CSI:LONDON. AND ENVIRONS WHEN NECESSARY.
I heard the new Sherlock Holmes movie sucked, is that so? I thought the first one was OK, though they'd have done better to stick with one of the actual stories, and the hollywood need to amp up the volume and threaten to kill everyone in the houses of parliament was entirely uncalled for. fisticuffs, homoerotic banter between robert mcdowney and jude law, and the fucking speckled band. is that so hard? it has like, pumas and other dangerous wild cats and animals in it, if there was an unmet need to have sherlock holmes wrestling a hungry jaguar.
it's just funny to set out to write a whole new screenplay from scratch when there are so...many...stories to choose from. couldn't they have cobbled some of them together somehow? "the five pips of the red-headed league," or something? I am satisfied with the hotness, though my heart belongs to jeremy brett. actually, my husband made fun of me because one of my early childhood crushes was on the fictional character sherlock holmes (not on any representation, just my own imagining.) this from a man who re-reads and enjoys jack kirby's devil dinosaur, I mean, really.
it does presage the spock problem though. here I must reflect that I have actually read the tractatus aloud with my lover intermittently of an afternoon spent having sex, which thing may be the single nerdiest of all time. well, no, it can't because it involves lots of actual sex. (with a harvard grad turned runway model turned logician! he was dreamy! if self-involved and vain.) still, some kind of nerdcore achievement is happening there. I was going to say I had done the same thing twice, but with my actual boyfriend at the time, but then I realized it was the PI.
2: Hollywood has undergone Plot Leveling.
FWIW, the new TV Sherlock (the Cumberbatch/Freeman/Moffat/Gatiss one) has been riffing on the original stories, although often in fairly disguised ways. Not seen the new movie but the reviews have generally been positive.
One thing, iirc, Kung-Fu Monkey went on about a while ago, and which the new TV Sherlock sort of respects, is the age of the characters. Most film and TV adaptations make them far too old.
agreed; watson has only just got back from afghanistan (serving as a medic or whatever they called them then) when he searches around for a roommate, I think he's probably in his late 20s or something.
I heard the new Sherlock Holmes movie sucked, is that so?
Yes. Family outing to see it this Xmas was Not A Success. It was terrible. The first one was kind of OK, though carried mainly by the cast rather than the plot; but this one was abysmal.
The only bright spot was the actor playing Moriarty, who was really good.
Saw the latest Sherlock the other night on Auntie; it was OK for the first half, then it turned into an episode of Spooks.
5.2: yes, I remember working out that Watson was about 26 at the start of "A Study In Scarlet" - he went straight to university (about 17), qualified as a doctor (about 6-7 years, so 24) then went straight into the army, and went to Afghanistan the next year, and the book opens just after his return to London the year after. Holmes is a bit trickier to judge, but he's a contemporary of a friend of Watson's at Guy's, so presumably similar age.
But, of course, the stories cover a relationship that lasts for decades: Holmes' Last Bow is in 1914. So an adaptation that has them in their 40s is quite OK as well, as long as you make it clear that it's set in the Edwardian age.
I would love to have seen a film of A Study In Scarlet (Mormon terrorist hit squads in London!) but there is just no way that it could ever be made nowadays.
I found the latest tv Sherlock episode entertaining, but you are right about the Spooks-iness of the second half. I'd take the TV casting over the new films any day, though. Downey Jr is, for my taste, completely miscast. Terrible accent, and lots of gurning does not a successful Holmes make. It's a really self-indulgent performance, and not in a good way.
agreed about a study in scarlet, though it would also have to be revised so as not to have the silliest, broken-in-half-est story structure ever. like, let's just stop this really rather thrilling crime investigation for a moment while I tell you a looooong story that took place in [what is now] utah, not long ago...
8: the accent is a problem but naturally that bothers we heathen yanks less. it's only grating to me when someone puts on a southern accent for something. agreed robert downey jr. is self-indulgent though I didn't mind seeing more fisticuffs and general ass-kickery on the part of sherlock. is stephen fry playing mycroft? too old too I suppose but that shouldn't stop them.
Also, Mark Gatiss just couldn't let Irene Adler get away with being smarter than Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle was fine with his hero being outsmarted by a woman; Gatiss can't handle it. Holmes has to win EVERY TIME. Minor quibble.
9: ha, yes, agreed. Same structure as "The Sign of Four" and "The Valley of Fear" actually.
But I liked the twisted names of the cases: "The Speckled Blonde", "The Geek Interpreter", "The Navel Treaty" and so on. And there was a jar of thumbs in Holmes' fridge, presumably recently detached from engineers.
Weird. I just started rereading "Study in Scarlet" ten minute ago or so. (I got an e-reader for Christmas, and I'm a Scrooge McDuck-level miser, which means I am destined for an encyclopedic knowledge of the 19th century novel.)
11. You mean Steven Moffatt. He wrote it. (Paul McGuigan directed.) The sexism was about par for Moffatt (cf Doctor Who).
re: 15
Gattis is co-creator of the series with Moffat, though, and has written some of it. Just not this particular episode.
