Stuff wot I have done
Spring is here! The plum trees are all out in blossom, as is the Mystery Fruit Tree beside our front door. It's some kind of stone fruit, but until it actually fruits, I won't know which kind. (Hell, I thought it was verbena when I dug it out of my stepfather's garden.)
I finish pruning my sad, half-pruned hedge, roughly weeded one front bed, pruned back the red rose and ripped down the honeysuckle from the side of the house and the Japanese maple. Still to do - extensive pruning down both sides of the house. The honeysuckle down the street side is - er - vigorous, and the path down the other side of the house is about half the width it should be. I need to prune back the rosemary, wormwood and daisy by about one and a half feet so that we've got a throughway we don't have to turn sideways to fit down. Further tasks for the garden include planting out the leek bulbs saved from the kitchen, and mowing the lawn.
*
Been immersed in X-Men First Class fic. There's so much wonderful in the fandom, so many lovely things from all genres. I don't have an urge to write for it. Not yet, anyway. But I'm enjoying the thrill of exploring a new world.
Related to this, I've been exploring the back catalogues of the two leads. I'd watched stuff with McAvoy before - namely, Starter for 10, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and Bright Young Things, all of which he's wonderful in. I've downloaded a heap of his other things now, though, and I've been enjoying them. Penelope is amazing, and we went to the trouble of buying it just so that we could watch it whenever we liked (and also, so that we could have a copy of the Australian release, which is NOT censored and cut down, as pretty much all the other releases are, both US and European). We watched the first episode of Shameless (UK) last night, and liked it, and plan on watching more in the next little while.
I hadn't seen anything else with Fassbender in it, before First Class. I look through his back catalogue and it's a lot of stuff that I'm certain is very important cinema but I don't think I could bear to watch. We actually tried watching Fish Tank, which is a truly amazing film, but midway through I realised I was actually physically trembling, my hands shaking so badly I was having trouble knitting. I know not everyone has the buttons I have, and hell, I didn't realise that particular button was still there, waiting to be pressed, but yeah. Very, very good film, but not for me, unfortunately. So we stopped it, and I tried to calm the fuck down, then we put on both of James McAvoy's animated films to counteract it.
Gnomeo and Juliet I thought was all right, lots of puns and references to other films that we picked up on a bunch of. Emma liked it more than I did, but I liked it fine. The absolute best bit was Patrick Stewart. I laughed my arse off at pretty much anything he said.
But Arthur Christmas was AMAZING. I adored every little bit of it. It's Aardmann. It has a stellar cast and the script is CRACKING. It really is a Christmas film that is enjoyable to watch, and let's face it, most Christmas films are dire.
The one Fassbender thing that I have seen and really enjoyed, though, is After The Funeral - his episode of Poirot from a few years ago. His character is wonderfully vulnerable, cocky, charming and damaged. He's brilliant in it from start to finish, and he's almost frighteningly real. It makes me wish he'd do more films I could watch, but I understand why he doesn't, too. He seems to be an actor that wants to forever push himself outside his own comfort zone, and that's something I respect even if I can't actually watch him doing it. I've got his Jane Eyre queued up to watch, anyway. I first read Jane Eyre when I was eight, so if I wasn't comfortable by now with the story, I never would be. Oddly enough, I've never seen an adaptation of it, so it'll be interesting to see how I react and relate to a story I've never seen outside of my own head. I've got a pretty clear mental landscape of the places in Jane Eyre, and I don't know if I'm intrigued or disconcerted that those places might be overwritten, or at least overlaid, by a visual adaptation.
*
Have been KNITTING ALL THE THINGS this last two months, too. Including but not limited to a giant amigurumi Cat Bus and Totoros for Luie's birthday, two cardigans for Justin's birthday, a shawl for Emma and lacy cuffs, a shawl for Jackie (same pattern, different yarn), a dress for my cousin's new baby, and fingerless gloves/mitts for my mum's friend. I knit a bunch of inches more on the body of my aran, and the last few days I've also made five hats, with a view to selling them at some point in the future. Many, many things! And, as yet, no reimbursement for any of it. Oh well, it keeps me from biting my nails. May put up pictures of some of them at some point, if I get around to it, but until then, just imagine they're amazing, and that I have added to my knitting calluses. (Trufax.)
