hikari
New Member
I am the Stormy Petrel of crime.
Posts: 45
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Post by hikari on Dec 12, 2017 19:51:17 GMT -5
Howdy, I have been neglecting my old friends, and I apologize, but this board is pretty moribund, innit? Hope Cav is healing up well and everyone had a decent Thanksgiving. Dropping by to extend my invite once again to www.SherlockForum.com, where I can be found most days. I have just created a new Detectives Lounge to replace the one we have lost, and am doggedly trying to goose up discussion of Holmes in print, not just onscreen. To access the new room, go to GENERAL MUSINGS from the main page and click on the subheading 'Miscellaneous Musings', and you will find it there. Please come and help me fill out the numbers. I need some more substantially-thinking people around me. I've met a few nice ones over there, and a fair complement of fluffheads and incipient trolls. So, it is the Internet after all . . but it's a bit more lively than over here. Please come!
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Post by epicgordan on Dec 13, 2017 2:12:51 GMT -5
Hi, Hikari. Sure has been dreary lately.
By any chance, have you seen The Room? It was written, produced, directed, and starred Tommy Wiseau. It's real good, Hunnnh?
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Post by cavaradossi on Dec 13, 2017 14:45:52 GMT -5
Hikari
Good to hear from you. I have visited that Sherlock website, but didn't have anything to contribute at the time. I'll have to remember to try it again.
I rewatched the Lewis series last year (or was it earlier this year?) and, again, had a great time with it. However, I missed season six for the simple reason that I couldn't find that Blu-ray set. It suddenly surfaced a week ago, almost as though out of another plane, and I immediately devoured it. Again, I had a great time with it, except for one important aspect. In the past I always enjoyed Pheloung's scoring for the series, but this time it actively bugged me. The problem was that it seemed he kept using the same musical segments over and over, unlike Jim Parker with Midsomer Murders, who essentially writes a new score for each show. Yes, in the early years of MM, Parker also recycled musical themes for similar scenes in several of the episodes, but he changed that approach somewhere along the line to splendid effect. Pheloung seems a little feeble in musical imagination in comparison. Other than that, though, Lewis season six was as fine as the others, I thought.
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Post by cavaradossi on Dec 13, 2017 14:57:31 GMT -5
BTW? I hope everyone is gearing up for a fine Christmas Season (or whichever holiday it is you celebrate at this time of year). We've been going through an unusually harsh cold period for the last two weeks her in Utah, and it looks as though it will continue. I do not enjoy nights with temperatures down in the mid teens and lower, especially when the body hasn't yet adjusted to them. To think that I once walked home from work every night in these very uncomfortable temperatures, and still enjoyed it! The mind reels to recall it. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that those nights were at least fifteen fifteen years ago. I do remember thinking one night shortly after I had turned fifty-five that maybe this was no longer such a good idea, but I didn't act on it for several years to come.
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hikari
New Member
I am the Stormy Petrel of crime.
Posts: 45
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Post by hikari on Dec 15, 2017 14:14:56 GMT -5
Hi, Hikari. Sure has been dreary lately. By any chance, have you seen The Room? It was written, produced, directed, and starred Tommy Wiseau. It's real good, Hunnnh?
Hi, Epic,
I have not seen 'The Room'. I watched 'Room' on DVD, and my, what a movie to celebrate all that is fine and noble in humanity that was! (Not.)
Is 'The Room' likely to contend for Oscar? I've been seriously out of the loop on new releases for the last year or so. Can't remember the last time I actually went to the movies--wait, yes I can--it was 'Beauty & the Beast'. So you can see how often I get to the movies. I'd like to see the new 'Murder on the Orient Express' and the upcoming 'The Man Who Invented Christmas' (I think that's the title?) that features our Beast, Dan Stevens, as Charles Dickens, and Chris Plummer as the Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens's mind palace.
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hikari
New Member
I am the Stormy Petrel of crime.