Thanks, ptl.
I wasn't picking up on it from a sexism point of view (though that's another valid criticism), so much as for the lack of imagination. Moffatt can only see as far as "Holmes is a genius therefore he must always win". Conan Doyle was a better writer and could see it was more interesting if Holmes was occasionally beaten.
re: 10
Yes. UK accents are hard for US actors to do well, I think, although some manage it well enough. Downey Jrs is pretty crap, though, even by US actor standards.
Fry is playing Mycroft in the film, yeah. Mark Gatiss in the BBC series (Gatiss is excellent in the role, imho).
Nah, Gatiss is too jumpy for the role. Mycroft is supposed to be this vast self-satisfied lazy intellect who moves on rails from his flat to his office to his club. Gatiss is some neurotic minor securocrat type.
I didn't think he was particularly jumpy, tbh. There was enough of the languid about his performance to satisfy me, anyway.
no one's more languid than fry. I recall ttam has tired of him for some reason but since I see him but infrequently I'm not tired a bit!
I thought I posted this already, but I can't believe 3 is hanging there and no one is going to make fun of me for having a crush on the book character sherlock holmes. my husband thought it was ridiculous and hilarious.
16. But Irene Adler is all Moffatt, as it were.
17. Ah. I'd attribute it to sexism; after all, Moffatt does know the original texts well. But perhaps not.
I assumed this post was just piling on Iowa.
re: 21.1
He's all right, he's just a bit ubiquitous, and his schtick got a bit tiresome for a while. I'll still watch him on telly. Except that god-awful documentary series he did on the USA.
re: 22.1
Yeah, I expect you're right.
Speaking of [tenuous segue] historical fiction, we watched: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1179025/ yesterday. It's very French.
23: I read that on standpipe's facebook feed just now.
We also had a family xmas outing to see the SH film - I did enjoy it, but that's mostly because I can't help but love RDJr (which is far worse than crushing on the book SH. Nothing wrong with having crushes on book people? I was mad about Holden Caulfield from 9 1/2 until I reread it for the nth time and realised I was now older than him). Went down well with all of us, I think. Although I have definitely seen enough of Stephen Fry, and didn't need to see him stuck in there for what felt like novelty value.
Also, re ages - the headstone or whatever at the end made Holmes 37. Surely no one on earth could think that RDJr looks 37! I know he's a few years older than I am and he looks *old* in the film.
TV one - Well, I like Martin Freeman, and my mum, my teenage daughters and I very much enjoyed the latest episode. I try not to think about things too much, they seem more straightforwardly enjoyed that way.
Although it did grate on me when Adler claimed to be "gay" - and yet she falls for Sherlock? Do lesbians just need to find the right man? Did Moffat chicken out of "bi" or even "queer"? Also "cameraphone"? Who the fuck says that?
'Cameraphone' is pretty common parlance, at least on photo forums, flickr, and the like.
21: Didn't we have a thread about crushes on imaginary characters like a year ago?
28 - really? I guess I don't read such places. Would you ever say it in conversation? I thought he was just making them say it every time for idiots or old people who might forget that a phone can take pictures nowadays.
re: 30
I don't think I'd ever use it in conversation, no. I'm fairly sure it's used that way on forums for exactly the same reason -- as a reminder for old people/idiots, and also to distinguish from 'proper cameras'. I also have the impression it's used to distinguish phones that have cameras (i.e. all of them) from phones that have cameras and are marketed as good at taking photos (i.e. those that have bigger sensors, xenon flashes, and so on). That latter as 'cameraphones'.
21: yes, I admitted my shameful secret at that time as well.
Do you guys remember when Ricardo Montalban was in that informercial where he said "do I smell...fajitas?" That was SO FUNNY. I still say it a LOT. "...fajitas? ROTFLMAO
31: I have a phone that doesn't have a camera. It cost like 15 dollars.
32: You're just looking to be punished so that you can forgive yourself your transgressions. No disapproval here, though. We accept all God's creatures, no matter how sick and wrong.
Sort of OT: I wonder who is responsible for TV Tropes. Is it built like a wiki? I am in love with it and want to spend the rest of my life there, which should be no problem.
34: [barely audible sobs] thank you walt [sniffle]
Also, Mark Gatiss just couldn't let Irene Adler get away with being smarter than Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle was fine with his hero being outsmarted by a woman; Gatiss can't handle it. Holmes has to win EVERY TIME. Minor quibble.
At least he doesn't make Holmes charming. Except to that nerdy pathologist woman.
38: indeed. he would fling himself on the ground to find clues in a manner that was convincingly odd. an older holmes, obviously, but otherwise perfect.
Plus the whole "of course the files on this phone can be proved to have been never backed up or copied anywhere else in the world" angle was a very silly hangover from the days of unique photographs. But I suppose the plot of Holmes being asked to recover compromising photos doesn't really work unless everyone believes it.
And why a cameraphone - when its plot function was simply as a repository of photos? Why not, well, a camera?
