Still playing with the zoom and macro settings on my little camera. A brighter version of autumn than the browns I've been photographing - almost Christmassy, although the only Christmassy thing around now is the thinking for Christmas projects, as the deadlines for them are closing in....
There are now three films I'm looking forward to seeing, all of them either November or December release (sigh):
* Australia
* Twilight
* The Time Traveler's Wife
In the meantime, our screens will be too darn full of other sound and noise, signifying nothing, or movies targeted at 14yo boys (those of us who aren't 14yo boys don't go to the cinema when there's nothing we want to SEE, don't the film makers and distributors get it??? Films like The Jane Austen Book Club, or 27 Dresses are nowhere near as charming as Sleepless in Seattle, although I saw a recent article lump 'em together as 'chick flicks'. Maybe so, but on a long continuum.). I'm very happy for the 14yo boys, I guess, but why can't they make films I do want to see? Not just decent escapist chick flicks, but quality stuff that travels a good journey. I look up what's on at the local multiplex, and there's nothing I'm remotely interested in seeing. My local cinema does its best, but even though they have better taste, they're hamstrung by lack of good stuff to show. Seems like too long since I had a good evening at the cinema.
Now how on earth did I arrive at that rant, starting with some berries? Dunno.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
Australia trailer
The next Baz Luhrmann film, Australia, with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, is due for release in November. This trailer has just been released....
Here's the YouTube link:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7gtKcr_W_fc
which does work, even if the embedded one seems to come up sometimes as unavailable. There are lots of posted links for this trailer on YouTube, anyway.
Offical Australiamovie.com site (which has the trailer too) and imdb page for Australia.
It was bugging me that the music sounded familiar, particularly the second half of the trailer. There seems to be a thing where they'll use music from another film, maybe because it does sound familiar (I remember noticing music from Little Women used for another film's trailer). I find myself with an odd disconnect, wanting to remember the original source...
Give me a moment......
Ah, got it. Kenneth Branagh's Henry V, music by Patrick Doyle, from memory. That's what it is. It's a favourite film, I should know that music.
Here's the YouTube link:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7gtKcr_W_fc
which does work, even if the embedded one seems to come up sometimes as unavailable. There are lots of posted links for this trailer on YouTube, anyway.
Offical Australiamovie.com site (which has the trailer too) and imdb page for Australia.
It was bugging me that the music sounded familiar, particularly the second half of the trailer. There seems to be a thing where they'll use music from another film, maybe because it does sound familiar (I remember noticing music from Little Women used for another film's trailer). I find myself with an odd disconnect, wanting to remember the original source...
Give me a moment......
Ah, got it. Kenneth Branagh's Henry V, music by Patrick Doyle, from memory. That's what it is. It's a favourite film, I should know that music.
Autumn colour
Actually, less favourite colour. This looked like the colour scheme a 'modern' fifties or sixties kitchen might have sported. Yellow, dark brown, white. Erk. The way the brown/white leaves colour is fascinating - dark brown one side, white the other, completely different either side.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
DIY Matisse link
If the Matisse widget doesn't work on your blogreader etc, here's the link:
http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/MatisseArtist
http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/MatisseArtist
DIY Matisse
A new widget from Widgetbox to play with. The Matisse widget lets you drag up Matisse-like shapes and arrange them - place, rotate, resize. If you come at a given shape from the left, it's a different colour to that if you come at it from the right.
It's rather fun. And you can print the results, should you wish to.
Je m'excuse humblement, Monsieur Matisse, et ne peut dire dans ma défense que votre travail est source d'inspiration. (Merci beaucoup Google Translate, this may be dicky, but it's kinda French...)
It's rather fun. And you can print the results, should you wish to.
Je m'excuse humblement, Monsieur Matisse, et ne peut dire dans ma défense que votre travail est source d'inspiration. (Merci beaucoup Google Translate, this may be dicky, but it's kinda French...)
Audiobook loot / reviews
This lot arrived recently, and having finished (and thoroughly enjoyed) Skulduggery Pleasant in audiobook form (take a bow, Rupert Degas, your voice is a wonder and a delight, I was laughing like a drain!), I am now starting on these on my daily commute.