Posts: 45
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Post by hikari on Dec 15, 2017 14:40:48 GMT -5
Hikari Good to hear from you. I have visited that Sherlock website, but didn't have anything to contribute at the time. I'll have to remember to try it again. I rewatched the Lewis series last year (or was it earlier this year?) and, again, had a great time with it. However, I missed season six for the simple reason that I couldn't find that Blu-ray set. It suddenly surfaced a week ago, almost as though out of another plane, and I immediately devoured it. Again, I had a great time with it, except for one important aspect. In the past I always enjoyed Pheloung's scoring for the series, but this time it actively bugged me. The problem was that it seemed he kept using the same musical segments over and over, unlike Jim Parker with Midsomer Murders, who essentially writes a new score for each show. Yes, in the early years of MM, Parker also recycled musical themes for similar scenes in several of the episodes, but he changed that approach somewhere along the line to splendid effect. Pheloung seems a little feeble in musical imagination in comparison. Other than that, though, Lewis season six was as fine as the others, I thought. Hi, Cav,
I'm with you re. the scoring for Lewis 6; seemed like Barrington was just stringing together snippets of old material. Either he was tired and burnt out on "Lewis", or they did not give him sufficient time to come up with a completely fresh score. The composer is the last one to get the finished footage in post, because he can't score properly until he sees the finished and edited product. So they are probably breathing down his neck to finish so they can make their projected BBC airing schedule. A soundtrack CD was released for Lewis, comprising Seasons 1 & 2 (I bought it, of course), but never again since. BP front-loaded the series with all his best stuff. Thinking back, some of my favorite Morse episodes earned their spot in part due to Barrington's score; "Who Killed Harry Field?" is not the very best script, maybe, but it is one of Barrington's best efforts. And the Italian episode is prime.
I recently queued up some old Hobson & Lewis fan videos on YouTube and got to feeling nostalgic. 'Lewson' as their portmanteau goes is such a cute couple. Thomas A. Stith is nowhere around to gag and jeer at me for saying so, so I will say it all I want. I was very sorry to see the series end, but if end it they had to, it was on a good note--coming full-circle from the Lewis pilot 10 years previously with L. and H. having a scene at the airport, and Robbie once again in a loud (though not so loud this time) shirt. I will adore Kevin Whately as long as I draw breath.
I hope you will consider looking me up over on the Sherlock forum. Feel free to disregard all the fangirling for the now defunct BBC show and help me beef up my room(s). In addition to the Other Detectives Lounge, I have also created 'From the Vault of Cox & Co: Cases from the Tin Dispatch Box' in the 'Mind Palace' sub-forum. After my TV died just after Valentine's Day this year, I did a life inventory and decided that, rather than running out and replacing it immediately I could take the opportunity to catch up on some long-neglected reading. I stand before you now (virtually) as a fully-fledged journey(wo)man Sherlockian, having read the entire Canon (okay, I bailed out on 'Valley of Fear' a third of the way in and there are couple of the very last short stories I couldn't finish because they are, in a word . . .weak. But apart from those, I feel myself to be now well on the way to catching up with William in my Holmes knowledge. I correspond sporadically with American Sherlockian par excellence, David Marcum, who is quite the rising star in the field. Mr. Marcum has a number of his own published original Holmes pastiches and is the editor for the MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures, now in its 8th volume (since 2015!) David is a full-time civil engineer in addition to pursuing his true avocation with such time-consuming zeal, so don't ask me how he achieves it all, or whether he sleeps at all, because I don't know. I first commented on his blog (17stepprogram.blogspot.com) and he invited me to write to him at his personal email address . . quite an honor he does not extend to all of his blog commentators. He's incredibly busy so I only hear from him once a month or so, but I have a Literary Agent who is willing to read any submissions I care to make to his little project, he says. So I guess I have to actually write some now.
If I don't hear from you before Christmas either here or there, all my best for a blessed holiday season. I am looking very forward to the Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College as always. Just read a very timely seasonal mystery with that setting, in fact, Nicola Upson's 'Nine Carols', part of her Josephine Tey mysteries series. And then I revisited an 'old' favorite: Landed Gently by Alan Hunter. It's snowing right now--been bitter cold in Ohio, too--so if the first two weeks of December are any indication, this winter is really going to be a hard one. Errgh.
Merry Christmas and God bless us, everyone!
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hikari
New Member
I am the Stormy Petrel of crime.