Also: Dear Ben Cumberbatch - we don't think any the less of you for being unable to play the violin and having to be overdubbed, but please, please, get someone to tell you how to pretend to play the violin more convincingly.
Yours,
The Musical People of Ireland
Yes, re: camera, except cameras don't normally allow the sort of password encryption that was employed with the cameraphone-McGuffin. It was still a bit clumsy, though. The internet and mobile phones still seem to pose a problem for writers.
FWIW, I don't know if there's ever really been a day of unique photographs, except during the daguerrotype era [which was over before Conan Doyle was writing]. Negatives have always been duplicable;* the convenient fiction that once you've destroyed the negatives, no more copies can be made was always that, a convenient fiction.
* at work we have/had handy machines:
http://cafe-declic.org/home_html/web_Bowens/illumitrans.jpg
26: 23: I read that on standpipe's facebook feed just now.
I'm President of the New York School for the Hard of Reading.
Did Moffat chicken out of "bi" or even "queer"?
Seems unlikely, all things considered.
"There's no point, anyway; we have the preliminary sketches. We'll soon bang off a couple of copies."
I gather from all this that there is some updated sherlock holmesery on british TV? encrypted cameraphone is really hella weak for irene adler. setting the theoretical duplicability of the photo in the original aside.
42.1: ah, good point.
42.2: but nowadays making an identical and undetectable copy of a photo is something that anyone with a camera can do very easily; previously it would have needed a bit more equipment and technical knowledge. One could safely assume that Irene Adler in 1880 couldn't have duplicated a photo from just the print by herself; she'd have had to get a technician involved who would presumably have exclaimed "Holy shit, is that a photo of you with the Prince of Bohemia?".
agreed about a study in scarlet, though it would also have to be revised so as not to have the silliest, broken-in-half-est story structure ever.
I started it when I was about 10 and new to adult literature. When they jumped to the desert I quit. I didn't know whether to blame myself or the adult world.
re: 46
I thought you'd have seen it? Series 1 was pretty good, although patchy. The best episodes quite a bit better than the worst. The new series just started.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=JP5Dr63TbSU
46: yeah, "Sherlock", on BBC1, with Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman (Arthur Dent, soon to be Bilbo Baggins) as Watson.
48: you could maybe do it with the two apparently unconnected stories running in parallel and coming together at the end. Kind of like Use of Weapons.
yes, that could be good. could there be maybe just a few more knife-missles than in the original though?
good night unfogged. stay true to the game.
Series 1 was pretty good, although patchy. The best episodes quite a bit better than the worst.
Quite a feat for a series comprising three episodes.
re: 47.last
Actually, one can't safely assume that, no.
If she could have made the photo at all she could have duplicated it using no special equipment. The negatives would either be wet-plate, dry-plate, or paper negatives. All easily duplicable with some gaslight/POP* paper, and a bit of glass. Possibly two bits of gaslight paper and some glass. Probably easier in 1880/1890 than later, actually. You wouldn't need a darkroom, or special hard-to-obtain chemicals, or anything much. Not that obtaining hard-to-obtain stuff would have been problematic in the Holmesian world anyway.
* actual gaslight/POP papers not sold until the 1880s, but earlier processes weren't that much harder to use. And, anyway, the story is set in the late 1880s.
53: But it's an accurate description. I liked it a lot, but I thought the characters and setup were good (Holmes convincingly insane, Watson appealing, all the incidental schtick excellent) and the plots ranging from tolerable to lousy. The Moriarity bit made very little sense, in an annoying kind of way. I do wonder if this season's episodes explain how they lived through the end of last season, or if it's just one of those "They just did. Deal with it." things.
re: 53
Yeah. I remember the one with the circus (episode 2, apparently) as being shitty compared to the other two.
re: 55
Episode 1 of the new series starts with the ending of series 1, so yeah, they 'explain' it.
54: I don't remember the story perfectly -- did she have a negative, or just a print? I suppose you can always duplicate a print by photographing it, but that might have been tricky.
54: but I don't think she did make the photo herself; it's a portrait picture of the two of them together in their younger days, presumably taken by a professional photographer, so she wouldn't have the negative. Could a print alone be duplicated that easily?
re: 58/59
It wouldn't have really mattered, either way. Bit of glass, sandwich the original print together with a piece of gaslight paper under the glass. Stick it in the light for 5 minutes, wash it, and then fix. Repeat to create a print. Or sandwich with a dry gelatin plate, and expose for less time, etc etc. There were lots of fairly easy ways to do it. It was easier in the days when negatives were really big, and slow-acting contact printing papers widely available.
You could still do it now with a picture frame, a few sheets of modern POP paper,* and a light source.
* which is crappy cyanotype sort of stuff, unlike the papers they had in the 1880s.
she only has the print, IIRC; one wonders where the professional photographer has got to. it's funny when the prince runs through the litany of evidence and sherlock shoots him down. "letters?" forged. "on my letterhead?" stolen. "with my seal?" purloined at the court and surreptitiously returned. etc. then finally they get to: "photograph of us together," and holmes is like, awww, shit.
she would have made a magnificent queen.