This entry was originally posted at http://iamshadow.dreamwidth.org/362131.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
I finish pruning my sad, half-pruned hedge, roughly weeded one front bed, pruned back the red rose and ripped down the honeysuckle from the side of the house and the Japanese maple. Still to do - extensive pruning down both sides of the house. The honeysuckle down the street side is - er - vigorous, and the path down the other side of the house is about half the width it should be. I need to prune back the rosemary, wormwood and daisy by about one and a half feet so that we've got a throughway we don't have to turn sideways to fit down. Further tasks for the garden include planting out the leek bulbs saved from the kitchen, and mowing the lawn.
*
Been immersed in X-Men First Class fic. There's so much wonderful in the fandom, so many lovely things from all genres. I don't have an urge to write for it. Not yet, anyway. But I'm enjoying the thrill of exploring a new world.
Related to this, I've been exploring the back catalogues of the two leads. I'd watched stuff with McAvoy before - namely, Starter for 10, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and Bright Young Things, all of which he's wonderful in. I've downloaded a heap of his other things now, though, and I've been enjoying them. Penelope is amazing, and we went to the trouble of buying it just so that we could watch it whenever we liked (and also, so that we could have a copy of the Australian release, which is NOT censored and cut down, as pretty much all the other releases are, both US and European). We watched the first episode of Shameless (UK) last night, and liked it, and plan on watching more in the next little while.
I hadn't seen anything else with Fassbender in it, before First Class. I look through his back catalogue and it's a lot of stuff that I'm certain is very important cinema but I don't think I could bear to watch. We actually tried watching Fish Tank, which is a truly amazing film, but midway through I realised I was actually physically trembling, my hands shaking so badly I was having trouble knitting. I know not everyone has the buttons I have, and hell, I didn't realise that particular button was still there, waiting to be pressed, but yeah. Very, very good film, but not for me, unfortunately. So we stopped it, and I tried to calm the fuck down, then we put on both of James McAvoy's animated films to counteract it.
Gnomeo and Juliet I thought was all right, lots of puns and references to other films that we picked up on a bunch of. Emma liked it more than I did, but I liked it fine. The absolute best bit was Patrick Stewart. I laughed my arse off at pretty much anything he said.
But Arthur Christmas was AMAZING. I adored every little bit of it. It's Aardmann. It has a stellar cast and the script is CRACKING. It really is a Christmas film that is enjoyable to watch, and let's face it, most Christmas films are dire.
The one Fassbender thing that I have seen and really enjoyed, though, is After The Funeral - his episode of Poirot from a few years ago. His character is wonderfully vulnerable, cocky, charming and damaged. He's brilliant in it from start to finish, and he's almost frighteningly real. It makes me wish he'd do more films I could watch, but I understand why he doesn't, too. He seems to be an actor that wants to forever push himself outside his own comfort zone, and that's something I respect even if I can't actually watch him doing it. I've got his Jane Eyre queued up to watch, anyway. I first read Jane Eyre when I was eight, so if I wasn't comfortable by now with the story, I never would be. Oddly enough, I've never seen an adaptation of it, so it'll be interesting to see how I react and relate to a story I've never seen outside of my own head. I've got a pretty clear mental landscape of the places in Jane Eyre, and I don't know if I'm intrigued or disconcerted that those places might be overwritten, or at least overlaid, by a visual adaptation.
*
Have been KNITTING ALL THE THINGS this last two months, too. Including but not limited to a giant amigurumi Cat Bus and Totoros for Luie's birthday, two cardigans for Justin's birthday, a shawl for Emma and lacy cuffs, a shawl for Jackie (same pattern, different yarn), a dress for my cousin's new baby, and fingerless gloves/mitts for my mum's friend. I knit a bunch of inches more on the body of my aran, and the last few days I've also made five hats, with a view to selling them at some point in the future. Many, many things! And, as yet, no reimbursement for any of it. Oh well, it keeps me from biting my nails. May put up pictures of some of them at some point, if I get around to it, but until then, just imagine they're amazing, and that I have added to my knitting calluses. (Trufax.)
This entry was originally posted at http://iamshadow.dreamwidth.org/362131.html. Please comment there using OpenID.