All but Outlander were among the bargain audio books at Barnes and Noble, so there's a goodly amount of bang (or voice) for your buck here (and that's even with postage costs: audiobooks here are usually pretty expensive. Outlander alone would have cost more, if I'd bought it here, than all seven in the photo. Thanks be there aren't audiobook regions such as you find with DVD regions).
Apart from Outlander (by Diana Gabaldon, published in Oz & the UK as Cross Stitch), the rest are not books I've read before. Some are abridged, some unabridged: for a fiction book in particular, that I had read in print, an abridged audiobook could feel a bit filleted, and I think I'd find myself waiting for a particular bit and being disappointed if it wasn't included. Maybe I'll disprove this theory somewhere down the line, but for now, if I know and love a book (eg The Time Traveler's Wife), it's unabridged only for me. Conversely, if I listen to one of the above and love it to bits, I may hunt out the novel. The ones above include three nonfiction, four fiction.
My audio book listening tally so far is:
The Time Traveler's Wife
by Audrey Niffenegger
unabridged: read by William Hope and Laurel Lefkow
Rating: utterly brilliant. I loved the novel anyway, but their voices have made me love it even more. It's 16 CDs, and I've listened to it all through, um three times? And lent it to friends. Keeper. This is the audiobook that was so good, it got me into audiobooks. And if you work through that thought, Audrey Niffenegger's book was so good, on the page, that I ventured into its unabridged audiobook. Thank you, Audrey.
The Last of the Mohicans
by James Fenimore Cooper
abridged, thanks be: read by William Hope
I blogged about this. I wasn't polite. William was the best thing about it, and he was wading neck-high in sludge-like prose, poor man, doing his best (and a bunch of accents). Realised that my version of this book (and my only version, you can fergeddaboudit regarding any actual printed text) is the Michael Mann/Daniel Day Lewis film. Aaaaah.
Rating: not remaining in my collection. Probably given away anonymously, so as not to embarrass myself by association.
Skulduggery Pleasant
by Derek Landy
unabridged: read by Rupert Degas
The book's hilarious, and the audio book's hilarious too - and with an audible Irish accent, instead of you remembering to put it in yourself. Rupert's characterisations are excellent - you never mistake Stephanie for Skulduggery - and it's all just heaps of fun, with a wonderful Irish sense of humour.
Rating: must lend this one to kids. And adults. Would be great on a car journey. Keeper.
From the group in the photo:
Middletown, America: one town's passage from trauma to hope
by Gail Sheehy
abridged: read by Gail Sheehy
Abridged here was good - I'm not saying that as a slam, but this was a book I hadn't read, and I think I've gained what I wish from the 6 hour narration. Sheehy's book is based on hundreds of interviews she undertook with people from Middletown, New Jersey, which lost proportionately more people in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre than almost anywhere else. The book is a lens to consider this event, refracted through the lives of a varying group of people. Some, angry in their grief, focus in on the why, and their energy drove an unwilling government towards accountability. For others, it was the loss of a father who'd never know the daughter his wife was carrying on 9/11, or the family who lost a firefighting son/brother, or the men who worked at Ground Zero. All sorts of stories showing how this one day reached into so many lives in so many ways, and how people responded (well and not so well, she doesn't sugarcoat). Sometimes, Gail Sheehy's voice has an odd halting quality, hitching or halting where you would have expected smoothness: but what she can bring, which no narrator in this case could, is her memory of just how the people she interviewed said what they said, tone, inflection, volume. Anger, despair, hope, grief, the gamut.
Rating: good. A keeper, but I won't be listening to it again for a while. Not only do I have loots (sic) more to listen to, it's a story to let sift and settle.
The car's CD stacker has been completely overtaken by whichever is the current audiobook - I listen in the car rather than at home - and every journey now, commute or whatever, is companioned by these stories. It's been one of the good things I've learned/discovered this year.
Which one's next? Either Outlander or The Art of Mending (which I accidentally bought as audiocassettes rather than CDs, but since the car's old enough to have a cassette player too, this isn't a problem - and it was a bargain priced audiobook).
I haven't yet investigated audible.com and suchlike sources of audio downloads - the car doesn't have an mp3 socket, and I'm not sure how these would work with my internet connection in terms of time/bandwidth and associated costs. One step at a time.
