that's the big time
I should have gone back to USyd today to continue the research reading but I woke with that irresistible restlessness of wanting to write. And you know what, fuck it all, I did. Not a lot, just one scene in about a thousand six hundred words. And it doesn't feel entirely fleshed out, needs some details of setting and sensual (as in sense, not sex) description to be right but right then I wanted to get the theory and history in some sequence. Which is good enough. Curious how some bits I thought would be perfect for the first scene I find now have to be pushed a little later just to temper the emotion. What a strange dance the writing of a novel can be.
Meanwhile, it's like that fic has opened the floodgates and now that the fic's done, the flow has turned to push the novel ahead. Or, to use a better analogy, like that writing muscle now toned up needs to keep on with the exercising and no, I don't like this analogy either. Clearly the gate/muscle's still rusty. *snort*
Need to go back to the Botanic Gardens soon, maybe tomorrow if I get another not required or on the weekend. For those bits of description, just to make sure I've got it right.
Feels good to be writing, to have that forward momentum. And it's fascinating how Arushka reacts differently to each stage of her education, how something small and simple in the research reading will have such a huge impact on her behaviour and the tone of the scene. I just hope this new shift in her doesn't make for a boring narrative. *squints* I can just hear the writing group whining "I don't like how passive she is ..." Mmm. Is good point. And I think I've inadvertantly found a way around that. Hopefully. Advantage of the first person narrative.
In other news, I've returned to the Laurel & Hardy films and aaawwww man, the more I watch, the more I heart them. The one I watched just now over lunch was County Hospital with the most adorkable Billy Gilbert --- who I know from His Girl Friday, wouldn't you know? Christ, how he damned well steals the two scenes he has in that film --- and what I'm really getting now is the musical elegance of their comedy.
Not just the fact that there is always music playing softly and merrily in the background so we never ever have any oppressive silence ... but the fact that their physical comedy plays like music, like dancing, so smooth and effortless and just wonderful. Like the bit with the water jug where Stan's hardboiled egg rolls off the stand into the water jug and then he pours the water into the glass so he can get the egg but the egg goes into the glass and so he pours the water back into the jug and grabs the egg just in time but then puts the glass down and knocks the jug so smoothly into Ollie's bed. Omigod, it's brilliant!
And that seamless choreography really is never more evident than with all the hat bits, leaping off their heads and coming back down again. Just like Stan's body awareness is so clear in that split second when he's leaning out the window after Billy Gilbert and his hat falls off and he catches it and rams it back on his head in real time. It's brilliant ... And yes, it totally reminds me of the moment in The Patsy where Stanley's doing the walk with the book on his head, turns to face Ellen which makes the book fall and he catches it so smoothly that honestly the first time I watched it, I was like "Hey, where'd the book go?" and had to skip it back a little and go "Woah. Dude." Mind you, I did also skip it back a little for the totally adorable kiss. Gaw.
What? Oh, er, Laurel and Hardy film. Yes. Even when it's not elegant and when the cinematic techniques clearly fail, I adore it. Perhaps that's just the rose coloured glasses of here and now looking back at then and there. But I even adored the hilariously badly shot car chase sequence with L&H clearly on a mounted car superimposed or shot against a separate roll of filmed traffic. The editing also totally failed cos more than once it cut from Ollie having his hat up in the air to having his hat back on his head. But that kinda makes it all the funnier and all the turns and twists and the sheer eloquence of their body language was hysterical. Stan was just tooooooo funny with his eyes-shut driving and the wide swings he took. Hee hee hee.
I am quite besotted with Stan Laurel, yes. Ollie's all prickly and funny in his own right. But Stan's just charming and endlessly watchable. I mean, that bit where he's just sitting in front of the window and peeling his egg. I don't think there was a single cut in that take, it just kept going and going and part of my brain was thinking "Wow, I should totally be bored here, why am I not bored, why I am not wanting a new shot?" It's that face of his, it's so plain but --- maybe that's why? --- it's so expressive.
I adore him. And really I get quite defensive and protective on his behalf. "Don't yell at him! Aw see, now you're going to make him cry. Don't!"
But the one I watched yesterday was completely awesome. Brats with L&H playing themselves as well as their sons, squeeeeeeeeeee! The moment I realised this, my engagement with the film leapt to another level. Because ahahahahahahahaaa Laurel and Hardy actually playing kids? Massive comic potential. And oh they were fantastic. You could tell they were having so much fun, that Stan got to be violent back at Ollie and that Ollie got to be a bit wussier and crybabyish than his adult self. Plus I took one look at Ollie's kid outfit and went "Ha! Harvey!"
And the set! The totally fantastic oversized set! Man, that must have cost so much because it looked pretty great when they were downstairs but when they went upstairs into their own bedroom and then the bathroom, wow, the scale and the detail was excellent! And of course I immediately went "Aha, my poor Dadda!"
It really did seem like a much bigger production than all the other Laurel and Hardy films I've seen so far cos not only were there those sets but then the sheer volume of the water at the end. I mean, woah. I really was not expecting so much. Gosh, that's wonderful, to see money being spent well on good artists. *sigh*
I also watched The Midnight Patrol yesterday and damn me if Frank Terry as the safecracker didn't almost steal the entire film. He was so vibrant and so funny! I loved how much dialogue there was, how much talking Stan specifically did. And oh man that lily pond sequence was utterly fabulous. It also proved that apparently my vocabulary when it comes to Laurel and Hardy is more or less dominated by the word 'ooh.' As in: "Ooh. Ooh! OOH! *shriek* Oh no. Oh no. Oh no, don't, please. Please don't. OOH!" And of course every time I say it, into my head pops Jerry snorting and falling off the couch at the flying suit practical joke. Dude, I was saying "ooh" plenty before I saw that bit but now it will always be linked with him.
