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I have officially signed up for the Yuletide challenge, I've written my Dear Yuletide Writer letter, and if you've been seeing this Yuletide thing pop up all over your friends list and are intrigued, let me point you at my Yuletide for Newbies post, which I've just updated for 2009.
How about you all, are you thinking of joining Yuletide this year? Are you all signed up or still making lists spreadsheets decisions?
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Dear Yuletide writer:
Yay, you share some of the fandoms I love! You rock! May you have a fabulous Yuletide.
This is where I talk about what I love in stories in general and in these particular fandoms, and I also put in some specific prompts in case you prefer to have those, but really, if you already have a story idea, go for it, please, don’t let me distract you! Just getting a story in any of these fandoms is going to make my day, I promise.
( Things I love )
( Trapeze )
( Sherlock Holmes )
( Burn Notice )
( The Thrilling Adventures of Ada Lovelace and Babbage )
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Part 1: The Blue Carbuncle
Part 2: The Copper Beeches
It was a toss-up between Charles Augustus Milverton and Bruce-Partington for my next pick, but ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) janeturenne has named so many of the things that I love about CHAS that I will just point you there. The link between these two stories is that they both feature Holmes and Watson as burglars -- on the side of justice, to be sure, but committing a crime nonetheless, and working closely together in an atmosphere of dark and danger, stealth and competence -- yeah, I'm sure I don't know why that should appeal to me. Phwoar.
( In both stories, Watson has objections to Holmes's plans )
Please comment if you feel like talking about this particular story and its radio/TV versions, or other Holmesian favourites!
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part 1: The Blue Carbuncle
I've picked out five of my favorite Holmes short stories and their adaptations, and will post about each of them in turn over the next few days. Story links go to the University of Adelaide Library, which has all the Holmes stories as well as many other Arthur Conan Doyle works available.
My second favorite is The Adventure of the Copper Beeches.
( This is one of the darker Holmes stories )
Please do comment if you feel like talking about this particular story and its radio/TV versions, or other Holmesian favourites!
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Last week janeturenne posted a wonderfully evocative overview of her personal top 10 favorite and top 10 least favorite canon Sherlock Holmes stories -- part 1, part 2.
She reminds me how much I love seeing people talk about their beloved fandoms in detail, and I've been immersed in the Holmes stories, Granada TV series, and BBC audioplays for years but I haven't actually posted about them much myself. So here's a start! *g*
I'm going to take janeturenne's approach but simplify it a bit, so that I manage to actually post these instead of just think about it: I've picked out five of my favorite Holmes short stories and their adaptations, and will post about each of them in turn over the next few days. Story links go to the University of Adelaide Library, which has all the Holmes stories as well as many other Arthur Conan Doyle works available. My first favorite is The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle. ( I love the atmosphere of this story )Part 2: The Copper Beeches Please do comment and tell me what your Holmesian favorites are, or how you feel about this particular story and its radio/TV versions!
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So, dorinda told me about this 1956 Hollywood movie I should see called "Trapeze", and I did, and loved it -- I am adding it to my Yuletide list, in fact, because this is a movie that simply cries out for fanfic. It almost, almost gets to the point where a slash fanfic ending would not even have been necessary, and then stops. Seriously, it's like the last reel has just gone missing somewhere.
"Trapeze" stars a young, gorgeous Tony Curtis as the up-and-coming talented acrobat who wants to learn the triple salto and a somewhat older, still gorgeous Burt Lancaster as the crippled, experienced ex-acrobat who winces every time he sees so much as a dangling rope, and the equally gorgeous Gina Lollobrigida as the Italian intrigante who aims to become the star of the circus and tries to break up their partnership.
The boys wear tights. And arm wraps. And...not really much else? I think some pants and shirts are involved when they're not in the circus, but they look very good in those, too. Gina wears breathtaking gold spangled outfits. Did I mention this movie is in Technicolor, and filmed in an actual circus?
The boys gaze at each other with (on Tony Curtis' part) industrial amounts of joyful flirtiness and wide-open longing and (on Burt Lancaster's part) dizzying amounts of inner pain and nobility and secret yearning, and then they hold discussions about the catcher/flyer relationships, and about their hearts beating in time, and they train and try for the triple salto mortale together, and then there is the actual flying, and the intense emotional entanglements that should revolve around Gina and yet always, always come back to just the two of them.