Posts: 45
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Post by hikari on Dec 15, 2017 14:48:40 GMT -5
Oh, P.S.--
I currently walk to work, every day, in all weathers. I live about 4 (long) blocks from my work and I keep my carbon footprint very small by not owning a car. That is less an environmental stance than a 'I'm skint' stance. I don't have a car but I do have credit cards and somehow they take care of my paychecks just fine. Along with rent, food, insurance, taxes and cats.
I lost one of my kitties in October, just after my birthday. The old girl's kidneys were failing and I had to put her down. I still miss her every day. She was the most personable of my three and I'd gladly trade both of them to have her back for even a month. But that's not how it works. I may have mentioned it already . . it's been so long since I was here, I can't remember. It's a sadder household I inhabit but it is what it is.
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Post by epicgordan on Dec 15, 2017 20:18:48 GMT -5
The Room was a 2003 melodrama written, produced, directed, and starring Tommy Wiseau (the guy that I'm currently using as my avatar). It is in the same league as films like Troll 2 and Plan 9 from Outer Space in the So-Bad-It's-Good camp. I'll give you a best-of montage:
Oh, and by the way, that Breast Cancer subplot never comes back into the film.
I have seen Disaster Artist and I had a blast watching it.
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Post by William Smith on Dec 17, 2017 20:29:40 GMT -5
Sorry to have been absent for so long. I had two vertebrae in my neck fused two weeks ago--the result of an auto accident in September of last year. I was able to come home the same day. However, I've only been out of the house a couple of times. I'm on a regimen of five different drugs--pain killer, anti-inflammatories (3). and muscle relaxer. It is healing nicely--I see the doctor again this Thursday--but it would not be prudent for me to do much in the way of driving. H, I will take a look at the forum on which you post. There are many elements of the Canon that the Higher Criticism has not as yet completely elucidated, like the chronology of the Canon. Right now, I am seeking information on Holmes' relations with Cardinal Newman and Leo XIII and the backgrounds to the affairs of the Vatican Cameos and the death of Cardinal Tosca. A connection with the first might suggest some time at Oxford--as you know, the two university theory for Holmes' education is one with a certain appeal.
The most noteworthy thing I've watched recently was the second 10 episodes of The Queen, which I will review in the appropriate thread.
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hikari
New Member
I am the Stormy Petrel of crime.
Posts: 45
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Post by hikari on Dec 20, 2017 14:35:15 GMT -5
Sorry to have been absent for so long. I had two vertebrae in my neck fused two weeks ago--the result of an auto accident in September of last year. I was able to come home the same day. However, I've only been out of the house a couple of times. I'm on a regimen of five different drugs--pain killer, anti-inflammatories (3). and muscle relaxer. It is healing nicely--I see the doctor again this Thursday--but it would not be prudent for me to do much in the way of driving. H, I will take a look at the forum on which you post. There are many elements of the Canon that the Higher Criticism has not as yet completely elucidated, like the chronology of the Canon. Right now, I am seeking information on Holmes' relations with Cardinal Newman and Leo XIII and the backgrounds to the affairs of the Vatican Cameos and the death of Cardinal Tosca. A connection with the first might suggest some time at Oxford--as you know, the two university theory for Holmes' education is one with a certain appeal.
The most noteworthy thing I've watched recently was the second 10 episodes of The Queen, which I will review in the appropriate thread. Hi, William,
Sorry to hear you are still dealing with ongoing issues from your auto accident last year. Hopefully you are on the mend and getting some relief from this latest treatment. Speaking as someone who got to know 2 area chiropractors pretty well, seeing them for a total of 12 times (or more often than I see my family) . . I feel your pain.
Sherlock Forum is a bit sleepy these days. I missed the heyday of it when the show was still cranking out fresh episodes. It's a real international gathering spot though, with posters from all over. Bona fide Holmesians are pretty thin on the ground; the bulk of the posters a) were born in the 1990s and b) derive all of their Sherlock knowledge from Mofftiss--but there is a handful of old farts (50+, yours truly included) who actually read. I made one friend, 'Herlock Sholmes' from the Midlands, and he's a bibliophile and real buff for all things Holmes and also Jack the Ripper. He is a member of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London. When I queried what exactly are the requirements for membership, he said, more or less, '23 pounds a year (US$31ish). And I said, Oh! Bit like joining the YMCA then--Yer pays yer money and they let anybody in there!
