My brilliant flist, and inner city adventures!

[blamebrampton]

My favourite thing about lj is my brilliant and talented f-list. Allow me to show you some of its cleverness.

The lovely leochi, whose work reminds me of nothing so much as the illustrations for the nice quality children's novels I would receive for birthdays (Quentin Blake illustrated the naughty ones), has drawn a prompt from me in her 50 Gazes series. I asked for a joyous gaze between Harry and McGonagall, because I love Minerva's fierce affection for all of her Gryffindors. This was the result. It's a perfect young Harry and his mentor after the first of the Goblet of Fire trials. Tartan and happiness – just delightful.

Not satisfied with working on one series at a time, she also produced a set of three tarot cards for hp_tarot. They are  brooding, dramatic and technically assured. She is as home with this more adult style of art as with the illustrative book form, wholly lovely stuff.

One of my flisters who particularly evokes the word brilliant is wemyss, a man who never fails to make me think even when I am coming at the issues under discussion from the opposite direction. He has posted an enormously funny take on my recent rantings about readers who wish to be spoon-fed. You can find it here and, while you may need to be English to fully appreciate it, it contains the most magnificent description of Slough that it has ever been my privilege and pleasure to read.

And, Bubba, aka eynhashofet, suggests that the answer to yesterday's question may well be Anais Nin. Let's assume it is, research will continue when time allows. Thanks, too, for the walks through musical memory lane!
Tonight we had another spot of the excitement that only comes from living in a thriving and vibrant part of the inner city (read gentrified former slum with expensive delicatessens 50 metres away, but housing estates just up the road).

We returned from our evening constitutional a short time ago to find papers scattered about the bottom of the lane. This is not an uncommon sight in these parts, and the reason our little cottage has an assault course in front of every access point (we make people WORK to burgle us, it's been an effective deterrent so far). We stopped and collected a pile of papers, then looked in nearby shrubs to find keys, laptop charger and headphones, and a jacket and a bigger pile of forms, which were all for a volleyball team.

After sending J back with the torch I sat down and did a spot of internet detecting and found the owner of the papers (head of the volleyball team) lived five minutes' walk away. I had popped everything into a bag and we were about to go for a walk to deliver them, when we opened the door to find a young man wandering about crankily. "You'd be Mr Stuff," I said. "We have some of your less valuable stuff."

He seemed happy to get the bundle we had found back, and has learned a valuable lesson about what can and cannot be left in a car in the inner city. He is also obviously not poor and had his laptop backed up onto his USB key, which was on the keychain, so not a terrible result.

Comments

[empress-jae.livejournal.com]

i still say she shoulda done part two to get an even greater point across. :P

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Or she could have just bought him a copy of Breaking Dawn ...

[empress-jae.livejournal.com]

nah. cause then she'd have to face the accusations of having bad taste in literature. everyone in the office would paint a scarlett letter on her just for even knowing of stephanie meyer. I personally could not live with that embarassment. :P

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Good point. I annotated an SM interview in a friend's magazine at lunch today. She made statements along the lines of "I wasn't in to vampire novels when I was growing up" (yes, this is painfully obvious) and "I love my older fans, they have internet sites, I love reading what they have to say" (erotic furries have internet sites, too, but they should not be listened to, either!) (and so on).

[empress-jae.livejournal.com]

stephanie can go jump into a volcano and burn. she really bothers me. it's not the fact that she's mormon, but the fact that if she was in fandom, she would be a sub-par author at best, yet she gets a multi-million dollar book deal for writing about safe and sparkly vampires.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

On the upside, she has given everyone renewed faith in their own talent! And a single direction to target our crankiness rather than turning on each other ...

(How long do you give it before the SM backlash focussing on her inferred soft paedophilia?)

[empress-jae.livejournal.com]

OMG that's the other thing! this woman publicly said that she gets turned on by the idea of underaged vampires. why would you say that?? if a man had said that, there'd be a congressional hearing investigating him on peddling child pornography. but stephanie is "safe" and a "housewife" and a "stay at home mom" and a freaking set back for the women's movement...so it's ok?

holy moly woman, you are really bringing out my SM rage today! :D

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Sorry, my typing has been slowed by having a giant kitten cuddling my shoulder.

SM rage is righteous rage! She is not a good influence for children. I even encouraged a young person to read Anne Rice instead and I NEVER thought that day would come. Perhaps we should buy copies of Diana Wynne Jones books and offer to trade them for SM to save the young from themselves.

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

Hahah! Not letting that go, are you? :D I still say no; the surprise element and the pizazz of the urination would surely have been spoiled by a red straining-face. ;)

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

The bad part of all this for me is that I know what she looked like and so can visualise.

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

That's a good thing, if you ask me! How did you like the casting of Maria de Medeiros as Nin in Henry And June?

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I've not seen H&J. I've been meaning to, but it's on the long, long list of films I have failed to see.

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

The comment edit feature is no use to me; I never spot a spelling error before someone replies to the comment and by then it's too late! *grump*

It's not a great film, but I found it worth the watch for some reason I can't really describe.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Oh typos in emails and lj comments are wholly acceptable, it's informal usage.

I'll get there one day, I only just caught The Dark Knight the other night (gosh that was good).

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

It was! Could have benefited from a bit tighter cutting and being 15 minutes shorter, which is far better than most action films these days which could usually stand to lose 45. Heath Ledger was actually as good as the hype, which is saying something!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Every time I thought I was about to yawn, it would twist again and I would be on the edge of my seat. Gordon! And 140 no votes! And "what you should have done 10 minutes ago"!!

I agree with you about Heath, it makes his stupid death even sadder.

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

It's just tragic, isn't it. I normally don't care one way or another when famous people I don't know snuff it, but his death really made me sad.

I really liked Maggie Gyllehaal, too! Finally a gorgeous female lead with a few lines on her face and a look that's a little different from the standard Hollywood starlet. A good female villain and it would be perfect.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Yes, Maggie made you give a damn about Rachel. A villainess as good as her would make the next film ideal.

I normally feel cranky, but Heath, like River Phoenix, genuinely shocked me.

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

The most interesting thing about Heath's Joker, which I haven't seen anyone manage in any comic or movie before, is that he kind of made you see the Joker's perspective as sensible for a little while before your brain got back on track and you realised he's completely mad. So much better and scarier than the complete loony variety!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Yes, his madness was very internalised; you believed in the logic of his personal world.

[empress-jae.livejournal.com]

NEVER!!

um...that was supposed to originally go HERE. **headdesk**

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

I'm *this* close to challenging you to rehearse doing #2 in a hat and then wiping on the brim so that you can prove to me it can be done with style if we ever meet. ;)

[empress-jae.livejournal.com]

who says i haven't tried it already?

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

Intriguing! In that case there's no need to practise, I shall bring a bottle of Champagne in keeping with the class and style of the practical demonstration.

[empress-jae.livejournal.com]

see? that's why we get along. most people who i'd say something like that to would say ew and think i was a weirdo. but instead, you nodded and offered me champagne. you're like my soul mate. :D

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

I know! There's so much secret twinnery in Brammers's journal it makes me wonder if she puts something in the water.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I DO!