Screencaps and discussion and movie download links over at dorinda's place! Bring potluck!
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So, is this the official death knell of a) the vampire trend and b) the "Jane Austen with Zombies" trend in publishing? I hope so.
"Sarah Gray's WUTHERING BITES, a retelling of Wuthering Heights in which Heathcliff is a vampire, to John Scognamiglio at Kensington, in a very nice deal, for publication in September 2010, by Evan Marshall at Evan Marshall Agency (World)."
(from Publisher's Lunch) Oh, and 'a very nice deal' means $50,000 to $99,000, in other words about ten times the average. Yeah.
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I found out about the vid Forever by Zi thanks to mrs_underhill, who posted about it on![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) kirkspock, and I just adore it. It's a Russian Kirk/Spock vid, with the mythic, larger than life feeling that I also get from killabeez' gorgeous TOS vids As and Dante's Prayer -- THEIRLOVEISSOFUCKINGEPIC pretty much sums it up, and it makes me so happy. This vid is classic in terms of editing style -- no heavy effects, fairly long shots, but a great sense of mood and building up to emotional impact. Also, I think what Forever does with landscape is really cool, and something I can't recall having seen elsewhere; the closest related vid I can think of is sisabet's due South vid Icebound Stream, where the polar bears in the snow are used as a metaphor for Fraser and Victoria. In the first minute of Forever (which is all instrumental), the imagery is intercut between Earth and Vulcan, then deserts and oceans, and then finally the two meet in a flyover shot of the beach, then up into the clouds, above the clouds into space...and to the Enterprise. It feels dreamlike and gorgeous and uplifting, and it sets the theme and the mood perfectly. I thought this was partly external footage, like the polar bears, but I am assured that it's not -- all the desert, ocean etc. shots are from Trek. I love the Russian song, and it inevitably loses something in translation, but I did my best: I've made an English subtitle file for the vid, with the vidders' permission and based on mrs_underhill's initial translation of the lyrics. I went a bit more literal in places, because all of a sudden I had my translation professor in my head telling me to cut out the poetry, so you may like her version better! Vid: download and streaming links - I recommend the "worksafe" version, I think it's by far the best. On their website, click the download link below the streaming video. This will take you to a Russian download site, similar to mediafire or megaupload. Here's what to do next in handy screencaps: step 1 - step 2. It may take a while for the vid to download. Subtitle file: (right-click and save)
The way this works: you save both the vid and the subtitle files to the same directory. Then you open the vid in VLC player (or another player, but I know it works with VLC *g*) and VLC will automagically pick up the subtitle file. If necessary, you can then turn on the subtitles by clicking Video > Subtitles Track > Track 1, and turn them off again with Video > Subtitles Track > Disable. You can also change the size/color/font of the subtitles in Tools > Preferences > Subtitles & OSD. It's a lot easier to make an .srt file than I thought; you can even do it in Notepad, but I chose to use an editor. If anyone is interested I could do a how-to post on that later?
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This vid premiered at the Vividcon challenge show. The challenge theme was IDIC (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination) and I couldn't resist.
Swing
Music: Club des Belugas
Fandom: Star Trek: TOS
Summary: All you got to do is swing.
Download: Big (.avi, 63 Mb, 640x480) | Medium (.mp4, 40 Mb, 640x480) | Small (.mp4, 18 Mb, 640x480)
Right-click and save, please!
( Lyrics )
( Notes )
Feedback would be wonderful!
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I am so glad it's the weekend, and an extra long one too -- freakishly, we get the Monday off for Pentecost, or as I like to call it, Flames On Heads Day.
To share my weekend glee and joy, here are some links:
- via sdwolfpup, a literal vid to Total Eclipse of the Heart -- not literal images to the song, but literal singing to the infamously batshit music video. Seriously awesome.
- via kateandromeda at the kirkspock comm, this video: TOS Kirk and Spock critique the new movie. It's stills, not a vid, but the image choices and dialogue are great (and perhaps a tad mean, but I thought it was hilarious -- and I liked a lot about the movie). SPOILERS for the new movie, obviously. Spoiler-free quote: "That actor is not even a Vulcan, Jim."
