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

[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.