Oh, and for several good reasons I listen to the radio rather than audiobooks when I'm quilting or sewing, although I know that's audiobook time for others.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Grass jelly
Not from one of those amazingly scented, and usually amazingly crammed Asian groceries, but lurking on a lower shelf in a suburban supermarket - grass jelly. OK, what's grass jelly?
Its main ingredients were starch and water, with grass playing a minor (but presumably fairly significant) role. Can't say I'm especially enticed by wobbly dark greeny-black chunks (maybe that's a serving suggestion), so I didn't buy and therefore didn't try. When I tried Wikipedia, its article described the used of 'aged and slightly fermented' mint leaves and a 'bitter, iodine' flavour. Hmmm. Not enticing.
Still, if it's on the shelf someone's assuming there's a market for it. The tins to the left were Asian-produced tropical fruits in sugar syrup. And although I don't eat it, the majority of the world thinks the Australian affection for Vegemite is considered aberrant food behaviour by most of the rest of the world.
Its main ingredients were starch and water, with grass playing a minor (but presumably fairly significant) role. Can't say I'm especially enticed by wobbly dark greeny-black chunks (maybe that's a serving suggestion), so I didn't buy and therefore didn't try. When I tried Wikipedia, its article described the used of 'aged and slightly fermented' mint leaves and a 'bitter, iodine' flavour. Hmmm. Not enticing.
Still, if it's on the shelf someone's assuming there's a market for it. The tins to the left were Asian-produced tropical fruits in sugar syrup. And although I don't eat it, the majority of the world thinks the Australian affection for Vegemite is considered aberrant food behaviour by most of the rest of the world.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Rosella in champagne
Before you exclaim in horror at drowning a pretty parrot, even in champagne, rosella is also the name of a native Australian fruit. You can buy them preserved in syrup, for example, and one of these makes a sculpturally interesting (and flavoursome, but not overwhelming) addition to a glass of champagne. A change from strawberries.
Should you be fortunate enough to be at a table also containing macadamias, runny brie and sliced pear, and other such toothsome nibblies, well, you're in luck.
And if that table is surrounded by charming, funny friends, and has happy and varied conversation entertaining them, well, how good is that?
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Yellow
There's something beautiful about this - the buttery yellows, the darker background, the imperfections, the classic leaf shape, the caught moment. If there were enough of the yellow leaves, you can imagine Andy Goldsworthy having so many choices of how to have a rather wonderful time.
Went to a work conference today, and ate a catered lunch. When the place was able to produce and elegantly simple salad of undressed leaves (?baby spinach) with slivers of good parmesan, and another salad of Greekish style, also good; and a third salad which I can't remember, except it was good too...and a classy antipasto plate, and so on; why can't they manage an unmashable lasagne? You shouldn't be able to eat lasagne with a blunt spoon. Haven't they heard of al dente? I wouldn't have noticed, except they did other dishes at a decent standard.
Conference was 'lower-tech' in presentation than some I've been to in the last little while, but full of good, wise, actionable ideas. Which only goes to prove, as I've always believed, that technology isn't everything. It's not nothing, but it isn't everything, either.
Went to a work conference today, and ate a catered lunch. When the place was able to produce and elegantly simple salad of undressed leaves (?baby spinach) with slivers of good parmesan, and another salad of Greekish style, also good; and a third salad which I can't remember, except it was good too...and a classy antipasto plate, and so on; why can't they manage an unmashable lasagne? You shouldn't be able to eat lasagne with a blunt spoon. Haven't they heard of al dente? I wouldn't have noticed, except they did other dishes at a decent standard.
Conference was 'lower-tech' in presentation than some I've been to in the last little while, but full of good, wise, actionable ideas. Which only goes to prove, as I've always believed, that technology isn't everything. It's not nothing, but it isn't everything, either.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Undecided
Clearly, this is a plant with issues defining itself, or deciding what it wants to be when it grows up. The mediaeval spiky weapons, fluffy yellow blossoms, sharper scarlet buds and green and burgundy leaves are all on the one plant.
I know how it must be thinking, some days - who AM I today????
I would of course tell you the name of this plant. If I knew.
Later: but I don't need to, because Pennie has named it in her comment. What a useful person Gwy is! Thank you!
