Sudden Stop
Jun. 9th, 2003 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowMy hectic life has come to a grinding halt - the frenzy, not the life -which is a good thing, since I haven't had a decent night's sleep in a month and am going on vacation on Wednesday. I rarely get to go anywhere that doesn't involve visiting someone, and while I love catching up with friends and family, I also love to travel and this will be the first time in years that I get to go someplace I've never been before, so yeah for me.
The party was lovely. I have many kind and generous friends, one of whom sought out and bought Songbook for me, so now I have my very own copy. I wandered around all of Friday night showing it to people, making them ooh and aah over it's design and it's cleverness. One of my many flaws is trying to rope people into my enthusiasms by describing why I love something loudly and repeatedly. My friends have learned to filter me out, because for the most part, they don't share my enthusiasms.
Songbook is so engaging not so much because of Hornby's take on specific pieces of music, but because of things that he talks about in reference to that piece. His commentary on the actual songs sometimes gets lost completely, but along the way, he's fascinating. Talking about Rod Stewart's version of Dylan's Baby, You Been on My Mind, he says he likes the Rod Stewart version because of the reverence. When Dylan sings it, he tosses it away, knowing that he can create another such song without effort and Stewart engages himself completely in the lyrics.
Cairo Carnivale went off without a hitch - at least or performance did. We looked good, we smiled, we danced well and people responded well to us. That's usually all I can ask for and at least for a few months, I can return to my normal exercise routine - hello teachers at Krav Maga, yes I am coming back even though I know you will make me cry - and get to dance because I love it, not because I've obligated myself to a major performance.
My father did me proud as well, in the birthday present vein. He sent me Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer, Lawerence of Arabia and Chinatown on DVD and a Bob Dylan Concert film from Australia.
I saw Lawrence of Arabia at the Cinema 70 in Colorado Springs the year that they'd remastered and rereleased it. I was a teenager and wish I could remember just how old I was. I'd seen a lot of movies at this theater, it was an old Cinerama theater with heavy red velvet curtains and was just wonderful. They tore it down a few years ago, completely breaking my heart.
I went with my dad, who is as big a movie buff as I was at the time, and we just sat transfixed and in awe for the whole three hours. Peter O'Toole's eyes are bluer than blue. And his face, set against the backdrop of all of that sand is so haunting. When he goes into the sandstorm for the young bedouin, I wait, heart in throat until he returns, and when Lawrence has to shoot the boy afterwards, you can literally see him transform into the man he needs to be. At the very beginning, after the funeral, when the American talks about him being a showman, creating spectacle, and you dismiss it until you see him up on the train, robes flapping, desert outlining him, setting explosives with that look of pure joy on his face.
Very few movie going experiences, for me, have ever topped seeing this.
And because I finally got a chance to watch my DVD's last night, Different Destinations. Stealing a line from Cretkid's blog (and Happy Belated Birthday btw),
The tagline to Farscape has always been that they take scifi cliches and turn them on their heads. This is possibly the best example of that technique and it is beautiful and painful, and the agony of the last scene never fades, for me. Hell, I wrote a whole episode filler for that scene, although![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
crankygrrl kindly calls it an episode bridge.
I love the small look that passes between John and Aeryn as he is trying to help Stark forget about Zhaan. And poor Stark, so unhappy, lost and now forced to look at death. I love what he says to the nurse as well, anger is good, keep that, but forget hate.
The whole thing is so well paced. It's visual, it's angry and clever and you feel for everyone so deeply. John screwed up by not sharing his plan. He was trying to prove himself, make up in some small ways for his past actions in SIW. And he fails. As he says to Harvey, I'm in a hell of a slump.
Aeryn falls immediately into soldier mode, but in the best way possible. She is calm, kind, direct and competent, and when she has to let Dacon die, you know that she will not forgive John easily for forcing that decision. She thinks he's right, but she respects this young cook trapped in a war. These are the Peacekeepers that Aeryn believes in, and even they are a lie to a certain extent.
D'Argo's grace with the child, his kindness and gentleness perfectly offset her lack of fear, her very adult situation of what is going on around her. I just adore D'Argo. "I'm not going to kill anyone, oh maybe this guy."