Presumably the security risk was recognized at the front end, and the photographer destroyed the negative. (I don't know why I say presumably, given that the prince is an idiot. But that would take it out of the story as a problem.)
60: How good a copy would it have been? It wouldn't have to degrade much in the copying process to be much less dangerous.
Martin Freeman in the BBC version is great (I'd forgotten he was Arthur Dent, but that makes total sense) because his Watson is such a normal, decent, scrumptious man. Too many movies make Watson into a sidekick, groupie, or comic relief.
I've never seen Jude Law's Watson, but he is hot, so.
62: yes indeed.
63: the photo was taken in Warsaw, while the Prince was shacked up with Adler there, and Polish professional photographers of the 1870s, as you know, my dear Breath, were notoriously careless with their negatives.
64 is also a good point.
That first link was supposed to go here: http://harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=210
It cracked me up that they didn't have to do anything at all to adjust the 'doctor just home from Afghanistan' bit.
re: 60
It would depend. A third or fourth hand paper copy of a paper negative copy would be quite bad. But assuming you had a good quality first generation master to work from (which would be what you'd expect in this case, even if the negative wasn't available) then really pretty good. When I worked at the M/ useum of the History of S /cience we had some prints made from (and using) 19th century paper negatives for an exhibition, using vintage-appropriate techniques and they were really excellent. Paper negatives wouldn't hold up to a lot of enlargement, but they were usually used 1:1 anyway.
Assuming the print was good enough quality to be incriminating, then it wouldn't pose any problem to have the print duplicated to produce an incriminating copy, put it that way.
Cracked me up in that 'isn't history depressing' kind of way, of course.
Seconded. I love having expertise on tap around here.
re: 71
It's interesting that 'destroying the negatives' remains a fictional trope. I wonder if it's because audiences were aware that prints could be manipulated, or because of the gradual decrease [but not complete stop] in widespread availability of materials for easy home duplication as drugstore/chemist/postal handling of photographs became more common?
As we've discussed before, Hollywood golden age portraits, for example, were heavily manipulated (without even getting into Stalin-esque rewriting of history).
It seems as if there must have a real knowledge barrier -- even if duplicating photographs wasn't hard, people thought it was? I'm surprised by the no darkroom, no caustic chemicals nature of the process you describe; I thought you couldn't do much of anything with film outside of a pretty serious setup (not exactly capital intensive, but at least space/knowledge/labor intensive).
I enjoyed Game of Shadows in the roller-coaster fashion. I think they skipped out on idiochronism even more than the last one - the word "nosh" was in the script. The visuals conveyed a smoother progression from the Victorian era to World War I than you often get.
Yeah, by the 1880s you had papers that were very slow-acting, so the exposure took long enough that you didn't need a darkroom to work with. You could do it by gaslight, or using a window as a light source. Sometimes the image was developed by ultraviolet light, rather than chemicals, although developing chemicals aren't necessarily that caustic either.* Photographic fixers aren't particularly toxic or caustic, even the ones used in the 19th century. So you wouldn't need any special facilities to wash and fix the photos. Certainly this was stuff that was easily available from drugstores, and usable at home.
Large format negatives and positives, as would be typical in the 19th century, are much easier to work with with no special enlarger or darkroom. Making wet plate negatives is hard, and daguerrotypes positively dangerous, but working with dry-plates or paper negatives is easy.
* you can make a photo developer from Folger's coffee crystals and washing soda.
This is one of my nerd-subjects, so I shall shut up now!
Conan Doyle didn't seem to understand that photos could be manipulated--at one point he believed in fairies because he was shown photos.
79: the Cottingley photographs weren't manipulated; they were authentic, accurate photographs of a girl with a number of (pretty obvious) cardboard cutout pictures of fairies.
He believed in them because he really wanted there to be actual evidence backing up his religious beliefs. (See "The Face Of Jesus Appeared In My Toasted Cheese", etc.)
81 also a good point, they weren't photo-montages or altered negatives, but Doyle's credulousness re: photos stands, I think.
I'm reminded about how some lawyers I've worked with think about computers. I'm pretty non-technical, but there's a 'Oooh, inexplicable magic' reaction that a surprising number of people (including plenty who are younger than you'd think) have to anything that's related to them.
83: Computers have secretary-cooties on them. I'm convinced that's half the reason.
81: They were so, so obvious. But people other than Doyle were fooled by them. Strange. It reminds me a little of the van Meegeren Vermeer forgeries that look so 1930s now.
84: There's a combination of secretary cooties and nerd-fairy-dust. I get appealed by other lawyers to as computer-skills-and-understanding-person, and it's not in a 'do my secretarial work, peon' context, it's in a 'ooh, she's so techy, she understands everything!' context. Which is bullshit, I am the merest of users, but I'm at least not made pre-emptively stupid by them.
(The secretarial cooties thing is real, but that's not all of it.)
84: that was certainly true of the prosecutors I worked with in 1999.
