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Oscar Wilde, scary films and gardening
Feb. 1st, 2004 07:10 pmScore: To Do List 1, Louise 0.
I did send some emails, but not as many as I wanted. The weekend has been busy with the Sue Ryder Hospice sale on Saturday (treasure: '50's melamine, ties and cake tins), then a viewing of friends' new baby, Thomas Oscar, after Oscar Wilde. There's a large gate in Reading, on Chestnut Walk, which runs alongside the prison where he was incarcerated. It's been laser cut in strips into a sort of Oscar Wilde contour map and is based on the famous photograph of him where he's wearing that jaunty hat and scarf, but unfortunately, because it's just a silhouette, it looks more like Tom Baker as Doctor Who. There are also a row of red and gold ornate steel love seats which line the walk. As far as I can tell, no one ever sits on them. Probably because there's a fucking enormous prison right behind you. There's something very mournful about having a memorial to a man in a place where he was having the very worst time of his life.
I bought 'Whistle and I'll come to you' on DVD, which is Jonathan Miller's 1968 adaptation of the MR James story, 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad', starring Michael Hordern as the professor. It's only 40 minutes long, but it's truly the spookiest thing I've ever watched, even more so than 'The Haunting of Hill House'. There's a dream sequence that's just viscerally frightening, and just through the use of sound and suggestion. In fact, sound is the most important element in ths short film -there's very little dialogue; instead there's the wind on the deserted beaches and the professor's half-heard self-involved mutterings. Oddly, it's also very funny. Michael Hordern's professor is a great comic creation.
After scary films there was gardening - the first decent gardening weekend this year. The planting was bothering me - it just wasn't quite right. So now I've got a yellow and purple/brown bed which should be interesting. A blue and pink bed which will be very tall (chard, delphinums and the 12 ft hollyhocks of DOOOM), and a white and red and pink bed of various things, including lupins (I love them) and lamb's ears. We even scooped out the weed and leaves from the pond, then spent a good long while chucking snails back into the water, which was fun for us but probably not the snails.
Fanfic: zilch, although I have thought about Aziraphale and Crowley an awful lot this weekend, if that counts, largely due to reading![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
daegaer's marvellous commentaries of her stories. Which reminds me - I should be doing mine.
I did send some emails, but not as many as I wanted. The weekend has been busy with the Sue Ryder Hospice sale on Saturday (treasure: '50's melamine, ties and cake tins), then a viewing of friends' new baby, Thomas Oscar, after Oscar Wilde. There's a large gate in Reading, on Chestnut Walk, which runs alongside the prison where he was incarcerated. It's been laser cut in strips into a sort of Oscar Wilde contour map and is based on the famous photograph of him where he's wearing that jaunty hat and scarf, but unfortunately, because it's just a silhouette, it looks more like Tom Baker as Doctor Who. There are also a row of red and gold ornate steel love seats which line the walk. As far as I can tell, no one ever sits on them. Probably because there's a fucking enormous prison right behind you. There's something very mournful about having a memorial to a man in a place where he was having the very worst time of his life.
I bought 'Whistle and I'll come to you' on DVD, which is Jonathan Miller's 1968 adaptation of the MR James story, 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad', starring Michael Hordern as the professor. It's only 40 minutes long, but it's truly the spookiest thing I've ever watched, even more so than 'The Haunting of Hill House'. There's a dream sequence that's just viscerally frightening, and just through the use of sound and suggestion. In fact, sound is the most important element in ths short film -there's very little dialogue; instead there's the wind on the deserted beaches and the professor's half-heard self-involved mutterings. Oddly, it's also very funny. Michael Hordern's professor is a great comic creation.
After scary films there was gardening - the first decent gardening weekend this year. The planting was bothering me - it just wasn't quite right. So now I've got a yellow and purple/brown bed which should be interesting. A blue and pink bed which will be very tall (chard, delphinums and the 12 ft hollyhocks of DOOOM), and a white and red and pink bed of various things, including lupins (I love them) and lamb's ears. We even scooped out the weed and leaves from the pond, then spent a good long while chucking snails back into the water, which was fun for us but probably not the snails.
Fanfic: zilch, although I have thought about Aziraphale and Crowley an awful lot this weekend, if that counts, largely due to reading
daegaer's marvellous commentaries of her stories. Which reminds me - I should be doing mine.