I still think it's a weird brew of elements on one plant.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Yellow-green autumn leaf
I've been messing around with the macro setting on my little camera, and have been enjoying seeing the results. Not all good, not by a long shot, but it's a journey. I liked this autumn leaf, ugly-beautiful.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Autumn leaf
This leaf almost looks like wood, with its burnished texture and rich brown colours. On and around the tree was a palette of colour, from yellow through to this one.
While the northern hemisphere blogosphere is rejoicing in spring, we're enjoying the colours of autumn, and the renewed relevance of warming cold hands around a mug of hot chocolate. In the middle of the day, it's not so cold that you can't sit in the sun, out of the wind, and enjoy the outdoors - Sydney's climate hardly plunges you into the depths of winter - and you feel more invigorated, as opposed to the humidity of summer, which sucks the energy from you.
Spring and autumn (fall) are my favourite seasons.
While the northern hemisphere blogosphere is rejoicing in spring, we're enjoying the colours of autumn, and the renewed relevance of warming cold hands around a mug of hot chocolate. In the middle of the day, it's not so cold that you can't sit in the sun, out of the wind, and enjoy the outdoors - Sydney's climate hardly plunges you into the depths of winter - and you feel more invigorated, as opposed to the humidity of summer, which sucks the energy from you.
Spring and autumn (fall) are my favourite seasons.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Reading: Benighted
In the world of this novel, most people are lycanthropes (the word 'werewolf' is never used) and the few who are not (disparagingly known as barebacks) are required to risk their lives to keep order, particularly when the moon is full.
Kit Whitfield spins a convincing, gritty world and explores prejudice and its meanings, wrapped up in very readable crime fiction. I chose this one based on Amazon descriptions and reviews, and wasn't disappointed.
The title is Benighted in North America, and Bareback in the UK, if you're hunting for it.
Kit Whitfield spins a convincing, gritty world and explores prejudice and its meanings, wrapped up in very readable crime fiction. I chose this one based on Amazon descriptions and reviews, and wasn't disappointed.
The title is Benighted in North America, and Bareback in the UK, if you're hunting for it.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Renovation
So, what do you think? I wanted to add a couple of new things, and so needed to transition to the latest Blogger formatting, which involved choosing a new template.
The only thing bewildering me a tad is that Blogger specifies the pixel width of the banner image, but then it doesn't occupy the available space, but jams left and top. Wouldn't mind either centering it or filling the width with it.
A change is as good as a holiday, they say. I shall wait for the effect to kick in....!
The only thing bewildering me a tad is that Blogger specifies the pixel width of the banner image, but then it doesn't occupy the available space, but jams left and top. Wouldn't mind either centering it or filling the width with it.
A change is as good as a holiday, they say. I shall wait for the effect to kick in....!
Starfish
This unfurling leaf has a starfish quality, in its knobbly surface. Noticed it on our Saturday morning walk. The small medieval spiky weapons behind it are from the same plant - seedpods, maybe?
Friday, May 09, 2008
The last rose
The last rose from a friend who's going overseas, so I won't receive any more bounty from a wonderful rose garden. As beautiful, and as much appreciated, as all the others. I'm very grateful for such generosity.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Reading: The host
I've skidded through Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books (know lots of kids who love them dearly) so I skidded through this one. There are some interesting ideas - although I'm not entirely sure why this is classified as 'adult' fiction rather than 'YA' fiction. In Meyer style, it's thick, and full of the torn-this-way torn-that-way angst of the heroine, and not a bad rainy day read.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Autumn
It was a fairly nondescript, narrow tree, with unremarkable green leaves. But the ones that had coloured for autumn (fall) were dying so spectacularly, midgreen turning lime then yellow, blotchings in black, creeping yellow, jags of red. Just amazing. And every one different (You can just see another one on the left of the photograph). Maybe I'll mosaic some of the photos I took (I won't mosaic the odd looks I got from people parking their cars and trying to work out what the madwoman was doing photographing a nothing tree in a carpark). It's good how seasons and the changes they bring open your eyes to different things as you traverse the places of your ordinary life.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Scarlet rose
I've been the beneficiary of a green fingered friend's generosity, and this is one of the last roses, as the season ends. It's been lovely to enjoy them on my desk each week.
Isn't it beautiful?
Isn't it beautiful?
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