- via me reading UK newspapers at work, tsk: Tennant to reprise Hamlet role for television play. YAY! David Tennant is to bring his acclaimed performance of Hamlet from the stage to the screen in the form of a BBC 2 television play, the corporation said today.
The Doctor Who actor will star in a three-hour televised version of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production, along with Patrick Stewart, the Star Trek actor.
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All of Squidge.org is down (see squidgestatus for details), so my website is also down, and will be until Friday morning GMT, looks like.
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I'm slowly and haphazardly adding people to my DW subscriptions, and trying to figure out where subscriptions end and granting access begins.
I think the subscription/access thing has potential to be just as fraught as the 'friending' thing on LJ, despite the clearer terminology, and so I hope I'm not treading on any toes by keeping my access list small; stories, vids and general fannish commentary will always be unlocked, so what winds up behind the lock is usually the real life small stuff. Now let's see if I can successfully crosspost this to LJ. :-) NB: I still have five four three two DW invite codes to give out! Please comment here with your email address if you want one.
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Yep, I too have five two Dreamwidth invite codes to give out.
Please comment and leave me your email address if you want one! Comments are screened.
In case you're wondering what the deal is: Dreamwidth, a journaling service alternative to LJ, just went into open beta. It's now possible to buy accounts, but if you want a free account you need an invite code, just like LJ in the early days.
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Would anyone like a Dreamwidth invite code? I've got a single invite, so first comment takes all. Claimed!
And yes, I'm over there as marycrawford, too, though I don't know how much I'll be posting - but if I do, I'll crosspost to LJ.
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Once again, it's More Joy Day, or as sdwolfpup put it, "The goal of today is for us to seek out and give joy to others, in the hopes that it will expand outward into the world."
I love this idea. I want to share some music with you all that gives me joy, and hope to lift your day a little, too. And if it does, I'd love to know!
Al Green - L.O.V.E. (mp3, Box.net)
I went to see Al Green in concert last year, in a tiny converted church in Amsterdam, and it was fan-freaking-tastic. His songs just embody joy. During the concert, he said at one point "Y'all are probably thinking, has Al Green still got it?" and then held one of those high notes so long, so purely, that you could see people's mouths fall open.
David Bowie - Let's Dance (m4a, Mediafire)
Any compilation of songs that give me joy would have to include a David Bowie song. That's just a natural law that cannot be broken.
This is a live recording of Let's Dance, from the excellent Bowie at the Beeb box set - it starts out slow and melancholy, and then segues into the upbeat version, and Bowie's voice is just. Wstfgl. This song is from the bonus disc that came with the box set I bought - looking at Amazon, it doesn't seem to be included anymore, so grab it while you can. :-)
The Marvelettes - Too Many Fish In The Sea (mp3, Box.net)
This song happily provides the answer to the "there's a new fandom-that-ate-fandom on the horizon and I don't like it, ohnoes" quandary I've seen mentions of here and there. "Look here, girls, take this advice and remember always in life..."
Aretha Franklin - Eleanor Rigby (mp3, Box.net)
Can Aretha sing the Beatles? Yes. Can Aretha turn a sad, lonely, beautiful Beatles song into a heart-stirring, pulse-quickening soul anthem? Yes. Should you turn up the volume? Yes.
Eva Cassidy - A Bold Young Farmer (mp3, Mediafire)
Yes, I'm all the about the vocalists, can you tell? *g* Oh, Eva Cassidy. I wish she had lived and was with us now, singing her heart out. Once you've heard her voice, I bet you will wish the same.
This soaringly gorgeous version of a traditional British ballad is from her most recent album, Somewhere, brought out after her death - she only released two CDs while she was alive.
Have a great and joyful day!
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Donald Westlake died this Wednesday. Damn. He was 75, but I don't think he was done living yet, or done writing. And I never did work up the nerve to write him a fan letter.
As the NYT obit mentions, he wrote several books a year for many years; my favorite works of his are the Dortmunder books, a series of comic crime books about capers going wrong, with a regular cast of characters that feel like old friends.