And finally, of course, turning the course of history. It doesn't effect Moya, still falls along the framework of what happened, but the nurses are senselessly and brutally murdered, and they all have to deal with that, share the burden of blame.
I'd also like to talk about how this episode falls into the series as a whole, but I think I'll wait until the series run is over.
The party was lovely. I have many kind and generous friends, one of whom sought out and bought Songbook for me, so now I have my very own copy. I wandered around all of Friday night showing it to people, making them ooh and aah over it's design and it's cleverness. One of my many flaws is trying to rope people into my enthusiasms by describing why I love something loudly and repeatedly. My friends have learned to filter me out, because for the most part, they don't share my enthusiasms.
Songbook is so engaging not so much because of Hornby's take on specific pieces of music, but because of things that he talks about in reference to that piece. His commentary on the actual songs sometimes gets lost completely, but along the way, he's fascinating. Talking about Rod Stewart's version of Dylan's Baby, You Been on My Mind, he says he likes the Rod Stewart version because of the reverence. When Dylan sings it, he tosses it away, knowing that he can create another such song without effort and Stewart engages himself completely in the lyrics.
Cairo Carnivale went off without a hitch - at least or performance did. We looked good, we smiled, we danced well and people responded well to us. That's usually all I can ask for and at least for a few months, I can return to my normal exercise routine - hello teachers at Krav Maga, yes I am coming back even though I know you will make me cry - and get to dance because I love it, not because I've obligated myself to a major performance.
My father did me proud as well, in the birthday present vein. He sent me Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer, Lawerence of Arabia and Chinatown on DVD and a Bob Dylan Concert film from Australia.
I saw Lawrence of Arabia at the Cinema 70 in Colorado Springs the year that they'd remastered and rereleased it. I was a teenager and wish I could remember just how old I was. I'd seen a lot of movies at this theater, it was an old Cinerama theater with heavy red velvet curtains and was just wonderful. They tore it down a few years ago, completely breaking my heart.
I went with my dad, who is as big a movie buff as I was at the time, and we just sat transfixed and in awe for the whole three hours. Peter O'Toole's eyes are bluer than blue. And his face, set against the backdrop of all of that sand is so haunting. When he goes into the sandstorm for the young bedouin, I wait, heart in throat until he returns, and when Lawrence has to shoot the boy afterwards, you can literally see him transform into the man he needs to be. At the very beginning, after the funeral, when the American talks about him being a showman, creating spectacle, and you dismiss it until you see him up on the train, robes flapping, desert outlining him, setting explosives with that look of pure joy on his face.
Very few movie going experiences, for me, have ever topped seeing this.
And because I finally got a chance to watch my DVD's last night, Different Destinations. Stealing a line from Cretkid's blog (and Happy Belated Birthday btw),
The tagline to Farscape has always been that they take scifi cliches and turn them on their heads. This is possibly the best example of that technique and it is beautiful and painful, and the agony of the last scene never fades, for me. Hell, I wrote a whole episode filler for that scene, although
crankygrrl kindly calls it an episode bridge.I love the small look that passes between John and Aeryn as he is trying to help Stark forget about Zhaan. And poor Stark, so unhappy, lost and now forced to look at death. I love what he says to the nurse as well, anger is good, keep that, but forget hate.
The whole thing is so well paced. It's visual, it's angry and clever and you feel for everyone so deeply. John screwed up by not sharing his plan. He was trying to prove himself, make up in some small ways for his past actions in SIW. And he fails. As he says to Harvey, I'm in a hell of a slump.
Aeryn falls immediately into soldier mode, but in the best way possible. She is calm, kind, direct and competent, and when she has to let Dacon die, you know that she will not forgive John easily for forcing that decision. She thinks he's right, but she respects this young cook trapped in a war. These are the Peacekeepers that Aeryn believes in, and even they are a lie to a certain extent.
D'Argo's grace with the child, his kindness and gentleness perfectly offset her lack of fear, her very adult situation of what is going on around her. I just adore D'Argo. "I'm not going to kill anyone, oh maybe this guy."
And finally, of course, turning the course of history. It doesn't effect Moya, still falls along the framework of what happened, but the nurses are senselessly and brutally murdered, and they all have to deal with that, share the burden of blame.
I'd also like to talk about how this episode falls into the series as a whole, but I think I'll wait until the series run is over.
