found it. It was something like The Oxford Book of Naughty Verse, and it was called something along the lines of, "To his right-beloved Shakespeare, from WH", and it begins: "Whenas (methinks that is a pretty way to start)...." and it ends:

In thy next poem, if thou wouldst give me joy,
Please make it clear I'm not that kind of boy?

Does this sound familiar to anyone here?

Life: an interview with Lewis and Shahi....

A good interview with the stars of Life, Damian Lewis and Sarah Shahi.

Interesting that Crews and Reese are both doing a 'living in the moment' thing, though for different - almost contrasting - reasons.

I liked they way it's so clear that both Lewis and Shahi have thought carefully and intelligently about the characters they are playing.

Best quotes are:

Lewis on his family: "The kids are fantastic. You don’t sleep and you clear up a lot of vomit. Who could want anything more?"

And Shahi on Reese's part in the storyline: "I hope, if anything, the shit hits the fan even more."

New Doctor Who Trailer...

I would really like to still be grumpy with Doctor Who - the show in general and Ten in particular - but then they give me a trailer like this one and I'm just so tickled I forgive everything and I can hardly wait for the Christmas special.

How many weeks now?

Not so many.

Arts, crafts, and Aiyara...

I talk sometimes about Lisa, whom I've known since I was nine, or Harry, whom I met when were were both five. Tonight I had dinner with someone I've known far longer than either of them. I remember knowing Diane when we were three; I lived at the top of the hill on Hilson Ave., she lived five houses away at the bottom of the hill, and when you're three years old, that seems like quite a distance.

We always knew each other to say 'hello'. Three is just the earliest I remember her; she was a familiar face already. When we were nine, we got to talking one day. I don't think we stopped for ten years. We called each other "The Siamese Twins". Teachers and people who didn't know us took it for granted that we were sisters, though we certainly don't look in the least alike. For years - decades - we shared every holiday.

She got married, moved to the suburbs, had kids. My lifestyle has always been very different. And in the last few years we've just been too busy to get together; the regular seasonal visits had faded to birthdays, and then to nothing at all.

Tonight we got together and went to the Craft Sale at Lansdowne Park. When I think of 'craft sales' I tend to think of knit scarves and wooden toys. This was an amazingly upscale craft sale, with the sort of crafts to which I would aspire to buy if only I could afford them. My favourite items were a brocade jacket and a hand-painted silk tunic. There were also some amazing wooden jigsaw puzzles in the shapes of dragons and leaves - some of them interlocking three layers deep. I can't imagine doing such a puzzle. How many dimensions would you have to think in at once? I also loved the fretwork from Solar Woodcuts, especially an intricate Tree of Life.

Afterwards, we went to Aiyara Thai Cuisine on Walkley Road for supper. It's a lovely place - where - talk about decorative vegetables! - the meals are garnished with amazing works of art: carrots carved in the shapes of leaves and roses, coconut shaped like an elephant, and food of cuttings and shapes indescribable in their beauty. Even their washrooms are beautiful. "Aiyara" means "elephant" in Thai, the menu explained, and I couldn't help thinking of the similarly nice food and decor at The Elephant Walk in Cambridge, MA, where I ate with gem225.