pedanther

1. Shortly after I moved into this house, I noticed that one of the washing lines (there's a set of five, strung in parallel) was looking significantly frayed at the end and was probably going to give way sooner or later. Then I had a look at the other end and realised that each line is on a reel, so that if it breaks you just have to release the tensioner widget and pull some more line out, so I decided to not worry about it until it happened. Well, last week it happened (while I was in the middle of hanging out laundry -- who would have guessed that the time it snapped would be when it was having weight put on it?), so after the laundry had dried and been put away I set about figuring out how to operate the tensioner widget. It took some figuring out (by my count, I unscrewed at least three things that didn't need to be unscrewed at all), but in the end I had restrung the broken line, as well as a couple of others that were beginning to look frayed, and as a bonus had adjusted the tension on all the lines, and it felt like enough of an achievement that I wanted to record it somewhere.


2. At the Rep Club, our big musical for this year is 9 to 5, the musical of the film of the Dolly Parton song. (If you know the song, I'm playing the man from the line "I swear sometimes that man is out to get me".) It's going to be a lot of fun if it comes together; we're currently at the "four weeks, you rehearse and rehearse; three weeks, and it couldn't be worse" stage.


3. Speaking of musicals, the local high school that does a musical every year or two is currently doing The Wizard of Oz (the version that's adapted from the 1939 film). I'm not sure if it's the first musical production they've done since the lockdown, or if I've ignored some in the intervening time because I felt it was too soon to be sitting in a crowded auditorium for several hours, but anyway it's the first one of theirs I've been to since last time I mentioned I'd been to one. There was the usual range of talents on show for a student production, with Dorothy and Scarecrow being the strongest performers, and the kid who played both the Munchkin Coroner ("not only merely dead, but really most sincerely dead") and the Winkie Captain standing out among the smaller roles. The guy playing the Wizard did pretty good characterisation, but wasn't so good on the vocal projection (and for some reason, even though all the main players were miked, nothing was done to make his voice more impressive when he was doing the Great and Powerful routine). Their version of the disappearing-reappearing ruby slippers wasn't as slick as the version in the last production I saw of this show, about a decade ago, but it was pretty good. I had a good time.

3a. One thing I used to enjoy doing at these shows, that I didn't get to do this time, was spot the cast members I knew from performances at the annual performing arts festival. The performing arts festival hasn't been held since the lockdown, and I suspect there isn't going to be another one any time soon, because the two most load-bearing members of the organising committee have separately become too occupied with other commitments.


4. I was on the fringes of the solar eclipse last month. Around the time when Exmouth was experiencing totality, I went out into the garden with a pinhole viewer and got a good look at the moon covering about half the sun -- but if you didn't know there was an eclipse on, and were just going about your day, you probably wouldn't have noticed anything. It was a bit less bright than you might expect for a cloudless midday, but that was all.


5. I mentioned back when Dracula Daily was finishing up that I was trying to decide whether it would be a good idea to re-read Anno Dracula, Kim Newman's Dracula-meets-Jack-the-Ripper novel, while the details were still fresh, or if that would just lead to me spending a lot of time complaining about things Newman changed or got wrong. In the end, I decided instead to read The Five, Hallie Rubenhold's non-fiction book about what the standard Jack the Ripper myth doesn't tell you about his victims. I have a feeling that this means there are even more parts of Anno Dracula that would make me complain about things Newman changed or got wrong, but I think it was the right choice.

5a. Rapid-fire reading challenge update: November (a book with "ING" in the title) - Ingathering: The Complete People Stories by Zenna Henderson; December (a book with a number in the title) - The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett; January (a book you wanted to read last year and didn't get to) - Deathless Gods by PC Hodgell; February (a book by an author you love) - The Sandman: Overture by Neil Gaiman; March (a historical or epic book) - The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa; April (a book about rain or weather) - Winds of Evil by Arthur Upfield; May (a book about emergencies, panics, or escapes) - the first couple of volumes of Spy x Family by Tatsuya Endo.

Fiction books
Raymond Chandler. The Big Sleep (re-read)
Neil Gaiman, Chris Riddell. The Sleeper and the Spindle
Kim Newman. Something More Than Night (e)
Catherynne M Valente. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

In progress
Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist (e)
Peter Høeg, tr. F David. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow
Jason Pitre. Sig: City of Blades

Non-fiction books in progress
David Attenborough. Zoo Quest for a Dragon

Abandoned
Matt Parker. Humble Pi (due back at the library)

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Tim Powers. Stolen Skies (e)

Fiction books
Arthur Upfield. The Barrakee Mystery (e)

In hiatus
Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend (e)

Non-fiction books in progress
Adrian Goldsworthy. Philip and Alexander (e)

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Jason Aaron, Esad Ribic. Thor, God of Thunder: The God Butcher

Fiction books
Aliette de Bodard. The Tea Master and the Detective (e)
PC Hodgell. By Demons Possessed (e)

In progress
Terry Pratchett. Snuff (e) (re-read)

Abandoned
Kim Newman. An English Ghost Story

Non-fiction books
Bob Altemeyer. The Authoritarians (e)
Tess Thomson. Paddy Hannan: A Claim to Fame

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Tim Powers. Hide Me Among the Graves

Fiction books
Ben Aaronovitch. The October Man (e)
James Hilton. Goodbye, Mr Chips (e)
James Hilton. To You, Mr Chips (e)
Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale. Batman: Dark Victory
Terry Pratchett. Unseen Academicals (e) (re-read)