Meanwhile, that photo duplicator of yours is just missing George Smiley operating it.
I have a recurring thing happen where somebody will ask for my expertise with a computer problem that they can't solve, except the only problem is that they did something stupid and don't remember what it was, so when I walk over there and they try it again it works, and they decide that is because computers just magically work around me. This is not always a bad reputation to have.
* you can make a photo developer from Folger's coffee crystals and washing soda.
The fact that two relatively innocuous household items can be combined to make some compound does not at all establish that the resulting compound is equally innocuous.
So combining ammonia and bleach to make a more powerful cleaner maybe something I should be cautious about.
You can make magic playtime fun gas from laundry bleach and windex!
In my defense, I huffed both of those before posting.
You can make giggle-time sparkle powder with an etch-a-sketch and some steel wool!
And in my defense, "maybe" has a very small space in between the y and the b. On some browsers, it may look like a typo.
Are coffee crystals innocuous? I drink instant coffee occasionally, but I always think that I'm being fearless and badass.
re: 85
Yeah, the interesting thing is people like Rejlander were doing stuff like this:
http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llr1gs4b0v1qcdvnmo2_500.jpg
or this (not strictly worksafe):
http://www.codex99.com/photography/10.html
This is 50 or 60 years before the Cottingley Fairies. So it's not as if the idea of montage or photo-manipulation wasn't out there for a long time.
re: 89
Heh, yeah. Although in this case, it doesn't produce something nasty although I'd guess it might release a small amount of CO2.
What, chemically, is in the coffee that matters? The caffeine, or something else?
re: 98
I don't actually know. The usual mix for those homebrew developers is instant coffee, vitamin-c and washing soda. So it's sodium carbonate, ascorbic acid, and something else.
Wiki suggests it may be something called caffeic acid (in combination with caffeine), which apparently produces similar effects to pyrogallol (which is a toxic developer used in some historic photo processes).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeic_acid#Other_uses
88: Re Sifu- the computer guru. Oh, yeah, I have the exact same reputation. I even managed to parlay that into money at one time.
Here is a big, insider computer trick, which I will get in real trouble for disclosing: RTFM. I can't tell you how many people have paid me good money for RTFM.
If someone asks what RTFM means, I tell them YCLIU. That is after I am paid, of course.
75, 81: It seems to me as if even an intelligent layperson trying to make a duplicate of a photo would at least be able to get as far as the idea of photographing the photograph.
And this is substantially identical to the procedure ttaM describes in 60, though ttaM goes into some detail about how to make sure the copy is a high-fidelity image of the original.
But to forget that a photograph can be itself photographed seems like the same class of error as that described in 79, i.e. making the leap from the notion that "a photograph is a true image" to the notion that "a photograph cannot capture a deceptive image".
I heard the new Sherlock Holmes movie sucked, is that so?
No. If you care about faithfulness to the original character and/or you're not a Downey fan, it will irk you. There are some silly plot holes and Downey's accent is hit or miss. But if you're willing to enter into the world of the film on its own terms (and I can understand why one might not be willing) it's really quite enjoyable.
At the level of dialogue and comic timing, if not overall structure or characterisation (much of which is of course semi-borrowed), Moffat >>>> Conan Doyle, at least on this showing: which was much wittier than any actual CD story ever was (and I've read The White Company, heaven help me, though not for maybe 40 years). Mycroft is somewhat underwritten and conceptual in the original -- he's played by Charles Grey in the Jeremy Brett version, and never very convincing or interesting. Brett is always enormous fun: he plays the role half-animal and snorts and snuffles with concept and excitement, but both his Watsons were quite dull, and often the direction in the Brett sequence was very self-indulgent (especially latterly). Gatiss's Mycroft is an improvement on CD in the service of present-day recontextualising: and Moffat does actually get the point that Irene Adler was a superbly smart courtesan in the original, like Lola Montez, which is easy to miss in CD's late victorian enforced primness of attitude. I enjoyed this one enormously. I kind of agree about the problem of SH besting her: though the idea that nerdy boys are always at sea with sex is a far bigger cliche these days than it was back in the day, so Moffat had a complex judgment call about overriding anticipation I think. How often does Sheldon best Penny? Not never, for sure, but not often.
(The middle one in the first series was indeed terrible, partly because it didn't work hard enough at finding a present-day analogue for a nonsensical orientalist trope which is all over the originals...)
Happy New Year everyone!
"snorts and snuffles with concept" "snorts and snuffles with concept"
?
concept s/b contempt!
Happy New Year, tierce. Hope all is well. Any news re: doctoral thingie?
103, 104: I was a little chagrined that they toned down the homoeroticism so much between this film and its predecessor. That made it wittier and more believable, certainly, but for me at least, A Game of Shadows descended into the miasma of mediocre steampunk that's almost impossible to escape nowadays. There were some very nice set-pieces, and the mise-en-scene in general was quite good. Plot holes didn't bug me too much, but there were enough anachronisms or near-anachronisms to be noticeable, which detracted from my enjoyment.