So here's me, slightly less overawed by the Sherlock Holmes Society of London--but it seems altogether more democratic a body of Sherlock enthusiasts than that pompous group of tossers known collectively as the BSIs.
We need more contributors that are conversant in Canon, for sure. As to the chronology--isn't that what Mr. Baring-Gould spent his life's work doing, pretty much? David Marcum proposes to do W.S. B-G one better--he is creating an ongoing timeline of *pastiches* as they relate to the cases in Canon. Truly a work which will never be finished.
I don't object to the 'two university' theory too strenuously, though we are a bit up against a certain time constraint. *If* Sherlock Holmes came up to his first university (let's call it Oxford) at the normal time for undergraduates--18, 19 years of age for a couple of years, and another couple of years at, oh, the rival out in East Anglia . . he's 22, 23 by this point, still degree-less, but that means in 4 years or less, he has: moved digs to Montague Street, embarked upon his self-designed self-study course in consulting detection; read everything ever published in crime . . toured the United States for the better part of a year with the Sasanoff Company, possibly spent the same amount of time apprenticing with the Pinkertons in Chicago, established something of a reputation in his profession, developed the hemoglobin test, found new digs AND met Dr. Watson--all before he turns 27.
That is a superhuman lot in just a few years . . but it is Sherlock Holmes, after all. If we eliminate 2 years at a second university, that gives him a bit more time to shoehorn in various jaunts in America and etc.
If I have to pick one, I say Oxford. Because it seems quite logical that Mycroft chose Cambridge. In fact, MH probably invented the entire concept of 'Cambridge Spies'. Sherlock would not have wanted to follow in Big Brother's footsteps if it could be avoided, wanting to blaze his own distinctive path . . so whichever uni Mycroft attended, I say Sherl went to the Other One.
If Sherlock, having learned the Entirety of Chemistry by the age of 15 went up to Oxford at that point and had been there done that with 2 universities by the time he was 20 . . that opens up some time. It sounds though as though he is a peer of Victor Trevor's and the Musgrave heir, his friends from college. Would young men of 20 wanted to hang about with a spotty 15-year-old, no matter how brilliant, and invited him to their family homes and so forth? I rather think not.
Hope you continue to heal and can have a decent Christmas despite (or maybe because of?) your primo opiates. I'm guessing the fruitcake will be surplus to requirements this year . . ?
Take care, Hik
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Post by cavaradossi on Jan 10, 2018 20:06:24 GMT -5
William, I'm sorry to hear you had to have neck fusion surgery. I hope things are going well in that department now. I've had that surgery, too, and I didn't come out of the anesthesia for three days. When I did, one of the nurses said to me, "You had us worried there for a while, fella!" I suspect the fact that I went into the surgery with several serious personal worries contributed to the problem. Best that one's mind be free whe undergoing those things, I think.
I've slowed down in my reading of Robert Fitzgerald's verse translation of The Iliad, mainly because of a growing weariness with some of the word choices he comes up with, clearly to keep to his chosen meter. Other than those sorts of things popping up from time to time, it seems a fine version, and, despite my minor weariness with it right now, I'm glad I chose it as my first go at the great poem in verse. There will be more, like Fagels and Lombardo, with the possibility of Lattimore and Pope in there somewhere. I expect to be reading the work of and on for the rest of my days. Hey, there are worse things on which to spend one's time.
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Post by cavaradossi on Jan 10, 2018 20:31:04 GMT -5
Hikari, I have to read around in the Sherlock forum to see if I get any urge to post there, other than on your page. I have been searching around on the web for other forums that are on subjects of interest to me, but the ones I've found don't inspire too much, certainly not as much as the Amazon ones did. One of the things I'm prized so much there was that on any thread one could post on just about anything, even sometimes things only loosely related to the topic. That was great and led to a lot of diversity and spontineity. I don't get that feeling from so many forums I been investigating. There seems to be a rigidity to them that throws water on the burning ashes of the few ideas that come to mind. Sigh. Also, with many of them, I get the impression one needs to be a member of the club. It's frustrating.
