World Enough and Time

maaboroshi and I took a taxi to the hospital to visit maaseru from about 3 p.m. to about 8 p.m., which is what the visiting hours are. maaboroshi brought a string of coloured star-shaped lights to hang over maaseru's bed, which made it look festive. She has almost no room around her bed - her bedside table has to go sideways and there's no room for our chairs beside her, though we made room anyway.

We then proceeded to create delicate mayhem, and I do think a good time was had by all. Helped, in maaseru's case, by double doses of Percocet. But we got to see her walk, with her walker, to the bathroom - using two legs! Yay! I brought her a hot dog and popcorn - just as well, because her hospital supper didn't look good. It called itself "Chinese stir-fry" but it looked more like beef stew, and not a good beef stew at that.

At one point a nurse asked, "Is this the room with the party?" maaseru shares the room with a woman who was feverish, sick, and feeling awful, and a very perky woman of ninety-five, whose nieces visited and were fun. There was much admiration of maaboroshi's quilt squares, which she was working on, and quite right, too.

We managed to go online¹ and I discovered that they are making a Solomon Kane movie. How had I missed that?

And - I think I gasped aloud - Kane is played by James Purfoy. I done died an' gone to heaven.

Solomon Kane is my favourite of the Robert E. Howard heroes.² Remember when there were Solomon Kane stories in Marvel Premiere with art by John Buscema? I thought Kane was sexy, because he was so dark and repressed - sexy in the way 17th century Jesuits were, or certain English Puritans. I wonder if I'll feel the same about him in the movie.

Here's a nice pic I found of him by Mike Grell. Here is a drawing of Kane in an uncharacteristically heroic pose. Here's a fair-haired, bearded Kane. And - ooh - this, from the movie. Gorgeous!

Found an item about the movie by its writer/producer, Michael Bassett. It's hard to judge the quality from his comments - but the notion that it's 'character driven' is good. There seem to be no trailers yet, though. I wonder why not.

And I never knew this, The Solomon Kane Sketchbook, existed. Seems to be out of print. Damn.

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¹ By "we" I mean maaboroshi, who is a miracle-worker. There is no Internet access in the hospital. But she managed to get maaseru connected, with all the aplomb and canniness of a true U.N.C.L.E. agent. Awesome.

² Unless you count Red Sonja as drawn by Barry Windor-Smith.