I'd like to see some kind of massively post-modern film or TV version of the Holmes canon that takes all of the various fan-created explanations for discrepancies in the original and squishes them all together in the same work, so that Watson's marriages are all over the place and either or both of Holmes & Watson are women and all that. I envision something like a Svankmejer film, but with live actors.
Doctoral thingie: did not get. They went with a techie, sadly for me. But yes, all well.
Huh. Reading this thread I had the impression that season series 2 must already have had at least two episodes, but it's only one? They wrap up that Moriarty/bomb cliffhanger and introduce Irene Adler?
Are these new episodes viewable in the US?
I wish I knew what the doctoral thingie was.
Archives, I call to you through your earthly agent!
I believe that I have the nearest thing possible to complete knowledge of the archives, and I don't think there's an explanation in there -- ttaM and tierce may have had the temerity to communicate offblog. But I'm glad that it seems to be an academic doctoral thing rather than a medical doctoral thing.
Sorry, were you talking to Google?
115: no, I was figuring the archives would choose their vessel.
Maybe tierce will tell us.
116.2: And how boring that would be.
115.1: We choose the USS Abraham Lincoln. Your turn.
114: I believe that I have the nearest thing possible to complete knowledge of the archives,
But you're a girl!
115.1: We choose the USS Abraham Lincoln. Your turn.
A6
I believe that I have the nearest thing possible to complete knowledge of the archives
Young lady, if you had applied yourself that diligently to the law you woulnd't be in the fine mess you're now in.
Perhaps the dirtiest possible sounding name for a legal titan.
LB is actually the vast mechanical Brain that Richard Seaton built to map the entire universe inside the Skylark of Valeron.
Yes, we may have communicated off-blog, and it's not a medical thing, it's an academic thing.
Bah, tierce, that's shite.
Judicial hands are all over our Liz! We must spring into action.
Come to think, I've never been the subject of the merest of slantendicular looks from a judge. I mean, I'm devastating, so I assume that all the judges of appropriate orientation have been ravished, but they've behaved themselves.
10: Cold Mountain was the worst collection of generic, overstated southern accents ever. Renee Zellweger's was good, but that's because she's from Plano or something. The worst individual southern accent I can remember in a major motion picture was Owen Wilson (from Dallas) in The Film Disappointing with Steve Zissou pretending to be from Kentucky and instead doing something very vaguely tidewater.
I can't say I have a finely calibrated differential knowledge of southern accents but bad is bad.
(First prize for getting it dead right from an actor with no natural claim to it goes to Amy Adams in Junebug.)
127: but they've behaved themselves.
Hands visible above the bench at all times?
Opposing counsel has just struck new heights of chutzpah. They wrote to the judge saying "Help, the mean agency won't sign this agreement we want them to sign before the time runs out and we're in default." I wrote to the judge saying "Funny, we gave them an extra month of time on the obligation they're about to default on, on the specific written condition that they not go whining for relief to the Court in that month. Here's the email exchange. Oh, and if they'd prefer not to have entered into the agreement not to go to the Court in that month, fine, we can roll it back. In which case they're already in default for three weeks already." And now they've written back saying "I don't know what you could possibly mean. We're not seeking relief from the Court, just guidance."
If all they want from the judge is guidance, they're hosed. And it couldn't happen to a nicer law firm. God, I love kicking this guy around.
Someone mentioned once that in other jurisdictions, it's not customary to write whiny letters to the court all the time. That must be nice.
130: That's the happiest legal report I remember you ever making here.
Kelly MacDonald in No Country for Old Men
I don't really know how good the accent is, but this scene is pretty amazing.
133: Oh I forgot about her! The accent is shockingly good, to my ear.
Favorite exchange:
Where'd you get it?
At the gettin' place.
132: Oh, it's all very low stakes at this point. They want to do something, we want them to do it, we have to agree for them to be allowed to do it, but we're only going to agree if they do it the normal way rather than the cockamamie screwy way they want to. The default they're afraid of is merely technical -- if they eventually do the thing that everyone agrees they're going to do, it won't matter.
But man, this guy. I don't remember if I complained here, but I listened to him harangue me about this issue for about five minutes on the phone without taking a breath. I said maybe two sentences, and he told me that he didn't need to hear me bluster. My feelings were hurt.
I believe that I have the nearest thing possible to complete knowledge of the archives,
meet
I don't remember if I complained here
Regarding Game of Shadows, I must say that I have been to the Reichenbach and it looks nothing like that.
Conan Doyle or some pseudonymous person on the internet -- which one should I believe?
Martin Freeman in the BBC version is great (I'd forgotten he was Arthur Dent, but that makes total sense) because his Watson is such a normal, decent, scrumptious man.
Hear, hear.
On the topic of having a crush on Sherlock Holmes, meanwhile, though, doesn't everyone?
139: How about crowdsourcing?