Speaking of libraries, did I ever mention that the Provo City Library moved a few years ago into the renovat old Brigham Young Academy across the street from where I used to live for nine years thirty years ago? For most of my life, having a library just across the street from me would have been my definition of paradise!
Are you going to get another cat to bring your total of house guests up to three as in days of yore? Have your two remaining furry friends forgiven you for taking away their mate yet? I remember cats as having long memoriies, and usually unforgiviing natures, so I suppose it's possible they haven't. That must be difficult.
Getting back to Mr SH, I have a bit of a Sherlockian mystery going on here myself. I've been looking, but can't find my copy of the complete Sherlock Holmes. Since I was just reading in it beck in late November, I can't imagine where I put it. It's not like it should be difficult to see because it's large in a green cover. What would Holmes say about this problem? I suppose he would say: "It's elementary, my dear Cav. You are color blind and need new glasses." I would be unimpressed by such a response from The Great One, even though both of those things are true, because I had no difficulty in locating the big book in November. Maybe I should consult the New York guy. Is he still in business?
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Post by William Smith on Jan 10, 2018 23:13:03 GMT -5
H: To the question of Holmes' university; one need not assume that he spent three years at each. He might well have spend a year at one and two at the other. Dorothy Sayers, as an Oxonian, preferred Oxford; I find the evidence for Cambridge more compelling--perhaps as a Cantab. I did not do the full fruitcake marathon this year, although I did bake about 15 dozen cookies--an Austrian almond shortcake cookies rolled in vanilla sugar, hermit bars (bar cookie, gingerbready with raisins and bourbon sugar glaze), another bar cookie with tea, spices, and currants, and a bourbon glaze, and little meringue cookies, a particular favorite of mine. I recently snagged the King Arthur Flour cookie cookbook for $5.00 at an estate sale in pristine condition, and it is very useful.
Cav: three days under? Goodness! I did spend a considerable time in the recovery room--they operated on me at 7:30 AM, I was in recovery around 9:30, started waking up around 11:00, and went home at 1:30 the same day. I spend two weeks doing very little. I'm still on gabapentin, Celebrex, a muscle relaxer, and an occasional pain pill, but everything seems to be behaving. I have my first post-op on 12/21, and I'm back for a second one of 2/1.
Minimal new film viewing. I visited most of the Christmas favorites, but I'm hard pressed to recall anything particular new. More later.
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Post by epicgordan on Jan 12, 2018 2:45:10 GMT -5
Hopefully, you guys will be able to come back soon.
I still have to cover my worst movie of 2017. I'll just spoil it for you guys:
It's Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Even if you take all the previous Star Wars movies out of the question, even if you take all the politicizing out of the equation, the entire film is such a profound disaster in every conceivable way other than the acting and perhaps one or two action set pieces.
But for the time being, I'm gonna go focus my efforts on actually fleshing out my review. It's bad. It's REALLY, REALLY BAD!
And not even in a spectacular trainwreck sort of way (in spite of a couple moments that were so painfully idiotic that even Michael Bay would be objectively qualified to call this movie out on its bullshit); but rather, this film is so determined to kill all sense of pacing, momentum, suspense, or build up that all we are left with in the end is a boring, overlong slog that ultimately results in a colossal waste of time, effort, and money" sort of way. And that's all without really getting into the nitty gritty details that, if anything, reveals what this whole colossally overrated piece of shit movie was REALLY all about.
And I'll give you a hint: A grand narrative with a unique set of characters to follow never even ranked all that high on the priority list to begin with. Needless to say, J. J. Abrams isn't gonna have any help from the hacks "overseeing" the production of these movies.
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Post by cavaradossi on Jan 27, 2018 19:54:22 GMT -5
Umm, I was trying the other day to rewatch season one of Sherlock, but for some reason couldn't get into it this time. Perhaps it was due to the bad taste the last season left in my mouth. Oh, and it does seem official now that this show that once sparked an international craze is over after only four seasons and one misbegotten telefilm. Will this series be examined in university film studies as a prime example of how to ruin a once sure thing?
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