In progress
Kim Newman. The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School (e) (re-read)
Terry Pratchett. I Shall Wear Midnight (e) (re-read)

Non-fiction books in progress
Bob Altemeyer. The Authoritarians (e)

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
PC Hodgell. By Demons Possessed

Fiction books
(anonymous). Little Spinners: Dancing Princess
Michael Dahl, Oriol Vidal. Little Monkey Calms Down
William Finn, Rachel Sheinkin. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (re-read)
Kim Newman. Angels of Music (e)
Daniel Pinkwater. The Big Orange Splot (e)
Daniel Pinkwater. Lizard Music (e)
Terry Pratchett. Hogfather (e) (re-read)
Anthony Price. Here Be Monsters (e)
Robert Louis Stevenson. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (e)

In progress
Terry Pratchett. Jingo (e) (re-read)
Ursula Vernon. Summer in Orcus (e)

Non-fiction books in progress
Jimmy Maher. Let's Tell a Story Together (e)

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Ben Aaronovitch. The Hanging Tree

1. The opening night of Oliver! went well, though not without a few hiccups.

We got the feature photo on the front page of the Saturday paper, and more photos inside accompanied by a basic write-up. No review; the chap who's been covering the theatre beat for the local paper has moved on (which is a pity, because he wrote proper reviews and I was looking forward to seeing what he made of it), so the paper only sent a photographer to the dress-and-press and then had someone back at the office write the accompaniment for the photos. Which may explain how they managed to relocate the show to a different theatre a fair way across town from the one it's actually in...


2. I recently rewatched "Curious Jarod", which has always been one of my favourite episodes of The Pretender. It still is, but this time around it struck me that it was an example of one of the patterns that the Bechdel Test exists to encourage awareness of. It has an unusually large number of female characters for an episode of The Pretender, in a range of ages, ethnicities, and social positions -- and not once do we see any of them interact with each other, even the ones who are said to be co-workers or otherwise have interacted off-screen. They're all on separate spokes off the hub of the male lead character. By contrast, most of the male characters in the episode have at least one conversation with at least one other male character who isn't the lead.


3. In other old TV news, I've finished watching my way through the World War II-set drama series Enemy at the Door, which I got on DVD after lost_spook posted about it. I enjoyed it a lot, if "enjoyed" is the right word for a series which is all about moral dilemmas and compromises and features a large number of unhappy endings.

Since I raised the subject already, I can't remember whether it passed the Bechdel Test; there are a fair number of female characters, and they often have conversations with each other, but the ones that come to mind are about husbands or sons or boyfriends. But it does pass capriuni's disability representation test: one of the recurring characters, Helen Porteous, is in a wheelchair, and although the initial impetus for introducing her is clearly to give her son someone to worry about, she's depicted as a character in her own right, with her own wants and needs that never include the stock disabled character motivations of Death, Revenge, or Cure.


4. For anyone who might be interested, Kim Newman's next book has been announced as Angels of Music, a 19th-century take-off of Charlie's Angels with the Paris Opera Ghost as Charlie, the daroga as Bosley, and a line-up of Angels that includes Christine Daaé, Trilby O'Ferrall, and Irene Adler. It will presumably incorporate in some fashion the short story with that premise Newman wrote a while back, in which the Angels of Music were pitted against the Countess Cagliostro and an army of Dr Coppélius's mechanical dolls.


5. And in what seems to be becoming a tradition, another recommendation for Batman fic from the usual source: Reviving a Tomb, in which Selina Kyle meets Bruce Wayne and Batman meets Catwoman.

Fiction books
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener. Atomic Robo and the Knights of the Golden Circle (e)
L S Lawrence. Horses for King Arthur
Andy Weir. The Martian (e)

In progress
Kim Newman. The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School (e)
Terry Pratchett. Men at Arms (e) (re-read)

Non-fiction books in progress
Jung Chang. Empress Dowager Cixi

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Anthony Price. The '44 Vintage

Fiction books
Ben Aaronovitch. Broken Homes (e)
Diana Wynne Jones. Deep Secret (e) (re-read)
Sharon Lee. Carousel Sun (e)
Sharon Lee. Carousel Tides (e) (re-read)
Terry Pratchett. The Colour of Magic (e) (re-read)

In progress
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Conflict of Honors (re-read)
Terry Pratchett. The Light Fantastic (e) (re-read)
Patricia C Wrede. Talking to Dragons (e) (re-read)

Non-fiction books in progress
Adrian Goldsworthy. Antony and Cleopatra
Nigel West. MI5

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Jason Aaron, Esad Ribic. Thor, God of Thunder: The God Butcher

Fiction books
Maurice Broaddus. King Maker
Frances Hodgson Burnett. A Little Princess
Kelly Sue DeConnick, et al. Captain Marvel: In Pursuit of Flight
Warren Ellis, et al. Global Frequency
Kathryn Immonen, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Kevin Shinick, et al. Avenging Spider-Man: The Good, the Green and the Ugly
Chip Kidd, Dave Taylor. Batman: Death by Design
Mike Mignola, John Byrne. Hellboy: Seed of Destruction (re-read)
Mike Mignola. Hellboy: Wake the Devil
Mike Mignola. Hellboy: The Chained Coffin and others
Tamora Pierce. Realms of the Gods
Adrian Ramos. Some One to See the Emperor (re-read)
Charles Stross. The Apocalypse Codex
Syd of the Funny Hat. Q de Grace

Non-fiction books in progress
David Fromkin. A Peace to End All Peace

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Tamora Pierce. First Test