The actual ledge from which Moriarty and Holmes apparently fell is on the other side of the falls to the funicular; it is accessible by climbing the path to the top of the falls, crossing the bridge and following the trail down the hill. The ledge is marked by a plaque written in English, German and French; the English inscription reads, "At this fearful place, Sherlock Holmes vanquished Professor Moriarty, on 4 May 1891." This is a reference to an event in Conan Doyle's short story "The Adventure of the Empty House", in which Holmes is revealed to have survived the fight with Moriarty due to his knowledge of "baritsu, or Japanese wrestling" and to have taken the opportunity to fake his own death, to protect himself from Colonel Sebastian Moran, Moriarty's henchman. The pathway on which the duel between Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty occurs ends some hundred yards away from the falls. When Doyle viewed the falls, the path ended very close to the falls, close enough to touch it, yet over the hundred years after his visit, the pathway has become unsafe and slowly eroded away, and due to the nature of waterfalls, the falls have receded further back into the gorge.
Ah, but Flip is referring to the movie, which I intend to never see as a rejoinder tribute to his not having seen The Sound of Music.
Someone mentioned once that in other jurisdictions, it's not customary to write whiny letters to the court all the time.
It's hard to exaggerate how annoyed a California judge, state or federal, would be to get a whiny letter in the NY manner. Of course we have our own bizzarro motion practices.
A California judge would be so annoyed by the sort of whiny letter common in NY court, he or she would murder the clerk right then and there.
140.last: Fact! I mean, if I can't have crushes on arrogant, emotionally-withdrawn, manic-depressive geniuses, who can I have a crush on?
The cute boy at the counter of the Clarion Taco bell.
Is it a combination Taco Bell and Pizza Hut?
147: Those are the bad ones! (Still better than the Taco Bell - KFCs!)
Let us return to the Taco Bells on I-80 issue. Why Taco Bell? Is this not clearly the worst of all road food options? For example, I've been to this place which was awesome. Even a generic Wendys is going to be better than a TB.
They closed the Wendy's by my office but left the Arby's because the universe wants me to eat better.
149: Vegetarians can pretty much only do Taco Bell in terms of low-end fast food. Bean burritos, 7-layer burritos, cheezy beans and rice burritos.
Eat better by avoiding fast food, not trading Wendy's for Arby's. It isn't even a good Arby's.
We had KFC out of desperation at one point in the fall, and it's totally, totally disgusting and yet still kind of tasty.
151: nonsense! Enjoy a vegetarian slime way at subway!
I went to a Taco Bell once, expecting at least greasily-filling. I was pretty disappointed even by that standard. WTF, it's sealed inside a plastic bag?!
Martin Freeman in the BBC version is great
It did bother my that Holmes identified Watson as a military man from his upright posture, but for every other scene, Freeman slouches. I know that acting is hard, but how hard is it to stand up straight?
KFC is great if the store is run well, but it wouldn't sit well on a car trip.
151: Doesn't Wendy's have baked potatoes with vegetarian-appropriate toppings? It's been quite a while since I've been to one, but it made them seem friendly to me. Maybe they don't have that any more.
arrogant, emotionally-withdrawn, manic-depressive geniuses
But enough about my colleagues.
154: God help me, but I consider Subway a step above low-end. Actually, many, but not all, Subways have a veggie burger option. I will totally eat that.
Has Subway declined in quality over the years, or did I just develop taste buds at some point? I don't remember it being awful when I was a kid, but recently, faced with the choice of Subway vs Sbarro at an airport, I chose Subway and found it almost completely inedible.
I think Subway varies quite a bit on quality, even at the same location. Sometimes the bread tastes freezer-burned, sometimes not. And the veggie patty that oud mentions is indeed edible (and rectangular!).
162: I dunno. I mean, when I eat there it is basically lettuce, onion, tomato, "cheese," oil, vinegar, and a Garden burger on whole wheat. That's pretty hard to fuck up. But some of those sandwiches, "buffalo whatever with cheezy ranch chipotle," etc. seem pretty tragic and those sorts of offerings have increased.
A Subway footlong meatball with cheese and oregano has never failed me. Never.
But the few times I've opted for anything else, I've been surprised at how bad it was.
KFC is a terrible restaurant, and not only because it tastes like shit. You should pray to your gods that you are not reincarnated as a KFC chicken.
the veggie patty that oud mentions is indeed edible (and rectangular!)
Most edible things are rectangular.
163. That's one cute kid. Snazzy sweater too.
There is little if anything offered in the world of chain-style fast food that can surpass a Double-Decker Taco Supreme from Taco Bell. Order at least two; three or four if you're hungry.
Why Taco Bell? Is this not clearly the worst of all road food options?
Clearly you've never been to a Little Chef. Or, god forbid, a Happy Eater.
On Subway, I've only ever been there once, and all I could think about what I ate was: "Why are all the ingredients soggy?" I can't understand why anyone would go there rather than a proper sandwich shop.
168: He is! Thank you! But I *swear* I was liking something else when I was seconding Sifu!
Taco Bell might be able to work a classicist into one of their advertising campaigns.
172. Yeah, I was being cute. That NYE photo is adorable.
165 162: I dunno. I mean, when I eat there it is basically lettuce, onion, tomato, "cheese," oil, vinegar, and a Garden burger on whole wheat. That's pretty hard to fuck up.