If you've never read Westlake, here's a link to the first chapter of Westlake's Watch Your Back, which is a good introduction to Dortmunder and his friends at the O.J. Bar & Grill:
WHEN JOHN DORTMUNDER, a free man, not even on parole, walked into the O.J. Bar & Grill on Amsterdam Avenue that Friday night in July, just before ten o’clock, the regulars were discussing the afterlife. “What I don’t get,” said one of them, as Dortmunder angled toward where Rollo the bartender was busy with something far over to the right end of the bar, “is all these clouds.”
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I wrote one story this year:
The Adventure of the Expert Cracksman (7062 words)
Summary: Who was Sherlock Holmes before he met Watson?
Fandom: Arthur Conan Doyle - Sherlock Holmes series
Rating: PG
Written for dallin_dae,
( story notes, spoilery )
Thanks very much to those who commented on my story - you made my day! - and special thanks to Dorinda and LtLJ, betas extraordinaires.
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I've only dipped a toe in the sea of Yuletide stories, but what little I've read has been wonderful. I hope to post some recommendations later - probably after the reveal, so I can rec the other stories in the fandom I wrote in without fear of giving myself away.
(The usual offer applies - if you guess the story I wrote before the reveal, I'll write you a drabble of your choice, provided it's in a fandom I know, or something longer if the inspiration strikes. You only have today to guess, though - reveal's tomorrow! *g*)
Meanwhile, I want to point to the two Yuletide stories I received. I got very lucky again this year, and I thank both my authors so much! I can't wait to find out who you are.
The Labours of Iolaus.
Rated PG-13.
Fandom: Hercules: the Legendary Journeys
Summary: The problem, Iolaus thought, was that Hercules just didn't know how to say no.
Cheerful, funny Hercules/Iolaus, yay! This made me grin a lot and go "aw", and there's some very inventive use of the 'official' Hercules myths, with just the kind of twist the show would have used.
1918.
Rated G.
Fandom: Arthur Conan Doyle - Sherlock Holmes, crossover.
Summary: A glimpse of a possible encounter near the end of one career and the start of another.
I'm going to be a little vague here, but this is a crossover between Sherlock Holmes and another detective series of my heart, and it's wonderful. I love all these characters so much, and I adore the way they are written here. I may as well admit that this story made me cry, but it is not depressing, and completely Merry-safe. :-)
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I posted earlier about news from TVShowsonDVD that Davis-Panzer might bring out Blu-Ray dvd editions of Xena and Hercules. Now it's looking like someone at Davis-Panzer was a little too enthusiastic, as reported by TVShowsonDVD: The person I spoke to at first had been incorrect about plans for Hercules, Xena and other Davis-Panzer program to be released on Blu-ray disc. We've received word from farther up the chain that fans should not expect these. Here's what a spokesperson from the corporate offices told us:
"We don't have any plans for Xena or Hercules on Blu-ray; right now we are just doing pre-orders from Season One of Highlander on Blu-ray. And, depending on interest on that, we will move forward with the rest of the seasons. So far there has been a lot of great response, but pre-orders will really make it seem serious."
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TVShowsonDVD has the news that Davis-Panzer will release all seasons of Highlander on Blu-Ray dvd discs, and that other series will follow, including Hercules: the Legendary Journeys.
They're already taking online pre-orders for the first season of Highlander at $39.95.
I'm a little dubious about this, to say the least, even apart from my feelings about the usual let's-squeeze-the-fans-for-maximum-moolah approach. ("Buy now and get your BONUS Duncan Katana Mini-Sword!" Poor Duncan.)
I'm happy to have my ordinary Hercules DVDs, but they are not exactly pristine in quality (especially towards the later seasons - some scenes turned out to be unusable for vidding purposes because another episode was 'leaking through' in the background). Are the episodes suddenly going to look diamond-sharp, pristine and beautiful thanks to the wonders of Blu-Ray? I don't know enough about the high definition process, or about the way Hercules was filmed, to have the answer, and I'm quite a long way away from owning a Blu-Ray player, let alone a high-definition TV, but if anyone else has more information or a DVD review once they come out, I'm interested.
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