there's something else: the clockwork in a maiden's heart
One of the things I inherited from my dad was the family clock, an old wooden one like a small, sturdy wooden house with a minimalist outbreak of carving and gold leaf. It dates from about 1910 and belonged, I think, to my grandparents: it has a Westminster chime which was forever getting out of sync, and with which I remember my father endlessly tinkering, like the Duke of Coffin Castle, to try and persuade its dings to mesh with its dongs. So to speak. When I inherited it it had travelled all over Zimbabwe, up to France and then down again to Cape Town, and was very firmly Not Working. However, by one of those wonderful fortuities friendly_shrink's father is a clockmaker specialising in old clocks, and he very kindly restored the workings for me at a fraction of the usual price for such things. This was particularly kind as it was apparently a total bugger, causing him to have to rootle endlessly around its innards, presumably with strange Germanic clockmaker's oaths, and to actually machine new parts for the gaps in its rather shoddy workings. (Don't, apparently, go for German clock parts, they're not as good as the French or Swiss.)
Now it's on the piano, gently chiming the quarter hours, and every time I wander through the living room and catch it in mid-chime, I have to swallow this enormous lump in my throat. That sound is part of my childhood: the clock stood on the mantelpiece in our house in Harare when I was in high school, between the two foot porcelain dandy peering coyly around the muchly rose-bedewed fencepost, and the gap where his frothy-petticoated shepherdess sweetheart stood before the cat knocked her down and shattered her into fifty million porcelain bits. (And good riddance. I hated those things, they were perfect examples of Rococo Twee). The clock, though: the clock is memory and evocation, and a familiar household god, and it somehow makes the house slightly more fundamentally home to have it anchored by that gentle soundtrack. Even if I am now forced to add it to the ever-increasing list of the Approximately Three Million Random Things That Make Me Cry.
Things That Make Me Giggle, however: Castle. Castle is jolly detective romance TV: it's the froth on your cappuccino, the flourish to your hat, the cheerful solid child-friendly blocks from which your narrative is built. It's gosh-darned perky, composed mainly of one-liners, good humour and perfectly obvious twists. It works mostly because Nathan Fillion could put across the debonair bastard with the heart of gold with the mere power of his eyebrows while reading from the telephone directory. It's worth watching for Castle's relationship with his daughter alone, but I am developing a fondness not unakin to horrified fascination for the opening corpse montages with the pretentious photography and the nice indie soundtrack. I am unable to acquit them of taking the mickey out of themselves. I finished the first season in a giant, glorious gobble as a distraction from my current state of sinus headache, and am possessing my soul in patience until the second season finishes on Monday and I can extract it from long-suffering friends. It's no bloody good at all, but it makes me happy.
Now it's on the piano, gently chiming the quarter hours, and every time I wander through the living room and catch it in mid-chime, I have to swallow this enormous lump in my throat. That sound is part of my childhood: the clock stood on the mantelpiece in our house in Harare when I was in high school, between the two foot porcelain dandy peering coyly around the muchly rose-bedewed fencepost, and the gap where his frothy-petticoated shepherdess sweetheart stood before the cat knocked her down and shattered her into fifty million porcelain bits. (And good riddance. I hated those things, they were perfect examples of Rococo Twee). The clock, though: the clock is memory and evocation, and a familiar household god, and it somehow makes the house slightly more fundamentally home to have it anchored by that gentle soundtrack. Even if I am now forced to add it to the ever-increasing list of the Approximately Three Million Random Things That Make Me Cry.
Things That Make Me Giggle, however: Castle. Castle is jolly detective romance TV: it's the froth on your cappuccino, the flourish to your hat, the cheerful solid child-friendly blocks from which your narrative is built. It's gosh-darned perky, composed mainly of one-liners, good humour and perfectly obvious twists. It works mostly because Nathan Fillion could put across the debonair bastard with the heart of gold with the mere power of his eyebrows while reading from the telephone directory. It's worth watching for Castle's relationship with his daughter alone, but I am developing a fondness not unakin to horrified fascination for the opening corpse montages with the pretentious photography and the nice indie soundtrack. I am unable to acquit them of taking the mickey out of themselves. I finished the first season in a giant, glorious gobble as a distraction from my current state of sinus headache, and am possessing my soul in patience until the second season finishes on Monday and I can extract it from long-suffering friends. It's no bloody good at all, but it makes me happy.