Not when the lettuce is, like, gray and limp, and the tomato is somewhat less than fresh, and the bread is strangely soggy.... But maybe I shouldn't judge all Subways by the one in the Cleveland airport. (Was it Cleveland? They all blur together.)
172: Can't we like both? Hooray for both!
Subway's bread is awful, last I knew. They were trying to introduce new varieties of bread (roll) as of a few years ago, but it didn't seem to be working very well. It's last-ditch food.
Yeah, mean old BG has ruined Winnipeg for the classics.
176: OMG, no word of a lie, my favorite airport food is fried pickles at the Great Lakes Brewery in CAK. There's a Great Lakes at CLE, but no fried pickles.
(Was it Cleveland? They all blur together.)
All cities are alike. But every Cleveland is Cleveland in its own way.
I went to the Arthur Bryant's at the airport in KC. It was okay, but I bet it doesn't compare to the real Arthur Bryant's.
re: 133
Oh, have had a crush on her for years. Lots of small-degree of separation connections but never met. The accent sounds quite good to my ears, but it's not as if I'm an expert.
|| Oh dear god, is Meryl Streep really starring in a Margaret Thatcher movie?
|>
|| I just saw someone from google explain that Santorum has received twice as many search requests from Iowa as the next candidate.
|>
You're going to fuck up the tape head like that, Eggplant.
185: Are you still in a distant northern land?
182: She's so pretty. Have you seen the trailer for the new Pixar movie? She voices the hero(ine).
I am. For a day or two I was fine. Then I woke up at 4:30 am on Monday. Then an afternoon nap today and my brain is wide awake, even though everyone else went to bed hours ago.
I wonder if this would always be a problem if I weren't chronically sleep deprived. Maybe it's just that I'm far away from the babies.
Heebie is staying up to get the results from Iowa? From one cold land to another.
The babies are already able to take care of themselves?
The babies have generous grandparents.
I have turned on the TV. CNN is going to show us "what it's like inside Santorum headquarters," which brings repulsive images to mind.
Grandparents Carp make great babysitters.
It is so amazing that the alternate definition of santorum might become extremely well-known.
obviously I'm just some kind of coastal elite so coastal I actually moved away when george bush was elected, but prior to this recent...resurgence of santorum, I had considered him finished, and the word going on its merry way. "dammit, there's santorum on this bedspread!"
I'm afraid the whole Santorum thing is kind of going to bite us in the ass. Which is actually not a Santorum joke, unbelievably, because...it doesn't work as one.
Subway is substantially less disgusting than it used to be. The old bread had a distinctive bleach odor that would leak into surrounding businesses through the air ducts. It's still gross, but not nearly as awful as it was. When I worked at the brokerage there were lots of guys who would buy the daily special, which was always ridiculously cheap. Profit margins must be slim though, because they always seem to have the least competent staff of any fast food chain.
they always seem to have the least competent staff of any fast food chain.
That's because they're artists.
182: I also. There was a girl at college with me who looked and sounded almost exactly like her. Aargh.
201: how so? Cementing the idea that those gay liberals are truly bigger sinners than you ever imagined, capable of such filth?
Both Subway and chain pizza are total mysteries to me. Any random sandwich show or pizza restaurant will be better, so why does anyone go there when there's an alternative? I understand the niche McDonald's fills -- it's worse than a real burger from a restaurant, but also much cheaper.
The Philadelphia airport now has a Chickie and Pete's, which makes a decent cheesesteak.
Oh dear god, is Meryl Streep really starring in a Margaret Thatcher movie?
Yes, and I couldn't even watch the trailer without experiencing pain.
Yes, the newspapers were right: santorum was general all over Iowa. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Ames and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Missouri River waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch where Herbert Hoover lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the santorum falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
The doctoral thingie: was an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award at Goldsmiths and the Science Museum, three years of research in Daphne Oram and her Oramics machine. I was proposing a study of shifts in the social meaning of technology -- in particular the move from DIY analogue programming to prefabricated digital programming -- and the role of music in the use and exploration of same; the latter my general area of expertise and interest. But they went with a guy who'd (unfunded) built his own Oramics machine in his own kitchen. Which I don't really blame them for, actually.
Anyone else beginning to think the whole Santorum thing was a big, big mistake? It's probably his unique selling point.
Anyway. Kelly MacDonald. [....280 lines deleted due to pornography...] I remember that she basically disappeared after everyone expected Trainspotting to lead to massive stardom, and turned up in a deodorant ad on ITV. I presume there's a really incompetent agent in Scotland somewhere.
re: 210.last
That wouldn't surprise me. Although looking, she's actually been in quite a lot of decent things in the interim. The original UK 'State of Play', Gosford Park, A Cock and Bull Story, etc. And quite a few crappy parts in not very good things, too.
Oh, she was the tiny Scottish woman in State of Play? Yes, very appealing -- Buck was cooing over her throughout the entire miniseries.