My neighbours must think I'm possessed. Well, hey, at least I'm having fun being possessed.
Ya, working tomorrow. Maybe if I finish early, I'll go to the Botanic Gardens. If not, the weekend.
Meanwhile, it's like that fic has opened the floodgates and now that the fic's done, the flow has turned to push the novel ahead. Or, to use a better analogy, like that writing muscle now toned up needs to keep on with the exercising and no, I don't like this analogy either. Clearly the gate/muscle's still rusty. *snort*
Need to go back to the Botanic Gardens soon, maybe tomorrow if I get another not required or on the weekend. For those bits of description, just to make sure I've got it right.
Feels good to be writing, to have that forward momentum. And it's fascinating how Arushka reacts differently to each stage of her education, how something small and simple in the research reading will have such a huge impact on her behaviour and the tone of the scene. I just hope this new shift in her doesn't make for a boring narrative. *squints* I can just hear the writing group whining "I don't like how passive she is ..." Mmm. Is good point. And I think I've inadvertantly found a way around that. Hopefully. Advantage of the first person narrative.
In other news, I've returned to the Laurel & Hardy films and aaawwww man, the more I watch, the more I heart them. The one I watched just now over lunch was County Hospital with the most adorkable Billy Gilbert --- who I know from His Girl Friday, wouldn't you know? Christ, how he damned well steals the two scenes he has in that film --- and what I'm really getting now is the musical elegance of their comedy.
Not just the fact that there is always music playing softly and merrily in the background so we never ever have any oppressive silence ... but the fact that their physical comedy plays like music, like dancing, so smooth and effortless and just wonderful. Like the bit with the water jug where Stan's hardboiled egg rolls off the stand into the water jug and then he pours the water into the glass so he can get the egg but the egg goes into the glass and so he pours the water back into the jug and grabs the egg just in time but then puts the glass down and knocks the jug so smoothly into Ollie's bed. Omigod, it's brilliant!
And that seamless choreography really is never more evident than with all the hat bits, leaping off their heads and coming back down again. Just like Stan's body awareness is so clear in that split second when he's leaning out the window after Billy Gilbert and his hat falls off and he catches it and rams it back on his head in real time. It's brilliant ... And yes, it totally reminds me of the moment in The Patsy where Stanley's doing the walk with the book on his head, turns to face Ellen which makes the book fall and he catches it so smoothly that honestly the first time I watched it, I was like "Hey, where'd the book go?" and had to skip it back a little and go "Woah. Dude." Mind you, I did also skip it back a little for the totally adorable kiss. Gaw.
What? Oh, er, Laurel and Hardy film. Yes. Even when it's not elegant and when the cinematic techniques clearly fail, I adore it. Perhaps that's just the rose coloured glasses of here and now looking back at then and there. But I even adored the hilariously badly shot car chase sequence with L&H clearly on a mounted car superimposed or shot against a separate roll of filmed traffic. The editing also totally failed cos more than once it cut from Ollie having his hat up in the air to having his hat back on his head. But that kinda makes it all the funnier and all the turns and twists and the sheer eloquence of their body language was hysterical. Stan was just tooooooo funny with his eyes-shut driving and the wide swings he took. Hee hee hee.
I am quite besotted with Stan Laurel, yes. Ollie's all prickly and funny in his own right. But Stan's just charming and endlessly watchable. I mean, that bit where he's just sitting in front of the window and peeling his egg. I don't think there was a single cut in that take, it just kept going and going and part of my brain was thinking "Wow, I should totally be bored here, why am I not bored, why I am not wanting a new shot?" It's that face of his, it's so plain but --- maybe that's why? --- it's so expressive.
I adore him. And really I get quite defensive and protective on his behalf. "Don't yell at him! Aw see, now you're going to make him cry. Don't!"
But the one I watched yesterday was completely awesome. Brats with L&H playing themselves as well as their sons, squeeeeeeeeeee! The moment I realised this, my engagement with the film leapt to another level. Because ahahahahahahahaaa Laurel and Hardy actually playing kids? Massive comic potential. And oh they were fantastic. You could tell they were having so much fun, that Stan got to be violent back at Ollie and that Ollie got to be a bit wussier and crybabyish than his adult self. Plus I took one look at Ollie's kid outfit and went "Ha! Harvey!"
And the set! The totally fantastic oversized set! Man, that must have cost so much because it looked pretty great when they were downstairs but when they went upstairs into their own bedroom and then the bathroom, wow, the scale and the detail was excellent! And of course I immediately went "Aha, my poor Dadda!"
It really did seem like a much bigger production than all the other Laurel and Hardy films I've seen so far cos not only were there those sets but then the sheer volume of the water at the end. I mean, woah. I really was not expecting so much. Gosh, that's wonderful, to see money being spent well on good artists. *sigh*
I also watched The Midnight Patrol yesterday and damn me if Frank Terry as the safecracker didn't almost steal the entire film. He was so vibrant and so funny! I loved how much dialogue there was, how much talking Stan specifically did. And oh man that lily pond sequence was utterly fabulous. It also proved that apparently my vocabulary when it comes to Laurel and Hardy is more or less dominated by the word 'ooh.' As in: "Ooh. Ooh! OOH! *shriek* Oh no. Oh no. Oh no, don't, please. Please don't. OOH!" And of course every time I say it, into my head pops Jerry snorting and falling off the couch at the flying suit practical joke. Dude, I was saying "ooh" plenty before I saw that bit but now it will always be linked with him.
My neighbours must think I'm possessed. Well, hey, at least I'm having fun being possessed.
Ya, working tomorrow. Maybe if I finish early, I'll go to the Botanic Gardens. If not, the weekend.